Sky based wedding readings.
June 7, 2017 4:25 AM Subscribe
A friend has asked me if I'd like to do a reading at his wedding.
I'm not 100% sure I'm going to say yes yet, but if I do it's going to be because I have a good reading to give. He's asked for something neither pro nor anti religious, with a sky theme. More inside.
So, Some notes:
Aa stunt pilot (bride) and a skydiver(groom).
The reading in his words "can't for legal reasons be religious. Or anti I assume either."
I've known the groom for 15 years or so. We met at university in Plymouth (he an electrical engineer, me a roboticist).
I'm under the impression that the Bride doesn't have a lot in the way of family, whilst the groom has seemingly millions of uncles and cousins and nieces and whathaveyou. So want to avoid anything that would emphasise that.
I'd be happy for it to a little odd.
I'd probably not be able to pull off anything particularly sentimental.
For inspiration, He suggested the end of the poem Storm by Tim Minchin.
Again in his words "we're insignificant pieces of carbon but we are happy and enjoy it."
"But here's what gives me a hard-on:
I am a tiny, insignificant, ignorant bit of carbon.
I have one life, and it is short and unimportant
But thanks to recent scientific advances
I get to live twice as long as my great great great great uncles-es and aunts-es.
Twice as long to live this life of mine
Twice as long to love this wife of mine
Twice as many years of friends and wine
Of sharing curries and getting shitty
At good-looking hippies
With fairies on their spines
And butterflies on their titties."
But that is a little cruder than I'd be happy with.
So, Some notes:
Aa stunt pilot (bride) and a skydiver(groom).
The reading in his words "can't for legal reasons be religious. Or anti I assume either."
I've known the groom for 15 years or so. We met at university in Plymouth (he an electrical engineer, me a roboticist).
I'm under the impression that the Bride doesn't have a lot in the way of family, whilst the groom has seemingly millions of uncles and cousins and nieces and whathaveyou. So want to avoid anything that would emphasise that.
I'd be happy for it to a little odd.
I'd probably not be able to pull off anything particularly sentimental.
For inspiration, He suggested the end of the poem Storm by Tim Minchin.
Again in his words "we're insignificant pieces of carbon but we are happy and enjoy it."
"But here's what gives me a hard-on:
I am a tiny, insignificant, ignorant bit of carbon.
I have one life, and it is short and unimportant
But thanks to recent scientific advances
I get to live twice as long as my great great great great uncles-es and aunts-es.
Twice as long to live this life of mine
Twice as long to love this wife of mine
Twice as many years of friends and wine
Of sharing curries and getting shitty
At good-looking hippies
With fairies on their spines
And butterflies on their titties."
But that is a little cruder than I'd be happy with.
This is short and sweet without being too saccharine: Words For the Body by Anne Michaels
I think this excerpt from Letters to a Young Poet by Rainier Maria Rilke might also be good: The point of marriage is not to create a quick commonality by tearing down all boundaries.
This one is more... crude, I suppose, but not as much as the one you quoted: The Conditional by Ada Limon.
Good luck, I hope you find something that works for you!
posted by possibilityleft at 4:53 AM on June 7, 2017 [1 favorite]
I think this excerpt from Letters to a Young Poet by Rainier Maria Rilke might also be good: The point of marriage is not to create a quick commonality by tearing down all boundaries.
This one is more... crude, I suppose, but not as much as the one you quoted: The Conditional by Ada Limon.
Good luck, I hope you find something that works for you!
posted by possibilityleft at 4:53 AM on June 7, 2017 [1 favorite]
From Cosmos, by Carl Sagan:
As long as there have been humans, we have searched for our place in the cosmos. Where are we? Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people. We make our world significant by the courage of our questions, and by the depth of our answers. All of the rocks we stand on, the iron in our blood, the calcium in our teeth, the carbon in our genes were produced billions of years ago in the interior of a red giant star. We are made of star-stuff. For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.
posted by ourobouros at 5:10 AM on June 7, 2017 [19 favorites]
As long as there have been humans, we have searched for our place in the cosmos. Where are we? Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people. We make our world significant by the courage of our questions, and by the depth of our answers. All of the rocks we stand on, the iron in our blood, the calcium in our teeth, the carbon in our genes were produced billions of years ago in the interior of a red giant star. We are made of star-stuff. For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.
posted by ourobouros at 5:10 AM on June 7, 2017 [19 favorites]
Richard Bach is famous for writing Jonathan Livingston Seagull, but wrote other books heavily incorporating his love of flying. His books are often spiritual but not religious, so he might be a good bet.
“You will begin to touch heaven, Jonathan, in the moment that you touch perfect speed. And that isn’t flying a thousand miles an hour, or a million, or flying at the speed of light. Because any number is a limit, and perfection doesn’t have limits. Perfect speed, my son, is being there.”
"A cloud does not know why it moves in just such a direction and at such a speed, it feels an impulsion... this is the place to go now. But the sky knows the reason and the patterns behind all clouds, and you will know, too, when you lift yourself high enough to see beyond horizons."
And a slightly more tongue-in-cheek one “Remember where you came from, where you're going, and why you created this mess you got yourself into in the first place.”
Disclaimer: I am a superfan ever since Mr Bach sent a short but very kind response to an email I sent to him about a song I wrote after reading one of his books *salutes into the middle distance in his general direction*
posted by greenish at 6:11 AM on June 7, 2017 [1 favorite]
“You will begin to touch heaven, Jonathan, in the moment that you touch perfect speed. And that isn’t flying a thousand miles an hour, or a million, or flying at the speed of light. Because any number is a limit, and perfection doesn’t have limits. Perfect speed, my son, is being there.”
"A cloud does not know why it moves in just such a direction and at such a speed, it feels an impulsion... this is the place to go now. But the sky knows the reason and the patterns behind all clouds, and you will know, too, when you lift yourself high enough to see beyond horizons."
And a slightly more tongue-in-cheek one “Remember where you came from, where you're going, and why you created this mess you got yourself into in the first place.”
Disclaimer: I am a superfan ever since Mr Bach sent a short but very kind response to an email I sent to him about a song I wrote after reading one of his books *salutes into the middle distance in his general direction*
posted by greenish at 6:11 AM on June 7, 2017 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Untitled, by Edward Abbey
YES -- even after my death
you shall not escape me
I'll follow you
in the eyes of every hawk,
every falcon, vulture, eagle
that soars in whatever sky
you walk beneath,
all the earth over,
everywhere.
Yes -- and when you die too,
and follow me into that deep
dark burning delicious blue
and become like me --
a kind of bird, a feathered thing --
why, then I'll seek you out
ten thousand feet above the sea;
and far beyond the world's rim
we'll meet and clasp and couple
close to the flaming sun
and scream the joy of our love
into the blaze of death
and burn like angels
down through the stars
past all the suns
to the world's beginning again.
(I think I originally found this on Metafilter somewhere)
posted by exceptinsects at 8:25 AM on June 7, 2017 [4 favorites]
YES -- even after my death
you shall not escape me
I'll follow you
in the eyes of every hawk,
every falcon, vulture, eagle
that soars in whatever sky
you walk beneath,
all the earth over,
everywhere.
Yes -- and when you die too,
and follow me into that deep
dark burning delicious blue
and become like me --
a kind of bird, a feathered thing --
why, then I'll seek you out
ten thousand feet above the sea;
and far beyond the world's rim
we'll meet and clasp and couple
close to the flaming sun
and scream the joy of our love
into the blaze of death
and burn like angels
down through the stars
past all the suns
to the world's beginning again.
(I think I originally found this on Metafilter somewhere)
posted by exceptinsects at 8:25 AM on June 7, 2017 [4 favorites]
This is probably not the vibe they are going for, but I will add it just in case!
In My Sky at Twilight (Pablo Neruda)
In my sky at twilight you are like a cloud
and your form and colour are the way I love them.
You are mine, mine, woman with sweet lips
and in your life my infinite dreams live.
The lamp of my soul dyes your feet,
the sour wine is sweeter on your lips,
oh reaper of my evening song,
how solitary dreams believe you to be mine!
You are mine, mine, I go shouting it to the afternoon's
wind, and the wind hauls on my widowed voice.
Huntress of the depth of my eyes, your plunder
stills your nocturnal regard as though it were water.
You are taken in the net of my music, my love,
and my nets of music are wide as the sky.
My soul is born on the shore of your eyes of mourning.
In your eyes of mourning the land of dreams begin.
posted by stillmoving at 10:43 AM on June 7, 2017 [1 favorite]
In My Sky at Twilight (Pablo Neruda)
In my sky at twilight you are like a cloud
and your form and colour are the way I love them.
You are mine, mine, woman with sweet lips
and in your life my infinite dreams live.
The lamp of my soul dyes your feet,
the sour wine is sweeter on your lips,
oh reaper of my evening song,
how solitary dreams believe you to be mine!
You are mine, mine, I go shouting it to the afternoon's
wind, and the wind hauls on my widowed voice.
Huntress of the depth of my eyes, your plunder
stills your nocturnal regard as though it were water.
You are taken in the net of my music, my love,
and my nets of music are wide as the sky.
My soul is born on the shore of your eyes of mourning.
In your eyes of mourning the land of dreams begin.
posted by stillmoving at 10:43 AM on June 7, 2017 [1 favorite]
This Woody Guthrie wedding blessing might be appropriate: http://jasonmolin.net/2011/12/woody-guthrie-resolutions-and-wedding-blessing/
posted by pombe at 12:19 PM on June 8, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by pombe at 12:19 PM on June 8, 2017 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Have you seen this thread?
It's not skydivery, but some of them fulfill the remit of being sciency, which they might appreciate given the Minchin poem suggested?
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 7:34 AM on June 30, 2017
It's not skydivery, but some of them fulfill the remit of being sciency, which they might appreciate given the Minchin poem suggested?
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 7:34 AM on June 30, 2017
Response by poster: Thanks, other Just this guy, that's a helpful link, I'll let you know if I use one of those.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 7:35 AM on June 30, 2017
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 7:35 AM on June 30, 2017
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Sky Within Us
Oh, not to be separated,
shut off from the starry dimensions
by so thin a wall.
What is within us
if not intensified sky
traversed with birds
and deep
with winds of homecoming?
— Rilke, Uncollected Poems
posted by biffa at 4:46 AM on June 7, 2017 [3 favorites]