Lawlady's Divorce Blog

Divorce Garden

At the time I was buying the business property at 68th and Roosevelt-- and I'm talking about the actual weekend the offers were going back and forth-- I was speaking at the International Alliance of Collaborative Professional Conference in Boston.  I remember being at the front of the room speaking about divorce ritual with a group of divorce attorneys and thinking that I wanted to offer clients a space to process their strong feelings during the process. 

The pain of divorce is a shadow pain in our culture.  People going through severe break ups or divorce can have intense emotions but largely these feelings go ignored or missed by others.  Our culture does not embrace the harder emotions (typically) and of all the types of grief, the grief of break up and divorce is probably one of the more unacknowledged varierties. 

So... I had the idea for the public garden space.  A sweet spot dedicated to the passing of relationships. 

Then I moved the office here and found that we had enough issues to worry about from wiring to airconditioning.  The back garden fell off the radar.  So far off the radar that I assumed that it was a temporary flight of fancy that wasn't going to manifest itself.   

Something, however,  has happened recently.  The back garden is beginning to take form.  I've installed 30 or so major plantings and ordered some signage. It's beginning to take shape. 

Now I realize that it makes more sense to open the garden before it is complete and invite divorcing people to come with  their plants to add to the space.  The space will be richer if many hands contribute. At this point, the opening date is slated for September 23, the first day of fall. 

If you are hurting from a break up, one of my clients, or someone who loves gardening, I invite you to stop by and create with me a public space dedicated to the resurrection of fallen love. 

Nothing is sweeter in life than love, and when love ends, fails or completes, art can be made from the vestiges of the relationship.  It's good for the soul and honors that flip side of love:  the ending process. 

If you would like to know more about this project, call me at 206/932-9699.   

Invitation to Monday's Divorce and Break Up Garden Building Party

Memorial Day Party: Honoring Dead Relationships (853 NE 68Th Street)

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I don't even know how to begin. I'll start at the beginning. I bought this Tudor house at 68Th and Roosevelt last year with the vision that it would house my law firm Law lady Inc (we do divorce) and that I would eventually convert the backyard into a Sanctuary devoted to Break Up and Divorce. I thought it would be a public garden (closed whenever I needed it to be for privacy of my tenant who rents from me) open to those people hurting from a divorce or serious break up. I wanted to offer a safe zone where my clients or other people could publicly experience their transition. Along the way, I realized there are all types of liability issues with being open to the public and when I learned that needles were found in my Roosevelt Neighborhood, I thought "Oh dear... this public space is a bad idea." But a year later, I still come around to the idea, the world needs an alter or sanctuary devoted to the passing of relationships-- even a very small, private one. Memorial Day seems like a great day to break ground on the project. So, this is what I offer the world: I'm going to be hosting an art day-- I provide the art supplies, and the gardening tools. We're going to create a public ritual around divorce and breaking up this coming Monday Memorial Day. You are invited to come from noon to 5, to paint a mural about divorce, do a private art piece, write something, play a guitar, or plant a plant-- whatever you would feel is important to include in the inaugural (spelling?) day of the world's first divorce ritual garden. I look forward to meeting new friends. Lawlady Welcomes you. Please be clean, legal, honest, kind, generous, healthy etc....

**This was my Craig's List Party Invite. You are Welcome to Attend

Ritual Space Dedicated to Divorce

The Lawlady house was a buzz today with many clients and a mediation. For the second day in a row, we needed to use the kitchen space of the office.  You have to understand- this is the room that serves as my personal junk room when I don't know what to do with an object.  It's also the room that, up to this point, was off limits to clients so I didn't mind if dishes stacked up and the recycling waited patiently to be taken out.  Today at least three clients exited out the back. 

The good news is I was inspired to think about planning a renovation for the back of the office and yard.  Last year after getting the front of the office and yard into suitable shape, I burned out and couldn't imagine investing any more time.  It seemed I had over-prepared the facility.  Today was the first time this year that I was struck with a desire to take the building to a higher aesthetic level.  I was reminded of the vision I had for this Tudor at 68th and Roosevelt at the time I bought it. 

I distinctly remember, October 2004, the weekend I signed the paperwork to buy this location.  I was in Boston speaking at the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals about divorce ritual.   I generally don't like to give canned speeches or to talk about subjects that are not relevant and fresh for me.  As I spoke about divorce ritual to a crowd of highly evolved lawyer souls who were already weaving tender types of ceremony into their practice,  I thought to myself... "How can I hold myself out to be a leader on the subject of divorce ritual."   In a flash, I imagined turning the back yard of this office into the first  public ritual  space dedicated to healing the pain of broken relationships. I wanted to create a garden honoring break up and divorce.  A place for clients to sit and witness the passing of their relationship before starting their legal session with me. 

Today was the first day in a while that this dream rekindled.  I think that is the power of visions. Simple scenes that we carry.  They catch us off guard and urge us forward to a warm welcoming. Today it seemed entirely possible to build this public alter to transformation and rebirth.  In the very real moment, I was at least inspired enough to call the Millionaire Club and get someone out for tomorrow to weed! 

Is the public ready for a Ritual Space Dedicated to Divorce?

Divorce Ritual: Finding the Nectar in Bad Break Ups

Life is short, even if it drags for you and it seems like just another night in front of the TV eating the same stuff you always eat.  Life is precious. Life is fleeting, if only we could see ourselves from the perspective of angels. 

That's why it is imperative that we do all the things that we do wonderfully.  It's our only chance here on earth (at least from what we logically know about the facts), and the quality of life will be directly inverse to the ability to bring focus and reverence to our activities.  Even gross activities like getting a divorce.

It is highly possible to have a transcendent, poignant divorce experience. I've seen it happen. I've seen it happen to people who you wouldn't think could go there.

The trick is to embrace the experience, good or bad, and face it with the most deeply personal and intimate faculties that you have.  Rather than shielding yourself from the full brunt of the divorce, gratefully welcome it in (it's going to happen anyway- why not?).  With all dreadful life events we have a choice to accept them sweetly and reverently, or fight them like a fish on a line.  You know what I mean. You can bitch and moan about water pump breaking on your car, or you can laugh:  another lovable experience of life.  That's what living is about.  Trashy, bad, disappointing moments that challenge your ability to say "yes, I'm still in the game and loving things down here on planet earth." 

Divorce ritual is about making a ceremony out of a mess. Saying yes to the fullness of your life and celebrating the gorgeousness of the human relationship-- from the bottom looking up. When you can rejoice at the shit of life, you're living the good life.

So go burn a candle in honor of that deceitful spouse; grieve a little with some good poetry on a nice moonlit clear night; surrender to the fantasies about what you want next and write a poem to the Gods to cast into the ocean, or a nearby fountain.  Life is best when you can give yourself permission to believe in miracle.

Encounter a miracle.  Do a divorce ceremony for your self.

Divorce Ritual

A few years back the concept of divorce ritual blipped across America's radar screen.  I think the reason divorce ritual and ceremony broke through into public conciousness was that  a few brave souls dissolved the cultural molasses and started to really feel during their divorce.  Not only did they grieve the loss of hope, and move through their resentment and anger at partners who dissappointed; they braved the fear of moving into an unknown future, and suffered the agony of second guessing self.  They stuck with the hard emotions of break up until they emerged  into that other realm, that exalted place where you get a bird's eye view of your gorgious humanity, fuck ups and all. 

I followed the trend in divorce ritual.  I liked hearing about my client rituals, I liked getting invited to them. I had a personal interest in the intimate aspects of sacred divorce.  Mainly this flowed from my personal knife-like experiences ending important relationships.  My personal life was not so different from my client's lives, as I too struggled to find a place of nobleness in the rubble of a damaged and broken relationship. 

Ritual and ceremony allows us to levitate the bitterness and ugliness of our breakup or divorce into something more sublime, something more transcendent.  But reaching a place where you are capable of having a  transcendent ritual  is likely not the first, second or third step in the dissolution process. It's more the culmination or the resting place we get to or give ourselves during the hard time of living we call divorce. 

For these exhaulted times (which ritual can be), ancient traditions assist us in entering a more appreciative, soulful, integrative state of awareness.  Ritual has been practiced and honed by different cultures through out human development. 

Here are elements you might want to incorporate into your own breakup or divorce ceremony.  It's a mix and match system. But the main feature is you create a meaningful closure ceremony and facilitate closing  the relationship  circle  through focused intent.  Adding other acoutrements such as sound, imagery, friends, and activities only heightens our ability to focus and to connect to the centrifugal universal force that assists us in healing and provoking our spirits foward. 

Things To Try When Custom Crafting Your Divorce Ceremony

Sound.  Music, singing. Silence. Chanting. Poems. Book passages. Love letters.  Wedding Vows.  The sounds of Source.  The sounds that sooth. The sounds that reverberate our central nervous system and catalyse us forward or richly backward to reflect. 

Setting.  Nature.  Your apartment. The place you met. The place you last stayed together.  The place where you go to heal.  The beach. The river. The Mountain. The Church. The sacred circle cast with your friends and fellow travelers.

Supplies.  Food, beverages.  Something to make the room look more beautify.  Something to signify the old you and the new you. Something to smash to move out  aggression. Something to create with. Something to bury.  Something to sit on. Something to hug and cuddle.  Something to burn.  Something to decorate with.  Something to leave behind as a gift to the universe. 

Friends.  Sometimes you ritualize with yourself, or at your place of worship with your Rabbi. Sometimes you gather for light-hearted tenderness with people who don't require much of you and who don't mind if you cry. Sometimes you share ceremony with people who wouldn't understand, so you keep most of the details to yourself. They just come for a BBQ.  The meaning slips in through a side door. 

Symbol. aaah.. This is the one with the juice. See, as we molt into something bigger, better, wiser or smaller, curls of mysterious smoke hold that vision of new-self. It is our job to catch these sweet wafts of wisdom and intuit the full meaning they suggest.  How to do this? 

From a practical standpoint, it's recording your dreams. Paying attention to the motifs or stories that perk your ears and fascinate your mind. What pictures keep turning up unexpectedly?  Do you keep seeing bunny rabbits everywhere you go, and its not Easter?  When you read books do certain words and phrases pop at you?  Do you find yourself drawn or longing for something?  A vacation?  An adventure?  A challenge?  A mountain?

The motif, image, or metaphor is what gives us that next clue as to which passage we are at in the book of our life. They assist us with the  learning lessons from this stage of life. They inpart the wisdom from the flip side of our psychic. 

And finally God (or Buddah, or Allah, or nature, or life force, or whatever term you use to describe that deeper dimension of living).  We all have a wiser side, a comforter who sits at our left ear whispering condolances and encouragements. Invite this greater power into your ceremony for the special energic boost he/she/it can provide. In fact, this greater power is the reason for the ritual to begin with. When we appease our need, our hunger for accessing this greater dimension, this God,  we elevate our divorce experience, and journey into the heart of creation.  Our divorce stops being about so much death and decay.  The old falls away faster as we stare into the eyes of what could be and what is becoming.

That sacred element is when our life stops looking like a shitty to-do list of moving, making new friends, opening back accounts, and fighting (yet again) about children, finances and career choices.  We open a bit and let the light in.  That's the great moment in divorce. 

A few brave souls have gone before you to find that point of sublime in an otherwise family tragedy of divorce.  You too can join them on the other side, if you are willing to work for it.  Divorce ritual is very doable. I invite you to this new experience.  Welcome.