{"id":508,"date":"2011-06-27T10:00:28","date_gmt":"2011-06-27T14:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thequeenofmyself\/?p=508"},"modified":"2011-06-25T15:13:50","modified_gmt":"2011-06-25T19:13:50","slug":"honey-moon-june-for-gay-marriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2011\/06\/honey-moon-june-for-gay-marriage.html","title":{"rendered":"Honey Moon June for Gay Marriage!"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

Gay marriage is finally legal in New York State!<\/p>\n

Hearty congratulations to everyone who supports equality, liberty and justice for all.<\/p>\n

And heartfelt best wishes for all those brides & brides and grooms & grooms who can now officially tie the knot.<\/p>\n

How fitting that this historic decision should come in June. June is the Honey Moonth, traditionally the month for weddings and it is also Gay Pride month. Love is in the air all around! This season has always been celebrated as a juicy time of making whoopy, and also for making plans and commitments for lasting love partnerships.<\/p>\n

If you are among those couples who plan to marry, do contact me to discuss your upcoming nuptials. I am a registered clergy, licensed to perform legal weddings. And as a seasoned ceremonialist, I can help you design the rituals to make your wedding an extraordinary spiritual experience.<\/p>\n

WHY RITUAL?<\/p>\n

Ritual is a sacred enactment through which we can connect to the spiritual realm. The need for ritual is a basic human instinct. Ritual channels our need as individuals to be part of something greater than ourselves.<\/p>\n

People have a compelling urge to merge with the infinite. Ritual unites us with a larger reality and invokes in us a visceral understanding of such universal paradigms as unity, continuity, connectivity, cycle, and constant change.<\/p>\n

Ritual is a symbolic manifestation of our intention. It carries us past our analytical mind and allows us to access universal consciousness directly and viscerally, through our heart.<\/p>\n

Ceremony \u2014 solitary or shared \u2014 offers us a way to relate intimately with the primordial force, and to embrace that sacred power which informs and fuels all existence. Ritual is our lifeline to the divine.<\/p>\n

When we set aside quality time and claim the psychic space for ceremony, we are able to transform our perceptions, our perspectives, our experience, our expectations and, in the process, our reality.<\/p>\n

Cheers and blessings!<\/p>\n

xxQueen Mama Donna<\/p>\n

*****<\/p>\n

Donna Henes is the author of The Queen of My Self: Stepping into Sovereignty in Midlife<\/a><\/em>. She is the Midlife Midwife\u2122 offering counseling and upbeat, practical and ceremonial guidance for individual women and groups who want to enjoy the fruits of an enriching, influential, purposeful, passionate, and powerful maturity.<\/p>\n

Consult the MIDLIFE MIDWIFE\u2122: http:\/\/www.donnahenes.net\/queen\/consult.shtml<\/a><\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

The Queen welcomes questions concerning all issues of interest to women in their mature years. Send your inquiries to thequeenofmyself@aol.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Gay marriage is finally legal in New York State! Hearty congratulations to everyone who supports equality, liberty and justice for all. And heartfelt best wishes for all those brides & brides and grooms & grooms who can now officially tie the knot. How fitting that this historic decision should come in June. June is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":218,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,6],"tags":[248,190,218,244,245,249,13,47,243,247,246],"class_list":["post-508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ritual","category-spirituality","tag-bride","tag-celebrate","tag-ceremony","tag-gay-marriage","tag-gay-pride","tag-groom","tag-holistic-living","tag-love","tag-marriage","tag-partnership","tag-weddings-rituals"],"yoast_head":"\nHoney Moon June for Gay Marriage! - The Queen of My Self<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2011\/06\/honey-moon-june-for-gay-marriage.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Honey Moon June for Gay Marriage! - The Queen of My Self\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"  Gay marriage is finally legal in New York State! Hearty congratulations to everyone who supports equality, liberty and justice for all. And heartfelt best wishes for all those brides & brides and grooms & grooms who can now officially tie the knot. How fitting that this historic decision should come in June. June is…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2011\/06\/honey-moon-june-for-gay-marriage.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Queen of My Self\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-06-27T14:00:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-06-25T19:13:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Donna Henes\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Honey Moon June for Gay Marriage! - The Queen of My Self","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2011\/06\/honey-moon-june-for-gay-marriage.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Honey Moon June for Gay Marriage! - The Queen of My Self","og_description":"  Gay marriage is finally legal in New York State! Hearty congratulations to everyone who supports equality, liberty and justice for all. And heartfelt best wishes for all those brides & brides and grooms & grooms who can now officially tie the knot. How fitting that this historic decision should come in June. June is…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2011\/06\/honey-moon-june-for-gay-marriage.html","og_site_name":"The Queen of My Self","article_published_time":"2011-06-27T14:00:28+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-06-25T19:13:50+00:00","author":"Donna Henes","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2011\/06\/honey-moon-june-for-gay-marriage.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2011\/06\/honey-moon-june-for-gay-marriage.html","name":"Honey Moon June for Gay Marriage! - The Queen of My Self","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-06-27T14:00:28+00:00","dateModified":"2011-06-25T19:13:50+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/#\/schema\/person\/544e888db264d2e1c6e32fd2f80c031a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2011\/06\/honey-moon-june-for-gay-marriage.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2011\/06\/honey-moon-june-for-gay-marriage.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2011\/06\/honey-moon-june-for-gay-marriage.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Honey Moon June for Gay Marriage!"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/","name":"The Queen of My Self","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Donna Henes","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/#\/schema\/person\/544e888db264d2e1c6e32fd2f80c031a","name":"Donna Henes","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/0c6\/0c683cd428803d35cf10fae85f8125ebx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/0c6\/0c683cd428803d35cf10fae85f8125ebx96.jpg","caption":"Donna Henes"},"description":"Donna Henes is an internationally renowned urban shaman, ritual expert, award-winning author, popular speaker and workshop leader whose joyful celebrations of celestial events have introduced ancient traditional rituals and contemporary ceremonies to millions of people in more than 100 cities since 1972. She has published four books, a CD, an acclaimed Ezine and writes for The Huffington Post and UPI Religion and Spirituality Forum. Mama Donna, as she is affectionately called, maintains a ceremonial center, spirit shop, ritual practice and consultancy where she works with individuals, groups, institutions, municipalities and corporations to create meaningful ceremonies for every imaginable occasion.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.thequeenofmyself.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/author\/dhenes"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/218"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":510,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508\/revisions\/510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}