Handfasting
Handfasting
On 8/29/04 Ben and I handfasted. (what's handfasting & why?)
We chose to do it privately, just the two of us, out at Star Island. It's a place he and his family are very connected to, and my visit while he was working out there last summer marked a turning point in our relationship.
We had talked about what we wanted to promise each other, and roughly how we wanted the ceremony/ritual to go - reconstructing after the fact, here are the words we used, sitting together on East Rock looking over the ocean (interpersed with much kissing, which ought to surprise no one who knows us!):
[opening]
ben: i'm here to affirm our love and our relationship... and on a selfish note, i'm here because in this place, i feel the most connected to the environment. also, this place truly is my spirit's home.
cat: We're here at this junction of earth and sea and sky, all around us. This is a place for combining things. I'm here to name the path we're on.
[wrapping cord* around our hands]
cat: this is me, promising you my love and my support, and to work with you and play with you through what the next year and a day brings us.
ben: i promise the same things. to love you, to support you no matter what comes; to work when we need to work, and to play whenever we're able (and all the goddammed time!)
[closing with exchanging rings, putting them on right hands, while hands still bound..]
ben: this ring is my gift to you
cat: this ring is my gift to you, to celebrate what we do here today.
* We made the cord we used - each of us wove a piece with our good intent for the relationship and each other. We did them friendship-bracelet-style, his in blue and grey and mine in purple and black, and then we twisted them around each other and wove them together with other strands.
(Edited from a piece I wrote in livejournal in July 2004)
Here are a couple of pages for general information on handfasting:
- http://www.religioustolerance.org/mar_hand.htm is good short description, and a good organization.
- http://www.paganspath.com/magik/grimoire/handfast.htmhas dubious historical information, but not a bad description
A year and a day is a traditional time period for a handfasting (often then followed by another year and a day, or a lifetime commitment).
Personally.. this handfasting means means committing to the relationship, to doing the things that need to be done to keep it working and in the great space we've been in, for the next year-and-a-day.
It's not the kind of lifetime commitment I have to Shayde, and doesn't try to bring the relationship to that level. It's its own measure of how seriously we take the relationship and how committed we are to it.