Ceremony 101: a no-frills guide to crafting meaningful ceremonies
My priestess training has been experiential, academic, and professional. I’ve had many teachers and influences along the way, including: my folk Catholic Colombian family, women’s circles, herbalists and plants, monasticism, witches, mythology, surrealism, fiction & poetry, anthropology of religion, divinity school, and the Celebrant Institute and Foundation. I started this business, Vestal Ceremonies, because I am a huge nerd for ritual. I could talk for hours and write reams about this stuff! But I’m not here to engage in theoretical discourse. I’m committed to offering practical and accessible resources that empower others to create meaning through ritual and ceremony.
Here’s the thing - I don’t believe that we need to look outside ourselves to find truth and beauty. What we find within ourselves is often far more interesting and nuanced than what we’re told to buy into. And when it comes to those big life moments - birth, commitment, transitions and transformations, holy days, challenges, death - we often refer to the fixed menu of options for how to make sense of it all. We all know what the menu offers us from what we’ve seen in movies, how we were raised, what we are advised by others. But you are the expert on you. If you’re unsatisfied with the menu, you deserve to have an option that sets your heart on fire (due to resonance, not indigestion).
In hopes of inspiring others to explore greater agency and creativity, I’ve put together a super simple 4-step guide for ceremony-crafting. This is the process that I use personally and professionally. It’s designed to be implemented by and for anyone, for any ceremonial occasion. You will see that this process is centered around the ceremony participant(s). Attendees are secondary. Officiants are facilitators — their own beliefs and preferences are irrelevant. As a Celebrant, my job is to serve those who request my services, by listening deeply to their needs and addressing them creatively & effectively. You, too, can create ceremony for yourself and for others.
May you find this resource a useful starting point.