Walking in Spirit
Aldershot, Surrey/Hants
Aldershot, Surrey/Hants
You've decided to get married. If you have a religious tradition that you both share, then this tradition, whatever it is, will have its forms, liturgies, processes and actions to welcome your union within its community. If you don’t, or if your and her, or his, traditions are different, or if you’re not at ease with your traditions’ observances (or they aren’t at ease with yours), then of course there’s always the civil option.
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What do you love most about your job?
I love being with people who are looking for ways to honour what is important in life. Weddings, yes, and also baby blessings, funerals - any significant life event that asks more than a cursory treatment, more than a party, more than a form of words.
Being invited into a couple's or a family's life at these times is a privilege which I take very seriously. Helping them work out their truth, working with them to craft a ceremony that really expresses that truth, and holding that ceremony, is precious work. I never lose sight or sense of that, and yes, I love it.
What inspired you to start your own business?
Many things, but perhaps most critically having attended weddings and funerals which followed a prescribed pattern because it seemed that nothing more had been offered, no deeper possibilities had been explored. Listening to words which seemed to carry no real knowing of the individuals at the centre, no real acknowledgement of the depth of the relationships involved.
Why should our clients choose you?
I’m an ordained, registered member of the OneSpirit Interfaith Ministers Association. I have trained and studied with and worked for the OneSpirit Interfaith Seminary over a number of years. I have training and experience both within and beyond the Seminary in Spiritual Companionship and Ceremonial Practice.
All this, and more, means that I have the skills to help you to consider what this bargain you are making actually consists of: what you mean to each other; what you want to be to and for each other; what you are undertaking; what is important to you; how you want your marriage to fit into your community of families and friends. Out of this I can work to craft with and for you a ceremony which will honour what you have made, what you are stepping into, and how you intend to support, nurture and strengthen it.
I have worked in teaching and theatre. I am passionate about communication - about listening as well as speaking. I undertake to listesn deeply to your ideas and fears, to walk alongside you as you explore what getting married means to YOU, and to weave into this my skills, instincts and experience to ensure that your day will be the best beginning it can be.
Funeral celebrancy
I bring the same personal approach to crafting funeral services, whether they be at a crematorium or a burial site, or memorial services. I will listen, suggest and work with you to ensure that your loved one's farewell is as true to his or her life and memory, and to your feelings, as it can be.
If you need support beyond the funeral, I can also offer spiritual companionship to help you honour your grief.
Baby Blessings
The arrival of a new family member is a major event. Physically and emotionally for mother and father the 'simple' process of bringing a new life into the world, a new person into their space is huge. People will visit, cards will arrive, presents will accumulate. Taking time to bring all these threads together, to honour the effort and the joy, the wonder and the disruption, to welcome the new person into the family at large, to the friendship community, to ask for their support, all acknowledges the preciousness of the precious, the weight and the depth of the new situation. Whether the child is flesh of your flesh, or lovingly adopted, saying a sacred hello is a really good way to establish a beginning.
Significant events
The arrival of a new child, the marriage of two lovers, the death of a loved one are undoubtedly major events. There are others, though, which you may want to acknowledge with some kind of ceremony or ritual: moving out of a much-loved home, leaving school, starting a new job, moving from childhood to adulthood are just some events which are not just routine, but which can really call for some proper attention to the significant effects they have on you and your family. Large or small, public or private, I can help you work out what would mark and honour such events.
Making for Ministry
As part of my ministry, I craft bespoke items - such as stoles, altar boxes and pouches - for ministers, or for anyone with a desire to step into or to create sacred space. My intent is to listen to what is important to you and find ways to express that through colour, fabric and thread.
