The wisdom of a tribe, a culture or a people is passed on through ritual and ceremony. The sanctifying, or making sacred, of these passages in our lives that are the most simple or Globally common is the job of the elders and Tribal Traditions. Story telling is born of such direct and divine experiences. We of MorningStar Community celebrate our life passages with ritual and ceremony. In spiritual and common union we bring the sacred to birth; to blessing ways for coming of age, for wife hood, motherhood and sage hood; to our inipi sweat lodge; to rebirthing; to soul retrieval; to solstice gatherings and personal and collective retreats. Here we share with you our wisdom ways for Baptisms, Weddings and Funerals or our belonging first to our Earth Tribe, to another by choice and ultimately to Self and the Great Creator. May your journey lead you along a peaceful path to Wise Elder Wisdom and may your life be a blessing to your people.

Baptisms on the Holyland

All Baptisms are designed by the parents or adult child in harmony with their traditional and religious affinities. Respect is offered to all religious disciplines of peaceful purpose. The native ways are practiced along side personal and private religious paths.

To visit the Holyland, please contact us or call for an innerview.

Blessingways & Weddings

“A peaceful glen near Osage Beach, Missouri was the lovely setting for the evening marriage between Tabitha Renee Mountjoy and Steven Lamar Hall (on 16 June 2001). Family and friends traveled great distances to share in the joy of the ceremony. The wedding party included sisters, brothers, cousins, aunts, fathers, mothers and the couple’s two dogs as ring bearers. The beautiful flower bouquets and arrangements were handmade by the bride and her bridesmaids on the day of the wedding. The happy bride and groom will reside in Charleston, S.C., with the ring bearers where Tabitha has a private practice as a Rolfer and Steve serves in law enforcement.”

Weddings are lovely. Weddings on the Holyland are both lovely and sacred. It is within the community that weddings become a holy ceremony sanctifying the marriage of two people whose desire it is to create and experience family life. Marriage is a holy union, a sacrament, a spiritual agreement, the mystery of two becoming one. The wedding ceremony invites community presence and blessing.

MorningStar Community contains many people from diverse religions, backgrounds and practices. With respect to all disciplines, weddings are designed by the participants according to personal preferences, religious affiliations and spiritual principles. It is our intention to have all weddings celebrated within family and community. For MorningStar Community couples, a Native American blessingway for the bride often precedes the weddings. Blessingways are celebrated within community and designed by sisters using sacred rituals, prayers, readings, handmade gifts, songs and a feast. The four elements of earth, air, fire, and water are used as the foundation for creating the Blessingway and Wedding ceremonies. Basic ceremony outlines are available for use, review, or inspiration.

Seven Blessings of Community

We offer the following seven blessings to our community – pausing to add, “May it be so,” after each blessing.

May we know open and honest communication, sharing our hopes, dreams, fears, feelings, thoughts and visions, trusting one another in matters of the heart, mind and soul.

May we be a comfort and healer to one another in times of ailment, whether of the body, the mind or the soul.

May we share long life and lasting health.

May our wealth be on all levels – physical, emotional, mental and spiritual – and be cheerfully shared.

May our children’s children play at our feet.

May the work of our hands feed our hearts and souls as well as our bodies.

From this day forward, may Love be the beginning, the middle and the end of what bonds us together and keeps us as one.

A minimum three-month preparation encounter with the resident hermitess is required for weddings on the Holyland. For more detailed information, or an initial innerview, contact MorningStar directly at 573-348-6288.

Funerals ~ Memorials

Stern as death is Love.      Relentless as the netherworld is Devotion. Its flames are a blazing fire.      Deep waters cannot squelch Love Nor Floods sweep it away.                ~ Song of Songs 8:6b-7a

We live in a world that has lost the sanctity of birth and death. And we live in a world that is re-creating traditions, ceremonies and rituals of healing for these great portal passages. MorningStar Community is committed to preserving home death and bringing the simple and sacred to the memorials and celebrations of our departing and departed loved ones. With utmost respect to tender hearts in mourning we visit the sick and sit with the dying of our community. We encourage all people to create close circles within community to support one another in times of great loss.

By living close to the powers of death we are brought face to face and heart to heart with the natural rhythms of the life-death-life cycles. Instinctual Living within a Spiritual Community gifts us with renewing hope, faith and love, especially at the great moments of Earthly departure of our loved ones. Personal rituals and collective ceremonies, like funerals or memorials, when designed by and for the participants, lift the soul and shed light upon a darkened hour.

Pets are people. We acknowledge and respectfully say our farewells to these sojourners who have lived with us, sharing love and instinct for the making of a peace-filled world. They too, like our wise elders, teach us how to live with the sacred.

If we live long enough, we are called to sit bedside with death. It is a privilege to love so fully and experience so deeply the transcendent journey of another. May the simple and sacred guide you wisely. If MorningStar Community can help create sacred ceremony, please contact us.

MorningStar Community is an intentional, ecumenical community founded by a Cherokee Hermitess and Catholic mystic. Our mission is to preserve and protect the simple and sacred through instinctual living, educational experiences, spiritual direction, personal disciplines, and collective and individual spiritual retreats. Our vision is thus: we honor the wildish nature by finding sacred and encouraging in our selves and our kinsters the ways of instinctive knowing, of inner growth and spritual expansion and the passing on of wisdom through ritual and storytelling. We strive for world peace and global solidarity. While on the Holyland we uphold these principles: peaceful ways, not harming or forcing life, vegetarian lifestyle, gratitude/gratefulness, cherishing life, valuing relationships, simplistic living, loving as our divine spirit loves.

Website managed by: David Mountjoy