Hmmmm…. golly gee….Weddings. Such a generic topic. Many people are raised to work hard, so you can get your good job, and attract that perfect mate. Why does this come up now? Because I was just at a wedding yesterday, and it was pretty frigging boring. Dan “Couch 41″ Tibbets is a friend of mine in the Detroit area. He is very talented, and takes some wonderful photos. He also is friends with countless photographers. That’s how I met him, because he called Couch 17 when I was there, and had some OneModelPlace.com questions for me. We’ve been in touch since, and here I am now. He does 2 kinds of shooting…. Glamour, and Wedding. Wedding photography pays the bills- for those who don’t know - as models are usually broke, which could be why may photographers are broke. Anyways… Dan invited me to come to a wedding with him, and - when I asked - I don’t have to bring my camera with me. I had said all week “Great, I’ll be a wedding crasher, I’ll drink, eat, dance with the bridesmaids!” and there was no issue. Once we were there though, “oh no… you’re representing my company, so no drinking, and you can’t be out there interacting with them, it’s not our wedding.” Oh man! It was cool to see a professional wedding photographer in action, but I got bored pretty quickly. There was a lot of candy at the “Love is sweet” table, which became my sustenance for part of the day. Later in the evening, I had serious sugar crash, as well as some yummy wedding food. It was cool also to hang out with Mary Duprie, a photographer that has her studio in the same building as Dan’s studio. The funny thing is that I had contacted her a while back regarding this project I had in mind, only to find out that Dan and she are in the same building. I thought Dan was messing with me, he wasn’t. Mary was really cool to hang with, and I am glad I went, as I got a few shots of me by Mary Duprie. She only shoots agency models, not glamour models (agency girls usually have some money). I haven’t seen the pictures yet, but Mary is quite good at directing models, so that’s what she did with me… directed me. As much as I’m in front of the camera, it’s usually for action shots, so when it was a “just relax” shot, I wasn’t sure what to do.
BACK TO THE TOPIC THOUGH… I did say I’d include some of my thoughts on weddings. I don’t get them. I don’t get their importance- not for this day and age. When you marry someone, you marry them at that time. Later in life, they are not the same person you married, and you are not the same person they married. I can’t find the exact statistic, but I hear it’s above 50% of marriages that end in divorce. Not only that, but as of the 2005 Census, single-parent families are the dominant population, as compared to 2-parent families. My parents are still together, and I”m glad for it. I’d like to be married some day. However, watching as the priest was reading his shpiel off those index cards, often losing his place, or starting over, I thought about how my own wedding may someday be. It certainly would not indicate that I need to have kids (though I’d like to), and teach them the Christian faith (I’m Jewish, for one thing), but I don’t think I would have a standard wedding. Everyone’s already been to enough weddings to be sick of the same speech, the same routine, the same music, having to shop for wedding presents which are then sold or fought over in the divorce. What’s the point? No, my wedding will be fun. I can’t be sure exactly what format it will be in, I’ve never planned a wedding… Maybe have the whole thing be on ice-skates, in costume? Maybe have a midget-polka band playing the music? Perhaps have the whole thing on a beach, without any religious figure there. If all these weddings are held in front of the people, and God, and God is all seeing / knowing, then shouldn’t it be able to see the wedding without having it announced? No… my wedding will be fun, interactive, and full of energy…. so people don’t fall asleep. There sure as hell won’t be a candy-table to make everyone sugar-crash later (although, I think the point was to have people take candy away to remember the wedding, not to eat them all there… oops), but there will be more alcohol, maybe even some professional hostesses. Yeah.. you can hire hot, fun party goers to make sure that everyone at your party is having a good time, and don’t get to shy away.
I have to find the right person 1st. She must be attractive (screw you if you’re calling me shallow for having that 1st… but I don’t feel like getting married to someone I can’t stand to look at), smart, independent, funny, adventurous, understanding, open-minded, able to juggle chainsaws, a singer, a guitar player, and a chef. Well… I suppose I’ll survive if she can’t juggle chainsaws or sing… but if she can, that’d be fun at parties, you know? I can see traveling forever, but I’d like to have kids sometime– probably take them with me. I like my parents’ wedding photos… my dad has this cheesy turquoise tux, and mom was just beautiful. I guess us 3 boys fattened her up a tiny bit, but she’s still quite pretty. My mom can cook, clean, do accounting, fix a boo-boo, play the accordion (so I hear… I don’t remember seeing it), put up with my dad and his temper / humor, and live with all the crap that her 3 boys do (’cause every parent wants to hear that their kid is going to drop everything, and go travel the country, sleeping on strangers’ couches..). Maybe part of why I begrudge weddings is because the pressure’s sort of on me. I don’t like being forced to do something, I have to do it because I want to. I also have a short attention span, so would want something exciting, and also, there’s wedding photography. Photos, such as Dan’s, can be amazing to look at. There are so many wedding photographers out there that suck! They charge a lot of money, and their images are pretty lame and unskilled. It’s a word of mouth industry that reminds me of The Emperor’s New Clothing — people will recommend their wedding photographer, because they can’t admit they got shitty photos. If the photographer is really good, it will cost you.
In Israel, weddings are much more laid back than here. You can show up, often, in shorts and sandals. Perhaps I’m scared of becoming a statistic on divorce (guess you become one regardless- a yay or a nay). My folks are waiting on grandkids, and they’ve seen me bring some great girls to the house… but it’s not worked yet. I’ve had good opportunities. My chinese zodiac that I saw on the place-setting at a chinese restaurant the other day said to marry a Rat or a Dog late in life (or was it a monkey?). It said I had a passionate nature, and a complex life, while I am eccentric. Sounds about right… I’m eccentric all right. Myndy (couch 0/12) had read to me some amazing stuff about the Zodiac that made me a believer. It was as if she had been watching me for the previous 2 years! What I said, how I said it, what I like, etc… she knew everything!
One of my all-time favorite models to work with, Christina,is getting married soon, and invited me, as well as 4 other photographers, to her wedding. That should be a nice wedding, and definitely one with lots of amazing photos. Christina is awesome, interesting, and not your typical girl. She’s an herpetologist, so has over 30 species of frogs and toads, and over 19 species of lizards. I’ve met Spike, her rare blue-tongued Australian skink, a few times in New York, and various parts of Florida. I wish her good luck on her wedding.
I’m 30 now… people start (people= I, though I’ve heard it from others) wigging out at this age, and later, about “Wow… is there something wrong with me that I’m not married yet?” “Weddings aren’t for me” “I’m too old to get married” - people are getting married in their 60’s now! Granted, they are usually rich, and are getting married to 18 year olds in Vegas — or however old Anna Nicole was :p .
I guess all in all, to summarize, I’d like to get married… but I’m not rushing into it, as I want to make sure I have the right person, and that we truly get along and can put up with each other’s crap.
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Marriage vs Spiritual Partnership
When you speak of a “marriage,” for example, you invoke a particular consciousness, a particular energy. When two people marry, they become “husband” and “wife.” “Husband” means the master of a house, the head of a household, a manager. “Wife” means a woman who is joined to a man in marriage, a hostess of a household. Sometimes it means a woman of humble rank. The relationship between a husband and a wife is not equal. When two people “marry,” and think and speak of themselves as “husband” and “wife,” they enter into these consciousnesses and intelligences.
In other words, the archetypical structure of “marriage” can be thought of as a planet. When two souls marry, they fall into the orbit, or gravitational field, of this planet and, therefore, despite their own individual intentions, they take on the characteristics of this planet called “marriage.” They become part of the evolution of the structure itself through their own participation in a marriage.
An archetype is a collective human idea. The archetype of marriage was designed to assist physical survival. Then two people marry, they participate in an energy dynamic in which they merge their lives in order to help each other survive physically. The archetype of marriage is no longer functional. It is being replaced with a new archetype that is designed to assist spiritual growth. This is the archetype of spiritual, or sacred, partnership.
The underlying premise of a spiritual partnership is a sacred commitment between the partners to assist each other’s spiritual growth. Spiritual partners recognize their equality. Spiritual partners are able to distinguish personality from soul, and, therefore, they are able to discuss the dynamics between them, their interactions, on a less emotionally-bound ground than husbands and wives. That ground does not exist within the consciousness of marriage. It exists only within the consciousness of spiritual partnership because spiritual partners are able to see clearly that there is indeed a deeper reason why they are together, and that that reason has a great deal to do with the evolution of their souls.
Because spiritual, or sacred, partners can see from this perspective, they engage in a very different dynamic than do husbands and wives. The conscious evolution of the soul is not part of the structural dynamic of marriage. It does not exist within that evolution because when the evolutionary archetype of marriage was created for our species, the dynamic of conscious spiritual growth was far too mature a concept to be included. What makes a spiritual, or sacred, partnership is that the souls within the partnership understand that they are together in a committed relationship, but the commitment is not to physical security. It is rather to be with each other’s physical lives as they reflect spiritual consciousness.
The bond between spiritual partners exists as real as it does in marriage, but for significantly different reasons. Spiritual partners are not together in order to quell each other’s financial fears or because they can produce a house in the suburbs and that entire conceptual framework. The understanding or consciousness that spiritual partners bring to their commitment is different, and, therefore, their commitment is dynamically different. The commitment of spiritual partners is to each other’s spiritual growth, recognizing that that is what each of them is doing on Earth, and that everything serves that.
Spiritual partners bond with an understanding that they are together because it is appropriate for their souls to grow together. They recognize that their growth may take them to the end of their days in this incarnation and beyond, or it may take them to six months. They cannot say that they will be together forever. The duration of their partnership is determined by how long it is appropriate for their evolution to be together. All of the vows that a human being can take cannot prevent the spiritual path from exploding through and breaking those vows if the spirit must move on. It is appropriate for spiritual partners to remain together only as long as they grow together.
Spiritual partnership is a much freer and more spiritually accurate dynamic than marriage because spiritual partners come together from a position of spirit and consciousness. How spiritual partners merge and move their concept of partnership is a matter of free will. So long as they recognize that they bring the consequences of their choices into their partnership, and know the full extent of their choices, that is what influences the manner and direction that the partnership goes.
Spiritual partners commit to a growing dynamic. Their commitment is truly a promise toward their own growth, to their own spiritual survival and enhancement, and not to their physical.
The archetype of spiritual partnership is new to the human experience. Because there is not yet a social convention for spiritual partnership, spiritual partners may decide that the convention of marriage, reinterpreted to meet their needs, is the most appropriate physical expression of their bond. These souls infuse the archetype of marriage with the energy of the archetype of spiritual partnership, as do marriage partners who have discovered in their togetherness that their bond is actually one of commitment to mutual spiritual growth rather than to physical survival or security or comfort.
Just as external power is no longer appropriate to our evolution, the archetype of marriage is no longer appropriate. This does not mean that the institution of marriage will disappear overnight. Marriages will continue to exist, but marriages that succeed will only succeed with the consciousness of spiritual partnership. The partners in these marriages contribute through their participation in them to the archetype of spiritual partnership.