Jerry Chasen's Blog

This was a year of major change for me—milestone birthday and new career. A skydive captured much of that change, since (like last year’s bungee jump) it is definitely not my customary kind of activity. It all got me thinking about dreams—those I have yet to pursue, the current climate, and our collective dreams. These thoughts seemed to Occupy my attention as the holidays approached.

This is the balance of the commitment ceremony. There are an odd number of vows. In the service, Mark and I alternated reading sentences in the vows, starting over again when we’d gone thru it once. That way, we each said all of the vows.

When Mark and I decided to have a commitment ceremony, it was immediately clear to me that I couldn’t recite anyone else’s words. So we explored what we wanted the ceremony to say, and then I wrote it. Written in rhyme (natch), the ceremony explores the nature of relationships, looking at traits common to none, some, all and specifically, ours. The entire ceremony was originally presented in a program book, and posted here are two posters made from the program book. The audio for this is done individually, so each section of the ceremony is recorded separately.

I’ve long believed that we create ourselves by our responses–to situations, to challenges, and of course, to some basic questions. Using journalism’s “4 w’s and and h”, I tried to explore some interesting, defining questions.

“Keep your feet on the ground and your eyes on the sky”—”and of course, above all to thine own self be true.”