Human beings have always marked their most important transitions in community

Anthropologist Arnold van Gennep, described what he called rites of passage which are rituals that move a person or relationship from one social state to another. He identified three phases: separation from the old identity, a liminal threshold where the transformation occurs, and reincorporation into the community in the new identity.

Our community has been a key piece of our journey, holding witness to our unfolding, both in celebration and thoughtful challenge, asking us to name all that it means to arrive here. For this reason, we believe that this love doesn't just live between us as two people. it ripples outward, asking real work of not just us, but of everyone touched by it. 

We are asking you to become co-holders of what we declare here; to be a witness as the cottonwood is to the McElmo canyon and the mycorrhizal web is to our temperate rainforests.

So when you stand with us in that canyon, you are not simply attending a celebration, you are the witness that makes the threshold real. You are the community that will hold us to this, to the love we are declaring here on this day, and to ourselves as individuals.

We are so grateful you are willing.