THIS IS BIG WORK

Apprenticeship to Love: The crooked path of marriage (April 30, 2026)

TODAY'S MEDITATION


There is always this feeling of doubt, that I am not who or what I present myself to be. That I am not ready.

It’s just something to feel, and play, as the moment needs. It keeps me inside and small a lot of the time. I need a lot of energy to step up and out to do what I’m called to do. And that includes loving.

And grieving.

…

I’ve trained for this. I am trained to help people mark their public and legal coming together in marriage.

I am also trained to help people remember, honour, and grieve endings. I am here to help others grieve those whom they have loved. I am here to help others grieve that to which they’ve committed themselves and their lives.

...

I resist wedding work. I doubt couples’ intentions beyond their minutes of glory at the altar, the party, the honeymoon of love. So I invite couples to some larger work for their marriage, before and after the wedding celebration. There are few takers.

...

The work of those who say they are ready to honour their divorce and the ceremonial breaking of vows, this is work I welcome. I feel and invite the weight of their trust. With them I believe that somehow the things I say or do may help them re-enchant and fix, if not their marriage, then at least some magic of love that’s been broken.

This is sacred work, and risky work. But it feels more real to me than the giddy work of weddings. Here, with the vessel of dreams broken, it's easier to speak plainly about loss and grief and regret, and out of that clay to somehow make magic. Not to fix a marriage (though, that could happen), but certainly to prepare hearts to risk love, again.

A colleague, a tantric teacher, showed me this: how funereal ceremonies and wedding ceremonies are tied. The work of ritual joining and ritual sundering that I am called to do, they are of a piece. Love, and life, folds and unfolds. I can, and do, help in the observing of these foldings and unfoldings.

…

I felt the calling to follow through, to honour commitment. Better late than never.

…

“Better late than never.” Such a different sentiment than those commonly paraded at the end of an affair: “Move on,” and “Let go,” and “Get over it.”

It is better to grieve and feel the alive-ness of the broken heart later, than to never feel it.

…

My work and my ambivalence: I am called to honour the breaking of vows, even as I do not feel called to help celebrate vows.

Perhaps, in the grim light of failure and regret I can help others —and, specifically, other men, certainly— get some sense of meaning and purpose as they drift? Perhaps, I can help them develop the capacity to inhabit, fully, their gifts as men? As husbands? Perhaps.

And, might I also gain a sense of my own purpose and meaning, and dignity? Perhaps. Perhaps. Perhaps.

There is so much to learn.

…

These ceremonies of joining and sundering are meant to change us, and our worlds. They are not just plays we perform for others. If we attend to them, the things we say and do will affect us, substantively. They will change our worlds.

I believe this, and I know this. I felt that change when I said, aloud, and with friends witnessing, and to my almost-wife, “I do.” Something moved in me. And seeking to undo that movement many years later, even after vows had been rendered empty, even then it was unnerving. It was more than I’d bargained for.

At the time I didn’t understand.

But at least now I know this: These public commitments we make are about the enchantment —and, conversely, as they break, the disenchantment—of who we are. Who I am. Who you are. Who we are. Who we are no longer.

…

Today I am asked to participate in a ceremony that will, among other things, mark the undoing of vows. Something pledged before a community that no man or woman should break asunder. Because our community yearns for commitment and stability.

And here I am, pledging to help sunder vows and on ground that has been defiled, to create the grounds for re-enchantment.

Today I am asked to craft a ceremony that I am grateful to perform. And, overwhelmed to perform. There will be, I believe, rituals of grief, regret, and honouring. As well as rituals of reconsecration, re-enchantment.

This is big work. I want to do it well.

Given how much skin I have in this game, I wonder, Am I ready for this?

TODAY’S INSPIRATIONS

🌀 To love someone long-term is to attend a thousand funerals of the people they used to be. (Heidi Priebe)

🌀Realize it’s up to you; that the course of misery is in your hands and it’s time to take up this cause like you own it, and drive it like you stole it... (Guru Singh)

🌀There are so many others. But you see me. You hear me. You know me. (My beloved, my oracle and my siren)

🌀Now, the practice of yoga begins. (Patanjali, Yoga Sutra 1.1)