August 22, 2006

10:32 p.m.

Today I Am an Editor

(Me, dressed as Tevye, pulling a cart on which is laden numerous manuscripts and a few milk jugs.)

At last, I got around to final-editing my friend Red's stories. The hard copies she'd marked up arrived while we were in Maine. Tomorrow I get to collate them into one document, create a table of contents, and send them back to her for a final look. Then I start the layout and manufacture process, for which I'll be charging a little moolah.

Thursday was such a terrible day. I didn't take any calls. Friday I talked with James a while, feeling a wee bit more human, and as I was talking about what sort of other job I could get in these lean times, he made the suggestion that I look into studying for certification as a celebrant. A celebrant creates and officiates rite-of-passage ceremonies, like weddings, memorials, home dedications, healing gatherings, crone ceremonies, pet funerals, coming of age events... anything that requires a ritual. Couples who wish to marry outside of a traditionally religious context might want a celebrant, to help them weave their favorite writings and customs and cultural myths together in a unique way. I would LOVE to do this for people. And I can offer music, either solo or with my trio, and I can make a big commemorative book for them, and maybe incorporate Reiki somehow, too.

So there's a foundation in New Jersey that trains people for this. James has been doing it maybe a year, on the side, and he really digs it. It's good money, too, and there are currently no certified celebrants in Connecticut!

He told me about the director, who is a good friend of his; she used to be a lawyer. She got hooked up with someone who took her to England, and to Australia, to witness all these different kinds of rituals. She was privy to stuff most of us never even hear about. Sometimes she'd be driven from one ritual down a long road, stopped in the middle of nowhere and met by a vehicle coming the other way, to take her to the next one. When she got home she created this organization, and now they train people all over the world. I think it's a really essential part of our lives & community that isn't given a lot of emphasis in the U.S. Yes, we have birthday parties, and graduations, and sendoffs, but I think we take them for granted. We don't talk a lot about ritual and its place in our lives. The reading list looks fascinating.

Anyway I went to the website and the term starts September 11th. I thought about it over the weekend and, since I don't usually make big decisions like this quickly, I called those in my inner circle to get some feedback and reaction about it. All response was overwhelmingly positive, matching my own feelings, so I'm signing up. It's a 6 month course and I'll graduate in April. I'll be able to marry people, in a nondenominational way. And I'll become much better-read in the process. I can't wait to write that ceremony for the lesbian couple, one a Hindu and one a reformed Jewish witch.

Later I can go back and study another branch (besides weddings & couples ceremonies), like Funerals and Other Healing Ceremonies, or Families, Children and Life Transitions.

The motivational surge allowed me to get a little more work done since we got back from Baltimore, and thus my wearing of the Editor Hat today.

And now I'm very tired. Tomorrow is busy but I can arrange it at my convenience. Today I ran; I'll try to do it again if it's not too hot.