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.
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”
All blessings,
Rev. Steph
