{"id":119,"date":"2011-07-16T09:45:00","date_gmt":"2011-07-16T14:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.wordpress.com\/2011\/07\/16\/wedding-under-an-arch"},"modified":"2011-07-16T09:45:00","modified_gmt":"2011-07-16T14:45:00","slug":"wedding-under-an-arch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/2011\/07\/16\/wedding-under-an-arch\/","title":{"rendered":"Wedding Under An Arch"},"content":{"rendered":"

A week ago today I officiated my first wedding:\u00a0 uniting two friends in Chicago under Illinois\u2019 new civil union law.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

To say that I officiated perhaps overstates my significance in the ritual.\u00a0 It was very much their show.\u00a0 The vows were deeply personal, drawing on traditional American structures with influences from their long-standing Celtic and Druidic practices as well as the Germanic \/ Troth deities they have been working with more recently.\u00a0 Large swaths of the ritual were so personal that they were not even included in the script I was given.\u00a0 There was even another \u201cofficiant\u201d, invoking the Lady of Asgard and a few others of the Aesir.\u00a0 My task was largely one of providing structure, of invoking certain gods \u2013 chiefly the Handmaidens of Frigga \u2013 and to provide my official seal as a ULC Minister.<\/p>\n

I took it upon myself to open the archway under which the vows would be sworn, to cast (and banish) the circle in which the rite was taking place.\u00a0 I took it upon myself to be the photographer before and after the ceremony (turning the duty over to another while I worked).\u00a0 I have never worked with the gods of my blood-ancestors before \u2013 favoring deities of the cultures with which I more closely identify – and doing these things helped keep me grounded and open for the experience.<\/p>\n

My key invocation, drawn from Raven Kaldera\u2019s Weddings and Handfasting<\/a> Rituals, went as follows:<\/p>\n

\n

In the name of Vara, may this couple take on this geas in full heart.<\/p>\n

In the name of Syn, may they keep their boundaries strong.<\/p>\n

In the name of Lofn, may they reach always for reconciliation.<\/p>\n

In the name of Gna, we proclaim this promise to all.<\/p>\n

In the name of Gerjon, may they be an example.<\/p>\n

In the name of Eir, may they tend each other’s wounds.<\/p>\n

In the name of Snotra, may they learn to work together. <\/p>\n

In the name of Sjofn, may their affection be strong.<\/p>\n

In the name of Huldra, may wealth flow through their hands. <\/p>\n

In the name of Hlin, may their love survive even death.<\/p>\n

In the name of Fulla, dear sister of Frigga, may they have always abundance. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The invocation struck me like lightening, running from the top of my head and into the earth.\u00a0 I lost track of things for a moment.\u00a0 I was wearing a newly-forged copper bracelet, the mate to my copper serpent-ring, which will henceforth be used only for channeling rituals.\u00a0 The handmaidens were most certainly in attendance.<\/p>\n

A few moments later, I was called upon to invoke the State of Illinois.\u00a0 They, too, arrived as called:<\/p>\n

\"IMG_3936\"<\/a>Why yes, that is a police car on the left.\u00a0 The lady on the right is laughing because they arrived precisely when I called for them \u2026 well, that and because the newlyweds were absolutely adorable.<\/font><\/em><\/p>\n

Aside from everything else \u2013 my pleasure at being invited to the event in the first place; the honor of being asked to officiate; the fear and thrill of invoking new gods; my pride at performing the rite so well \u2013 this wedding re-confirmed what I have been coming to believe over the course of the last year or two.\u00a0 I will probably never find a group with whom I can work and worship forever \u2013 I am too radical, too queer, too eclectic.\u00a0 But I can serve and participate in the pagan community as a whole by helping perform rites with and for others who are likewise isolated.\u00a0 Some of the rites I will be called upon to share will be, like this one, carefully orchestrated; others, like the blot and the vision quest at Beltane<\/a>, will be spontaneous.\u00a0 Regardless, this is the work I have been called to do.<\/p>\n

Also, the fact that my first wedding was the civil union of two bisexuals, one of whom is mind-borkingly genderqueer?\u00a0 Totally appropriate.<\/p>\n

Thank you, Squirrel and Gingko.\u00a0 Congratulations.\u00a0 I was honored to be there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A week ago today I officiated my first wedding:\u00a0 uniting two friends in Chicago under Illinois\u2019 new civil union law.\u00a0 To say that I officiated perhaps overstates my significance in the ritual.\u00a0 It was very much their show.\u00a0 The vows were deeply personal, drawing on traditional American structures with influences from their long-standing Celtic and … Read More<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[134,220],"class_list":["post-119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-witchcraft","tag-keeping-score","tag-rites-of-passage"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8kUcm-1V","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}