Together
For the Occasion of Grace and Peter’s Wedding

Savor this moment.
The two of you,
surrounded
by those who love you most,
some who have loved you
forever.

Set this moment
on your heart’s memory.
Let your spirits
bathe in it,
like abundance.

Now, travel back
to your earliest days,
to those first dates
when you didn’t quite know
but felt your first
“yes”.

How you learned each other,
story by story,
could hardly believe
your good fortune,
recognizing the beginning
of forever
in the other.

Walk forward from there,
through each of the days
as you created
your own unique story
that brought you here,
that brings us all here.

Every one of these days,
past and present,
is a layer
of the strong and beautiful
together
that you have built by hand.

What is more,
this together rests
on the sacred ground
of all the love,
all the struggle
that came before you,
the generations
that formed and informed you
from before
you were born.

The ancestors
have joined us here
to celebrate this day,
to lift up
your together.
I can feel their presence
all around-
full of joy,
full of blessing.

As we warm ourselves
by the fire of your together,
the souls of the ancestors
are dancing.

By Maria Brady-Smith