Posted in Friends, Photography, Wedding, Wholeness on September 28, 2008| 1 Comment »
So, why were we in The Hamptons? Well, come on inside and meet some more of our old and new friends…
New friends Brian and Piper…
As you can see, we were preparing to celebrate…
Our “old” friends…Rachel and Kenny…getting the picture?
Wedding cake, anyone?
They say, “The family that cooks together…”
Let’s ask the MOB (Mother of the Bride)…
Posted in Family, Instructions, Listening, Photo Canvases, Photography, Wedding, Wholeness, Writing on November 26, 2007| 2 Comments »
On Saturday, my brother-in-law was married in this beautiful chapel in Charleston. An intimate ceremony; a lovely reception at Magnolia’s Restaurant.
At the reception, my husband videotaped the guests…he posed this question: “What advice do you have for the bride and groom?” The recently marrieds answered something like this: “Remember to have a date night” and “Enjoy every moment.” The long-time marrieds’ answers were along this line: “Learn to count to one hundred.” or “Realize that you can’t change anyone.” and “Patience is important.”
As a fifteen-year veteran the first time around and seventeen years and counting this time around, I would say:
“Devotion, gratitude and generosity. Take a mental snapshop of how you feel right now and come back to it often. Understand–everything will eventually turn into its opposite…closeness is not a permanent entitlement; relationships have a pulsation: you will love being close, you will also need space. Do not mistake distance, defensiveness or withdrawal for space.
Remember to continue under all circumstances; do not take things personally–it’s rarely about you. No matter what, it all comes back to love–dismantle your walls and learn to get unstuck as quickly, gracefully and without blame. Learn to soothe your own feelings and do not expect to ‘get your needs met.’ Listen, listen, listen with the ears of your heart. Make having a good time a high priority!”
Posted in Dialogue, Family, Inspiration, Listening, Photo Canvases, Photography, Poems, Poetry, Spirituality, Wedding, Wholeness on March 9, 2007| 4 Comments »
Well, sooner or later, for me, it all comes back to family…I am so blessed with multiple wonderful families and there’s nothing like a wedding to bring us all together. Imagine October in Big Sur…a breathtaking site overlooking the Pacific Ocean…
That’s me reading, of course, a poem to the beautiful bride Sara and handsome groom, Sean. Together they created a deeply memorable day, filled with joy, love, unity and delight. I’ll share the poem with you now. It’s by Patricia Monaghan. Patricia was a keynote speaker in my Master’s degree program and introduced herself as a “lay” physicist. I loved her immediately.
BELL’S THEOREM: AN EPITHALAMION
Let us forget for a moment
this man and this woman.
Let us forget the sun and the water.
Let us forget the yellowing sky.
Let us forget the dimming stars.
Let us forget the half moon
yearning towards its fullness.
Let us forget everything
except the soil. If I reach out
and fill my hand with it,
it sifts away: dust, powder.
And yet we stand upon it,
this earthen floor, this dusty skin,
this which grounds, upholds, us all.
I could say that the soil is like
the time this man and woman
will spend together, the instants
that, fragmentary and invisible, will
sustain them. I could say that soil
is time, moments upon moments
upon moments, not one identical,
all alike, each necessary–
but I want the soil to be soil
in your minds, not a metaphor
for love or time. I want you
to imagine its millions of particles
scoured from pebbles
torn from mountains
by passing glaciers,
I want you to see not
moments on this beach,
not the light of this fair dawn,
not this loving man and woman,
but just this soil; within it is
a shard from an old woman’s pot,
a bit of mammoth bone, leaves
from a tree beneath which lovers stand.
And more: an atom from a hammer
that Jesus used, another from an apple
that Muhammed ate, yet another from
the soft blanket of the prince Siddhartha.
And even more: within this soil
is a fragment of an electron, split
apart in the center of the sun,
its other self somewhere across
the galaxy, boiling in vapor or
frozen in rock, and if I could
blow upon the fragment here,
could turn it in its tiny dance,
its distant other would turn
as well, still embraced
in an old inferno of connection–
After this day, when this man flies,
this woman flies. When he dances,
she dances. What touches one,
affects the other. No galaxy can separate
what has been joined here on this day.
PS…This photo was taken by my sister-in-law, Dana Patterson Roth…
