Baby Blessings

Welcome your newborn or adopted child into the loving fold of your nearest and dearest relations. This joyous occasion presents a ceremonial opportunity for parents, siblings, friends, family, and community to express their hopes for the future and to make offers of guidance, support, and love.

Coming of Age Ceremonies

Traditionally, coming of age ceremonies are performed to welcome an adolescent into the adult world. Bar/Bat Mitzvahs, Confirmations, Sweet 16s, and Quinceaneras are common contemporary versions of this custom. Especially for families who are not practicing a religious tradition that celebrates this important milestone, a nondenominational coming of age ceremony serves to honor your child’s participation in this archetypal rite of passage.

For girls, it can be a celebration of the occasion of their first bleeding (menarche). For both boys and girls, coming of age marks the beginning of their own spiritual journey
to discover personal beliefs and values. In addition, it celebrates their increased autonomy and freedom in the world, based on their expanded responsibilities.

Ceremonies can be performed privately within the immediate family, or can be full-blown celebrations of extended family, friends, and community.

Weddings, Commitments & Renewals of Vows

Every couple — straight or gay — deserves the opportunity to declare their love and commitment to each other in a special, meaningful, and joyful ceremony. It also wonderful for couples to reaffirm their devotion and connection after having spent time together or as a way to celebrate a milestone anniversary. And when couples with children join their lives, it is important to involve the children in celebrating the birth of the new blended family.

I can help you create a ceremony that reflects exactly who you are as individuals and as a couple and expresses your unique story.

My extensive knowledge of multicultural ritual and celebration insures that the ceremonies I design can speak to all belief systems and cultural practices. No matter how diverse your gathering, everyone will feel included and enriched.

I am licensed to perform legal weddings in the states of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.

House Blessings & Cleansings

Your home is your castle, your refuge, your sanctuary. Or it should be. If the energy feels negative or blocked, it will impact on your emotions and sense of well-being. Cleansing ceremonies are extremely effective for dispelling unwanted energy and purifying the environment that surrounds you. This can be done when you first move into a new place, or at any time that you feel the need to clear your space. Blessing ceremonies are perfect for establishing an inviting, peaceful, creative, and safe atmosphere in a new home, studio, or even car.

Divorce

Marriages and partnerships dissolve for many reasons. The important thing is that
all parties (including children) are able to find peace following such a major disruptive event. There are no traditional ceremonies for divorce, but there is clearly
a need for one.

Whether the divorce is by mutual assent and amicable, contentious in nature, or involves the abandonment of one partner by the other, a divorce ceremony can offer consolation, closure, and emotional healing.

Midlife Transitions

At midlife you are in your prime. Though you have amassed life experience, you are still young enough to be energetic and active. This transition can be a time of upheaval and uncertainty, but it can also be an exciting time to explore new possibilities.

Traditionally, midlife is when one celebrates achievements and accomplishments, but it is also when you might choose to reevaluate the progression of your life so far and to redirect your energy toward fulfilling your true purpose, passion, and power.

A Midlife Ritual can commemorate a menopausal change of life, a career change
or retirement, a return to school, or the beginning of a new adventure, relationship,
or lifestyle.

Funerals, Memorials & Commemorations

At this painful time you need a spiritual perspective that can offer true consolation, closure, and the comfort and support of community.

A funeral is a celebration of the life that someone has lived and of the mark that they have made on the lives of those who knew and loved them. In creating a personalized spiritual funeral, you can make sure that it reflects the personality, beliefs, values, and aesthetics held dear by the one who has passed, and that it provides a sacred space in which to experience and share the fullness of your love and grief.

A spiritual funeral ceremony honors the passage into the mystery of death, celebrates the preciousness of living, and acknowledges that they are indivisible and equally holy aspects of the same universal cycle of life.