Recently I created another custom ketubah. This one was a little different because it was for a non-Jewish, non-binary couple. Their spirituality and foundation between them made perfect sense to surprise them with this contract. It is a breathing document that is binding in their ceremony and also in the symbolic beauty of the colors and images that represent the heart of the sanctuary between them and their home, their community, their soul style of expression. The existence of the union of these things, hanging prominently in their home is an anchor in the years to come, with all the celebrations, hum-drum times, and trials that come with it.
I love marking time, growth, and significance with ceremony, and commitment statements (sacred contracts) or recognition pauses. There is something about the witness of it, mingling it with beauty that lends it the credibility life moments deserve. It can be a formal document, a poem, vows, anything really. It's as varied as we all are. We walk with it within ourselves and carry it with us like a companion in our thoughts and actions. It's allowed to integrate more richly into our growth when we give it voice and space to exist in the light. When there is something we can tell time by, before this, after that - we know it is a ceremonial time. It can be something traditional like a wedding, birth, naming, re-naming, and it can also be an accomplishment or recovery and healing or big change.
Any of these times that shift the mind, body, soul of us so much so that we know before that time is very different than after that time is a moment to recognize in some symbolic way. A ceremony can be short, small, or large and involved. It can be as simples as playing music that matches the mood, taking a moment to recognize that moment and having acuppa somethin with a friend, or your self.
Private and simplistic or elaborately attended. Any combination, formed and unformed, so long as it is purposeful, intention centered, marked with the beauty, reverence, care we would give to a birth or death...the space and promises recorded in some way as for a new beginning with acknowledgment for what was, what's to come, and our investment, is ceremony.
Here is a peek of the ketubah I recently was commissioned to create, by surprise! for this couple. It was lovely to pack it up and send it. My thoughts as I sent it out were, "It's no longer mine." With this thought, I knew it was going home.
I'm happy to talk with you about custom ceremony design, personal and private or something more elaborate. I also love creating commissioned pieces of art for special moments of all sorts. Let's be in touch.
Kindly,
Birdi
Rev. Dr. Birdi Sinclair
Interfaith Spiritual Care & Wholeness Artist
"Begin now. Every now is new."