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I was in town the other day and caught a piece of an Oprah Winfrey show, one in which Oprah and a currently popular financial consultant were helping couples look at their income, expenses, savings, debt load, etc. to determine whether they should, or should not, spend such and such amount on whatever it was they were wanting to do (remodel the kitchen, send a daughter to an expensive school, etc.). Watching their process was a useful educational tool for people in similar circumstances, so I was, in general, applauding Oprah for her knack of hitting the mark.

But then came the question from a young couple who were to be married in June. The bride wanted a fairly large wedding (200 or so guests) and was willing to spend the $20,000 that such an event can run. The groom was looking at something simpler – under a hundred guests, about $5,000. Looking at their finances, the experts concluded that this couple could afford the $5K, not the $20K, event, but that since there’s no such thing as a $5K wedding (even a simple, under a hundred, affair, they said, runs at least $20K), “you’d better elope.” Even when an audience member pointed out that the important thing was that these two people wanted to marry, not how fancy the wedding was, the pros stuck to their position. No wedding.

I was startled. I know that I am often out of touch with the price of things these days, but this one got to me. Has our culture really come so far down the cash intensive road that we have forgotten how to do weddings that don’t cost a fortune?

I was reminded of one of the most beautiful weddings I ever attended. I was 17, traveling with a bunch of other Quaker/Unitarian type kids thru Eastern Europe and what was then (1963) the Soviet Union. We were driving thru Rumania, under strict orders not to stop, but one of our two VW buses broke down, and we were stuck for several days in a small village. As it happened, we landed there on the day before a wedding, to which we were immediately invited. My memories of that event are by now somewhat romanticized, but the images are of an entire village full of happy, celebratory, people, wearing beautiful, ornate, hand embroidered, clothes. Music, dancing, food, and a lot of small rituals that were obviously meaningful to the people, and to the new bride and groom. I can guarantee that that wedding did not cost much money.

It did, however, cost. Who sewed and embroidered all those amazing clothes? Who prepared all that food? Who were the musicians and why did they play at that wedding?

Several years ago I had a chance to try it on myself. Our daughter, Lauren, who was by then living a mainstream life out in the real world, decided that she wanted to get married at Light Morning, on the same knoll, in fact, where several decades earlier, friends and neighbors had gathered to christen her. These were her people, the “village” that had raised her. And it was, indeed, the village that sprang into action.

Months before the wedding itself, these neighbors and friends joined us for a workday to get the main living room finished enough to be ready for such an event- ceiling, insulation, interior walls. Lilly ( Lauren’s beloved Grammiddy) started working with the bride to create the dress she was wanting. Folks volunteered to prepare favorite foods, bring bouquets of flowers. There was even a team to whom I would be turning over all the co-ordination and wedding planner responsibilities, so that I could become just the mother of the bride, and enjoy myself to the max.

The last few days before the wedding reminded me of the Arden Fair, an annual event in the intentional community where Robert and I grew up. The fair officially started at 10am, but the best hours were from dawn to 10, when everyone was out there banging nails, helping each other set up their booths, pulling together to prep for the event. The energy of the fair was born in those early hours.

And so it was with Lauren’s wedding. By the time the “just under a hundred” guests arrived and the ceremony itself began, the place was already awash in magic. People had been up early, hanging signs, setting up chairs, placing flowers, and, of course, preparing, cooking, and arranging platters of beautiful, tasty food – all in a collective effort to produce a special event for Lauren and her family. It was very clear that the wedding itself, while stunning in its beauty, was only part of the specialness of the day. It was this magic that was in Lauren’s teary, ecstatic hug, as she took me aside and excitedly exclaimed, “You know, Mom, something always goes wrong at weddings, but I think this one is perfect!”

And what was the bill? After reimbursing folks for their ingredients and other costs, paying for the pieces that did need actual cash (rental chairs, wedding cakes, minister, candles, more flowers, decorations, wine glasses, etc.), the bill came to just under $2,000.

Yes, the couple on Oprah can have a wedding! They can have a wedding that confirms the whole reason for weddings in the first place, to bring otherwise separate people together to become a collective, mutually supportive team. Let families come together, and neighborhoods, to stir up a particular sort of energy that we rarely get to experience anymore. How did we let this get lost? Can we get it back?

Given that our culture has gotten so accustomed to bought-not-made weddings, it might seem too daunting a challenge to try to engage the social vortex that creates the Arden Fair, or created Lauren’s wedding. But there are other ways to produce inexpensive weddings. I think that my favorite is still the wedding of two of our friends from Delaware, who invited their unsuspecting friends and family to what looked like a regular party and then, at about 11pm, whipped out a minister and said their vows. Voila!

There are ways, plenty of ways, to gather ones family and friends together to share in an important and meaningful ceremony. Be creative, let go of the pressures that make it expensive. Remember what’s important. Break whatever rules don’t make sense. Go for the magic. Have a great time. It’s your wedding.

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You can view more photos from Lauren and Jeremy’s
Light Morning wedding here and here.

The Rivendell deck

We were just blessed with a lovely 12″ snowfall over the weekend. After 2-3 winters with occasional ice storms but almost no snow, it was delightful to awaken to a white landscape. Richard took off for Roanoke right after pancakes on Sunday and got stranded there until the back roads were plowed two days later. Ron tried to make it home Sunday night after delivering pizzas. But even with tire chains on, he only made it part way in before getting stuck in a snow drift and spending the night in his car. With a book to read, tapes to listen to, and the right attitude, he was fine. The next day a snow plow came in from the Roanoke County side. Ron, however, ended up driving back to Roanoke in order to replace a damaged tire chain. After waiting another night in town until the back roads were finally plowed, he made it home on Tuesday

Joyce and I had plans to travel to Richmond on Wednesday to see Lauren and Jeremy. It took me several hours on Monday to get the car free of ice and snow, get the chains on, and bull through the deep (but fortunately light) snow out to the mailboxes to await the snow plow.  While plying the snow shovel, and hoping that Ron and/or Richard would make it home before we left, the phrase came to mind, “Keep the home fires burning.” We were keeping the home fires burning for them, while they were away, and then they’d keep the fires burning while we were in Richmond.

Suddenly, while shoveling, I realized just how figuratively I’d always taken that phrase. Keep the home fires burning. Keep things nice; keep it feeling homey. But in our self-chosen lifestyle the words have a fiercely literal relevance. Keep the home fires burning, so the canned goods don’t freeze and break. Keep the home fires burning, so the house plants won’t die. Keep the home fires burning, so the expensive battery bank that holds our solar electric won’t be ruined. If you have central heating, you just set the thermostat and that keeps the home fires burning. But as you transition toward a more subsistence lifestyle, your heat comes from the woodshed rather than an oil tank. And so you depend on friends and fellow community members to “keep the home fires burning.”

Richard got home on Wednesday shortly after we left for Richmond. He emailed us that afternoon, saying, “I made it home no problem. I’ll keep an eye on the cold frames and make sure the Rowe room stays warm. Have a good visit with Lauren.  Be well, Richard.”  The subject line of his email was, “I’ll keep the homefires burning…”

A New Beginning

Welcome to Light Morning’s newly re-designed web site. The first version went on line in 2001, courtesy of Microsoft FrontPage. With FrontPage now cranky and obsolete, and with a more flexible WordPress platform now available, it’s time for a change.

What’s New in ‘09?

The graphic design has evolved, and will continue to be tweaked. The site navigation system has been improved. Random Insights and Images have been added. Our photo albums have been updated and moved to Flickr. (See the Photos page for the link.) The Visiting and Interning pages have both been revised. And given the sophistication of spammers these days, our Contact page now sports a formal contact form, rather than the more innocent listing of our email address.

The biggest change, however, is the transformation of our Journal into a blog. For three years, from the spring of 2001 through the winter of 2003, we published dozens of articles exploring the physical, social, and transformational facets of this lifestyle. Those Journal articles are still here; they’re still relevant; and they’re easily found. (Use the Categories menu, the Search bar, and/or the Site Map, all to the upper right side of the Journal~Blog pages.)

WordPress allows us to easily resume posting both current and archival stories about our life at Light Morning. It doesn’t magically gift us with the time needed to write and/or edit these stories. But it does make the process of posting them close to effortless, which greatly increases the likelihood that they will be posted.

We Welcome Your Participation

WordPress also introduces a wonderful opportunity for dialogue. We therefore encourage your comments on any of the posts you find here, both past and present. We’d love to hear from you! Click the small “Add Your Comment” link at the top of any post, or, if you’ve already opened the post on its own page, scroll down to the bottom of the page. (With another nod to the spamming industry, you’ll have to log in and be approved the first time you post a comment. It’s quick and easy.)

And if you’d like to offer stories about your own experiences at Light Morning, or your own growing edges as they relate to Light Morning, please do so. Just let us know and we’ll tweak the WordPress settings to facilitate your sharings in this Journal.

Just as the graphic design of Light Morning’s new web site will continue to evolve, so will our understanding of how to enhance its potential to promote dialogue. This evolution will no doubt be bumpy and erratic at times, so we ask for your patience and welcome your participation. We hope you enjoy your time here, and look forward to seeing some of you in the lovely Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia.

A Navigational Postscript

The standard blog format is to list posts in chronological order from the newest to the oldest. This works well when you want to scan through the recent posts and can find them right at the top of a sometimes long list. If, however, the posts are part of a series, you come upon them in reverse order.

Somewhere below the post you’re now reading, for example, you’ll find the fifth and final post in a series called “A Bioregional Seminar”. If you want to read this series (or any other series) in the sequence in which it was written (1-2-3-4-5 rather than 5-4-3-2-1) you can click on the navigation link for that particular series and it will automatically sort them into a more readable order.

These navigation links can be found in two places: in the highlighted line of text close to the top of each post that is part of a series; and in the main navigation bar (on the upper right side of all the Journal~Blog pages) under the section called Journal Categories (Series).

You can try out this navigational sleight-of-hand any time you come upon a post that is part of a series.