As a child, I could not understand why adults pretended that death was not real and tried to hide their grief – especially in front of children.  I was 5 when my grandfather died.  My grandmother cried just as much after the funeral as she had before.  Despite the efforts of her 3rd and 4th husbands, she kept on crying for the next 42 years until she died at age 93.  She was never able to heal, or get closure or release my grandfather to his new life on the other side of the Veil.

I understand now that the funeral ceremony had not done its job!

Since that time, I have met many people who have left the church after a traditional ceremony and openly questioned: “Well, was that it?”  They did not get the closure they were looking for or the release or the sense of celebration of their loved one’s life and legacy.  Those are the key ingredients in any memorial service and I will be covering them more thoroughly in future blogs.

All blessings,

Rev. Steph

I grew up in the UK feeling disconnected from the people around me.  I always felt like an alien on Planet Earth.  I did not have a sense of community or belonging.  My alcoholic dysfunctional family tried to make me the same as them.  I was determined to escape at my earliest opportunity.

My spiritual search led me to California and to the New Thought ministerial training.

Doug and Diana Kruschke, InSynergy, Los Angeles, California

While studying to become a minister, I earned a living in a small consulting business called InSynergy, run by Doug and Diana Kruschke. Both of my employers were deeply immersed in the Native American Indian tradition.  I am grateful to the Kruschkes for teaching me many things about living spiritually, and not just theorizing from the neck up(!), but perhaps their greatest contribution to my life was their generosity in sharing with me the art of ceremony.

This new awareness opened a door for me into a dimension of Reality that I never knew existed and it allowed me to incorporate my new knowledge and experience into the traditional ceremonies, which we learned to facilitate in Ministerial School.  By ‘traditional,’ I mean Memorials, Weddings, and Christenings – the kinds of ceremonies that our future church congregations would expect from us.

PS There is a chapter about rituals in my recently published autobiography “The Miss-Adventures of an Irreverent Reverend: a spirit-ed guide for rebels and renegades”

Go here to find out more.

All blessings,

Rev. Steph

Rituals are a way to celebrate and more deeply experience the cycles of life whether they are painful like death or divorce, or joyful like a wedding or a baby welcoming.

Rituals are the dynamic containers for the movement of Spirit.  Even though a ritual takes place in physical reality, it welcomes in the non-physical and allows Heaven to come to earth so that everyone involved in that container experiences profound transformation.

Rituals allow each participant to step up on his or her individual spiritual journey, make their individual contribution to the flow of the ritual and feel part of a larger Whole:  included and connected.

And when two or more are gathered with a sacred intent to honour a major transition in a meaningful way, something magical occurs that would not occur otherwise. That is what makes ritual feel so alive.

Soul Home Community after our ritual on July 10, 2016, to celebrate Penelope Gottlieb RScP, Anka Daly RScP (Retired) and Rev. Gerd Pontow – newly licensed CSL minister.

All blessings

Rev. Steph