Hosting Your Own Motherless Mother's Day Celebration
While I was one of the first to have the idea of a "Celebration to Honor Mothers No Longer With Us," I know that I was not the only one who felt the need... Many of us are aware of our "Zeitgeist," or "Spirit of Our Time," and pay attention to what our communities need. So, my Ceremony is a gift to those who need it. I give it freely, knowing it will change and morph into whatever folks need it to be. That said, there are two things about the Ceremony/Celebration that I choose to do in a certain way and I would like to give you my reasons for why I do these things this way:
* Why a Potluck - A Celebrant colleague once told me she was having her Motherless Mother's Day Celebration catered, and I replied, "Oh! That's too bad!" Many of us learned how to cook from our mothers; we learned about recipes, culture, relationships and family history in our mothers' kitchens. And oh! the stories about food! I remember at thirteen, after my parents divorced, my mother decided that the usual kinds of breakfast foods were nutritionally unsound, so we began having dinner for breakfast: sloppy joes and left-over pizza instead of high sugar breakfast cereals! Even if "the only thing your mother ever made for dinner were reservations," pick up one of her favorite dishes and bring it to your own MMD Potluck. Life's a mess and that's okay! You'll have better stories (and a lot more laughs) as a result!
* Telling our mother's story, hearing our mother's story: A key feature of my Motherless Mother's Day Celebration is participants telling their story to a partner, having the partner actively listening (i.e., really paying good attention), and then having the partner tell the group your story. Hearing your mother's story in someone else's voice is a powerful experience, and makes her life "more real" in so many ways. She, her life, her legacy live on. Try it and you'll understand how this works!
I have posted a full version of the Ceremony under "Ceremony: Full Version."
An Outline of the Ceremony:
1) Welcoming the Guests
2) The Nature of Grief
3) The Story of Persephone and Demeter (or a similar story from another culture)
4) SONG: "The River She Is Flowing"
5) Split up into pairs/partners, take turns telling our mothers' stories, person listening takes notes (8-10 mins each person, then switch, Celebrant tracks time.)
6) Come back into the circle. (If the entire gathering has a lot of people, then break the group up into groups of 10. Pairs stay together.)
7) Each person tells the group about the mother of his or her "partner."
8) After everyone has had a chance to speak, we come back together as one big group.
9) Candle Lighting Ritual at the Altar of our Mothers, lighting individual tapers from the Universal Flame, saying our mothers' names, and then the group in unison repeats the name and adds, "We Remember."
10) Pebble Ritual
11) Tunnel Ritual (based on "London Bridge is Falling Down" children's game) while singing "We Are Loved by an Unending love."
12) Feasting and storytelling.
13) Goodbyes
- Shae Uisna
* Why a Potluck - A Celebrant colleague once told me she was having her Motherless Mother's Day Celebration catered, and I replied, "Oh! That's too bad!" Many of us learned how to cook from our mothers; we learned about recipes, culture, relationships and family history in our mothers' kitchens. And oh! the stories about food! I remember at thirteen, after my parents divorced, my mother decided that the usual kinds of breakfast foods were nutritionally unsound, so we began having dinner for breakfast: sloppy joes and left-over pizza instead of high sugar breakfast cereals! Even if "the only thing your mother ever made for dinner were reservations," pick up one of her favorite dishes and bring it to your own MMD Potluck. Life's a mess and that's okay! You'll have better stories (and a lot more laughs) as a result!
* Telling our mother's story, hearing our mother's story: A key feature of my Motherless Mother's Day Celebration is participants telling their story to a partner, having the partner actively listening (i.e., really paying good attention), and then having the partner tell the group your story. Hearing your mother's story in someone else's voice is a powerful experience, and makes her life "more real" in so many ways. She, her life, her legacy live on. Try it and you'll understand how this works!
I have posted a full version of the Ceremony under "Ceremony: Full Version."
An Outline of the Ceremony:
1) Welcoming the Guests
2) The Nature of Grief
3) The Story of Persephone and Demeter (or a similar story from another culture)
4) SONG: "The River She Is Flowing"
5) Split up into pairs/partners, take turns telling our mothers' stories, person listening takes notes (8-10 mins each person, then switch, Celebrant tracks time.)
6) Come back into the circle. (If the entire gathering has a lot of people, then break the group up into groups of 10. Pairs stay together.)
7) Each person tells the group about the mother of his or her "partner."
8) After everyone has had a chance to speak, we come back together as one big group.
9) Candle Lighting Ritual at the Altar of our Mothers, lighting individual tapers from the Universal Flame, saying our mothers' names, and then the group in unison repeats the name and adds, "We Remember."
10) Pebble Ritual
11) Tunnel Ritual (based on "London Bridge is Falling Down" children's game) while singing "We Are Loved by an Unending love."
12) Feasting and storytelling.
13) Goodbyes
- Shae Uisna