Moya officiating a wedding, June 2024
Ceremonies
"Rituals are symbolic activities that help us, together with our families and friends, express our deepest thoughts, feelings, and beliefs about life’s most important events."
~ Moya
Ceremonies around the birth of a child celebrate the child’s importance in the family and the blessing of the child’s life to the wider community. Birthday parties also celebrate the gift and blessing of someone’s life. Weddings publicly affirm the intimate, committed love shared by two people, and the gift that such love offers to the greater community. Funeral and memorial rituals publicly and symbolically express our beliefs, thoughts, and feelings about death and life, and specifically about the life and death of someone we love.
As a professional minister and officiant, I respect all spiritualities and beliefs. I honor the sacredness of persons and relationships, and my presence is open and welcoming to all. I am open to the music, readings, and rituals you want for your ceremony, and open to the place you choose, whether it be a church, outdoors, a home, a hall, or a community center.
My background includes rich training in practices to support the well-being of the whole human person - body, mind, and spirit. I’ve studied theology, spirituality, music, yoga, health, and wellness. I’m a teacher, coach, writer and a musician, always learning, seeking, collaborating and building community.
In my more than 40 years of professional ministry, I have helped hundreds of couples plan wedding ceremonies and rituals celebrating the birth of a child. I have walked hundreds of families through the process of designing meaningful and authentic funerals and memorial services. I bring a depth of experience to the sacred task of preparing these rituals, and I also bring a Beginner’s Mind. Each person and couple and family is unique. I know I will learn from you, if I have the honor of working with you.
Weddings
Congratulations on your love, commitment, and decision to marry! I will be honored to assist you in creating a marriage ceremony that reflects your personalities, vision for your marriage, and wishes for your wedding. I believe that you – the couple – know what you want your ceremony to be. I’d like to meet with you to hear about your relationship and what you are considering for your ceremony. I understand that you might want help with suggestions for readings, music, and vows, or you might come with very clear ideas, hoping to write your own vows. Either way, I can offer as much or as little assistance as you desire, resulting in a ceremony that’s personal, beautiful, and memorable.
One way for you to begin the conversation about your wedding ceremony with each other is for you to think about weddings that you have attended, making notes of aspects that you liked and did not like. This might help you move toward some clarity about what you want in your ceremony. I can assist you both in saying what you want and help you create the ceremony that fits with your hopes and desires.
Funerals and Memorial Services
Funerals encourage us to ritualize our grief in meaningful ways, to express our beliefs about life and death, and to courageously proclaim our hopes for our lives, even in the midst of pain and loss. In funeral rituals, those who grieve and mourn can begin to receive the support that is so essential to the grieving process. Funerals and memorial rituals help us acknowledge the reality of a death, give us an opportunity to give testimony to the importance of the life of a deceased person, allow us to express our faith and beliefs about life and death, and give us a concrete experience of hope as we gather among the living.
As I work together with individuals or families to create a ceremony honoring a deceased person, I find it very valuable to spend time with the person’s family and friends, listening to the stories of the person’s life. Then I collaborate with you to create a memorial service that honors your needs, your wishes, your beliefs, as well as honoring the life and death of your loved one. I am willing to journey with you through the planning process, to officiate at the funeral, and go the gravesite for the interment ritual.