About our Celebrant

Abby leapt deep into Maggie's heart when they met at an Orphan Burn (a local camping event for folks who didn't make it to Burning Man) in 2011. This fellow ginger has remained lovingly and solidly by Maggie's side ever since, supporting her through some of the most difficult and joyful times of her life. Zach and Abby have become dear friends as well. It was Abby's habit of bold and effusive declarations of love that inspired Zach and Maggie to say "I love you!" to each other for the first time at Lakes of Fire 2013. Given that Abby was present for this momentous occasion and has been such a steadfast cheerleader for our love, it was obvious that she was the perfect person to officiate our wedding!

About our Wedding Party

Our wedding brought together our natural families, our chosen families, and our social circles from different phases of life. We chose 14 very dear friends and family members to stand with us and represent the union of our lives. This group included each of our siblings, and a sampling of the best friends we've made as we've grown into the individuals we are today. Our wedding party members were symbolic of the whole assembled audience as well as our friends and family who were with us in spirit, as we asked our respective clans to recognize and support our union.

Ceremony by Abby Rodriguez

Greetings Friends, Family, and Lovers!

What a Joyous occasion which finds us here today sharing in this beautiful Sunshine and company of one another in our Good Day of August! This day holds the heart filled glory that will forever burn in the lives of our minds and hearts as we gather to celebrate, honor, and witness the love of our beloved friends Maggie and Zach!

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Abby and I am eternally grateful to be here among chosen friends and family. And beyond grateful, I am extremely honored to be braided into Maggie and Zach's ritual of Love. My relationship with Maggie was grown out of love itself and our friendship has always been intensely rich with the elements and experiences of Life. I have witnessed Maggie and Zach's love blossom and become what it is today, witnessing the first "I Love You", and I have always admired their careful intentionally cultivated love for one another which we now celebrate. Everyone in the audience was welcomed here with heart. And each soul which stands here surrounding our beloved couple are upheld as family. Each person here has played a significant role in the life paths which Maggie and Zach have traversed up until this point. We have been close to them witnessing their soul's journeys. And I speak for us all to say we are ever grateful to be a part of their sacred commitment ceremony today.

Let us begin to Rejoice in Their Honor!

Maggie and Zach,

The Earth and the Universe have called you here to one another: two deeply sensitive, passionate, and fiercely nurturing souls. Many years you have shared your warm shoulders with the world - lovers, friends, and All who have come your way. You have taken us in during our darkest hours and nourished us with your nectar of love. We have been fortunate to live in your wide breadth of love. The hour has come for both of you, now, beautifully so, to have a fully reciprocated warm shoulder in one another - a place where the loving nurturing Truth of Your Cells can exchange and commit to providing shelter, comfort, strength, and insight when you need it the most.

You have traversed much of the Earth with your feet and hands your entire lives before your limbs have settled here upon the stage and your experience has been vast and monumental. You have found yourselves belly up under more than one hundred moons. Your toes have been befuddled by the tickling of lakes and knowing ravines. You murmured YES to some paths. And for others, you leaned upon innate wisdom when reaching resistance in other paths and you chose otherwise. Pieces of your journey have been the bliss of lives well lived whereas other chapters have filled you with the pain of glass bones as you have carried a world of hurt in your hearts. You have taken one step Here to the Known Way, and another two This Way as a result of the first step. And on like an ever lapping shore did your steps come together, drift back, and move then again closer to one another until you both realized you were no longer desirous of a dance which fleets further from one another. The nature of your paths has led you closer to one another over the years and the nature of your Choice and Desire to Love is what leads us here among your union today.

You have been bestowed one of life's most tender and significant gifts: LOVE. Your shared love will be, and already is, a solid foundation in which you may rely upon within the ever winding fascinating days and journey of your existence. This is the day where you bind your paths together, committing to a shared vision guided by your love, though still remaining your ever shining selves that is contained in your individual personhood.

Years of passed down tradition has made of marriage what it needs not be. Marriage is not a prison, nor a union that is made to stifle your individual sense of self. Maggie and Zach, you are two unique individuals that each burn bright as your own star and unfurl as your own flower; you are each a unique piece of nature unlike any other. Yet there is this force of nature which is the container that merges your paths and brings you together. Your existence is shared. The gift marriage harbors is one of union, one of a shared path. Marriage is a binding agent, but not a barrier. Your commitment today to a sacred union is one that will not suffocate you but will be a harbor that is always setting you free. Were you to be a river, each of you would now ripple as an individual wave, yet minding a mutual current. As you step into your path of unknowns and you continue to grow as individuals, let the current direct and guide you both in a shared direction, while leaving room for you to swell and become your own as needed over the years. There will be life events and circumstances that will pull you close to one another and your commitment to one another will serve as your safe keeping, protecting you from the swallow of the current. In those times, may you pull close to one another, your ripples binding and flowing, giving just enough space, balance, and tenderness for whatever the life situation may call for.

The significance and encouragement to continue listening to and loving yourselves cannot be understated, for self love will be the juice which keeps your union alive as it will give you the power to pull from your highest self to deliver the care your partner requires of you for the purest form of support. It is a myth of marriage that the goal is to become someone else's half. Such a myth encourages people to forget the significance and power of their own personhood and understates the importance of soul work that is necessary to continue filling out and finding out who you are. It is the beauty of your individual selves and who you are that has brought you as close as your are today. Your power to support, add to, and be there for one another is mustered up from within - and that takes self love. It takes self love and awareness to not take what is hard in the world and give it to your partner. You are not done being Zach, and you are not done being Maggie. And though your marriage becomes solidified today and your paths will deepen and fuse in that mutually minded current, you will still remain on your individual paths throughout life as well. Marriage is not a supplement for something you cannot find within yourself, it is an addition to who you already are. Marriage is a Choice to share in partnership delights that you could not experience in solitude. Marriage allows you to rejoice in the nature that draws you to one another. It is a commitment to see who you will each become together as your years pass witnessing one another grow, thrive, and co-create life together.

I would now like to read you a poem which is entitled:

To Love is Not to Possess, by James Kavanaugh

To love is not to possess,
To own or imprison,
Nor to lose one's self in another.
Love is to join and separate,
To walk alone and together,
To find a laughing freedom
That lonely isolation does not permit.
It is finally to be able
To be who we really are
No longer clinging in childish dependency
Nor docilely living separate lives in silence,
It is to be perfectly one's self
And perfectly joined in permanent commitment
To another - and to one's inner self.
Love only endures when it moves like waves,
Receding and returning gently or passionately,
Or moving lovingly like the tide
In the moon's own predictable harmony,
Because finally, despite a child's scars
Or an adult's deepest wounds,
They are openly free to be
Who they really are - and always secretly were,
In the very core of their being
Where true and lasting love can alone abide.

Community, we are all gathered here today to celebrate the sacred commitments that Maggie and Zach will make in choosing to solidify a union and path that they will walk together. You have all been carefully chosen as audience members because you are important to Zach and Maggie as trusted chosen family. We are now here to witness their love, rejoice in it, and also let them know that as they journey on with their hearts full for one another that we are here for them. As we all have lived our own experiences we know that even when we have the deepest love from friends and partners life still pains us when we reach unpleasant experiences. By virtue of being alive, we also know death. And by virtue of being alive, we also know the capacity of creation. All of us have experienced loss, and in so, we must turn to one another within our communities for support. And even in our greatest joys of creation, as we welcome babies into this world as a fruit of our union, we still must turn to one another within our communities for aid.

Maggie and Zach are two of the most eager and loyal helpers I have ever had the pleasure to know and multiple times have they been pillars in my own life, holding me up when I have known my own lowest of lows. I know with certainty that I am not the only life that has been blessed to know the capacity of their giving nature so intimately by the evidence that this audience is comprised of hundreds of hearts and lives that have in some way been impacted by the love of these two individuals. Your existence and support here today communicates to me that you have also helped to hold up their hearts in times of need and celebrated them along their paths. I want to remind you that though we are here today, gratefully joined in order to celebrate their union and witness their love unfurl anew, that our love and support for them does not end here. Their union and choice to venture into this conjoined path, too, begins a new path for each of us dear friends and family members because the path they are now about to travel holds elements that they are guaranteed to need support with. They may need to turn to you for a warm shoulder or advice.

Maggie and Zach have intentionally cultivated a strong community around them above all for joy and because their love has no choice but to spill over into each person they meet. The reaches of their love root outward into our lives. And because we have all been positively affected by their love it is our duty to collectively hold them when they are in need as well. I encourage you to not wait to be asked for their help, but witness them in their paths, and help out of your own accord when you see help is needed.

As many of you know, children hold a significant place in the lives of our beloved couple and such is evidenced by the wonderful Kid Parade we witnessed to kick off this celebration! Maggie, I often refer to you as a Mother of the World due to your life long career of caring for children and adults around you, family members, and the children of your best friends. Zach, similarly, you play a significant role in the lives of children that surround you. Similar to Maggie's world-mother-tenderness, you exude a world-father-tenderness which is shown by the way you support and extend your love to all in need in your life as you consistently rise to the occasion to support and help in any way you can.

Maggie and Zach you each hold family near and dear to your hearts and you desire greatly to co-create a beautiful family as a fruit of your love. I have witnessed your unmatched nurturing and teaching abilities with children, and I stand in happiness and great hope of your future family as well.

And we can all only imagine how adorable their babies will be!!!!!!

I know that by virtue of your lack of possession towards one another that your children, too, will be raised to be free thinking individuals who are encouraged to also carve out their own paths based on their individual personhood as they grow. Let us all smile today and collectively wish them our highest hopes that as they grow a family that health will be on their side of mother and child, father and child, and the entire family unit. Let us remember our collective capacity (and need) to nurture these individuals with our love and support by being there for the new changes that will come with each step of growing a baby during pregnancy, the miracles of birth, and the multifaceted path of parenthood. Let us be there for them in celebration, and let us be there for them when they need the support and love from each of us when they are uncertain of their footing for the shifting ground beneath them.

Zach and Maggie, you standing here is a symbol of the health of your love. Your desire to love one another in a deeply committed marriage is evidence of the hope and faith you have in one another and your relationship. Your love is the shining Known path which enters you faithfully into a world of unknown experiences which will sometimes feel like the most clear, expansive pasture skies. And other times the unknown will feel like a murky dawn of fog wherein you can only visualize the baby steps before you, the plants nearest to your feet, and no more. That is the depth of your human experience which is, and will continue to be, comprised of every glorious gift and complexity the experience of being alive affords us all. But one of the greatest gifts of marriage is that you are choosing to give your union to one another, and in doing so, you will have a shelter among the world storm, solace among the dark night. You will have a warm shoulder in one another and a comforting warm belly to your back - as though all those moons you have lived under finding your way to one another, now finds itself there resting into your bodies. You will have a nose to cozy into your neckline, and you will have eyes that shine at you like glistening morning dew drops cupped in summer's flowers in your seasons of Love. Surrender to the gifts of one another and shy not from the abundance of one another's Deep Wells. Fear Not to ask to round your hands for a nourishing, reassuring drink. For you have come so far to wet your palette and relish in the bounty of love you have been gifted and intentionally cultivated; do not abstain from one another's gifted abundance and wither in drought.

Your love is for you,
And
Your love is for you.</ br> And your Love is for All Love.

Maggie and Zach, do you Choose to Marry?

We Do

And to all of you witnessing the vows they are about to make, will you do all in your power to support these two persons in marriage?

We Will

Zach and Maggie, we are grateful to be braided into your sacred union here today and we are honored to witness you pledge your vows to one another which have been specially crafted from each of your hearts. As we listen to your vows, we celebrate your commitment to your chosen Love. Will you share with us your sacred promises to one another so that we may celebrate, witness, and support your Love?

[Vows]

And now, I invite you to dress your hands with a symbol of those beautiful and sacred vows so heartfully spoken. These rings are a symbol of the unbroken circle of Love; freely given, it has no beginning and has no end, no giver and no receiver, for each is the giver and each is the receiver. And before you dress your hands with this unbroken circle of Love each ring will be warmed by this family and community you hold tender and close to your hearts. With our hands and our hearts we contribute our own love into your unbroken circle of love and we vow our love to your Sacred Union.

[Ring Warming]

May these rings remind you, always, of the vows you have taken in love.

With this ring, I Choose to Marry You.

As many of you know, Fire holds great significance in the lives of Maggie and Zach. It was at a camping event, Lakes of Fire, where Maggie and Zach proclaimed with fire lit faces that they loved one another for the first time. And ever since they have adored spending quality time fireside both in nature and in their own home among the fireplace. This force of nature inspires them - the embers of a fire are both sparks and coals and each hold the energy to create a new fire by adding kindling or breath. Old embers can give new life to a fire a day after, and its energy and potential to transform anew is ceaseless. In inspiration of this force of nature's capacity to continue breathing new life into new fires Maggie and Zach have chosen to join their union with the shared last name of Ember. Ember will be an addition to their birth given names which pays homage to who they already are. Ember is also a name that pays homage to the capacity and potential of their love and symbolizes their joining.

And now, Maggie and Zach, through your words and deeds, you are now married in the eyes of the law and the hearts of your community. I need not give you permission to kiss, however when you are ready and if you so choose, you are invited to show your love to the community present here today in Witness of Your Love.

Dearest Friends, Let us Rejoice in Their Love as I present to you Maggie Sather-Ember and Zachary Miller-Ember!!!