Eco-Friendly Valentines

Excerpt from  Celebrant Foundation & Institute -  

"Life Cycle Ceremonies a Handbook for your Whole Life - 

Eco-Friendly Valentines  By Kristine Bentz"

In the years since their nineteenth-century origins, simple and loving Valentine’s traditions have given way to a commercialized hustle of candy, roses, and singing cards. But handcrafted gifts still lend a special air to Valentine’s Day—and any other day!

PREPARATION First, focus less on commercially driven gifting. Instead, look for more spirited and environmentally friendly exchanges between sweethearts, friends, family, and even animal companions. Second, open up your great imagination to the flow of creative juices. 

A MENU OF ONE-STEP VALENTINE RITES Here are a few ideas for infusing Valentine’s Day with friendly spirit and eco-friendly creativity this year. • Write a poem to someone beloved and embellish it with symbolic items or drawings. Show love for Earth as well by placing your poem on handcrafted recycled or natural materials. 

• Gather friends for an evening of home-cooked foods and storytelling about love gained, sustained, or lost.

• Create homemade biscuits for animal companions. Share them with canine companions at the dog park, equine buddies at the stable, or feline fans in your building.

• Have a collage party to celebrate love. Ask invitees to gather objects of meaning that represent all the aspects of love. These may be found in a jewelry box, in nature, in storage, or at the thrift store. Guests may also bring their own picture frames, small altars, clay pots, memento boxes, and other objects and use collage to decorate them.

IN CLOSING 

Bring your own spin to any of these ideas. Or just celebrate your friends and loved ones with less superfluous fluff and more heartfelt care. Be surprised—and enjoy!

KRISTINE BENTZ is a Life-Cycle Celebrant® with certification in Weddings, Funerals, and Ceremonies for Healing. She lives in the Sonoran Desert with her life partner and their animal companions, an opinionated white mare and two kittens. Kristine can be reached through her website, www.sweetgrassceremonies.com

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This new book, aptly titled Life-Cycle Ceremonies: A Handbook for Your Whole Life, is simply a wonder. Printed in a clear and attractive typeset that is easy on the eyes, the book is filled with dozens of rituals that are easy to follow and clearly explained. The rituals are simple, creative and inspiring, inviting us to "renew commitments," "let go into the river of life," "lead with our dominant paws," or "hit our reset buttons," to name a few of the goodies on offer here. Each ceremony and the steps to perform it are completely described in the space of a page or a page and a half, making this book very user friendly. With its help, anyone can confidently lead celebrations of the seasons, our ancestors, and our moments of change, transition, and personal growth. Overall, this is truly a great little book. A must-have for Celebrants like myself and anyone who likes to celebrate life's milestones, Life-Cycle Ceremonies: A Handbook for Your Whole Life, is sure to be a classic among books of its kind.

-Marcia Almeida, Master Life-Cycle Celebrant 

Also available from the Celebrant Foundation and Institute: Stories from Funeral Celebrants: Celebrating the Life While Mourning the Death