About Our Wedding:

Hello! This is Preston & Emily Klik. This is our wedding webpage. Ours was not a conventional blessed & beautiful wedding, but an UNCONVENTIONAL blessed & yet beautiful wedding. And we're thankful to the many who joined us - our families, our friends, and our spiritual community - on our wedding day.

 

Our wedding took place Friday August 6th, 2004 @ 6:30pm in Unity Chicago's beautiful garden gazebo. We invited friends, relatives, Unity members, and Landmark Forum graduates. We celebrated big-time (and alcohol-free) right after the ceremony inside Unity's building at the air-conditioned dance event Preston and Emily produce every month. The event is called "818 @ Unity --A Circus of the Spirit".

 

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INVOCATION

Here's our invocation, modified from Unity Chicago's invocation:

 

"We welcome you to Preston and Emily's wedding at Unity Chicago knowing and affirming together that no one is here by accident or coincidence.

Each of us is an essential part of the spiritual energy that is manifesting as love and light this evening.

We come together to affirm and celebrate our unity - our oneness - with each other, and with Spirit.

"Full with love, we bless and embrace people of every race, culture, lifestyle, and creed.

We honor and celebrate the many paths to God, the many names for the Divine, and the many ways to celebrate and express Loving Spirit.

We know and affirm that Source, as Light and Love, expresses on every path.

And especially we give thanks to the presence of The Christ-Light of recognition within Emily and Preston, as they commit their lives and possibility to each other, with all the power and support of our love and abundant blessings."

 

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Wedding Itinerary & Talent:

The weather was perfect and the garden beautiful. Emily and I wanted our wedding to be an out-picturing of the possibility we see for the world, a loving melding of cultures, of ages, of diversity. A celebration of the many forms Spirit takes as it chooses to manifest in the world, a celebration of you, and Us, as spirit lovingly expressing.

 

So we brought together some of our talented friends to share their special gifts with you, all in the name of Love, on our bless-ed wedding day. Tracy Demarco and her 30-string harp greeted the attendees. At 6:30 the wedding ceremony began with a welcome by the wonderful poetess Natasia Rana.

 

Preston's song "Passionata" was played as Preston and I began our processional to the gazebo from under the tree where we first met at Unity on September 7th 2003. The tree where the seed of our love was planted, and where our true love now blossoms to glorious fruition.The processional was led by Cynthia Von Orthal manning her Ganesha puppet, followed by Emily's son Justice throwing rose-petals, along with other children: Adrian, Anastasia, Apollo, Archnya, Brandon, Daphne, Eden, Elektra, Emily, Immanuel, Julia , Nate, Violet, led by Rhianna and Jamaica.

 

Tatiana Sanchez presented a short interpretive dance @ the foot of the gazebo to close the processional song. During the ceremony, which was officiated by Unity Chicago's wonderful Reverend Ed Townley, musical interludes were provided by the talented and beautiful Mona Jethmalani (singing partner with Preston in the Indian-scented KARMA SUTRA), and the African acapella trio OMI TUTU (featuring Tiombe, who often sings at colleges, clubs, and festivals in Preston Klik.'s Ritual).

 

As the parting processional, operatic singer Brother Tom sang Preston's song based on the sacred Sanskrit meditation blessing chant "Om Mane Padme Hum", accompanied by Tiombe and Mona.

 

Read My Hips Bellydancers performed in front of the gazebo as the processional proceeded.

 

The Thai Water Ceremony that friends Patty and Nancy Chinratana shared at their beautiful weddings allowed attendees to pour water from a conch shell onto our symbolically-bound hands, while sharing blessings with us. The bless-ed water, which ran from our hands into our Blessing Bowl, was blessed over and over by each participant. The water was then poured at the roots of the tree where we first met, where today's ceremony began.

 

At 8:00 818's drum circle --with bellydancers-- began in the gazebo.

 

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The Blessing Given by Natasia Rana

8:18, tonight's event where Emily and Preston first met, contains a magic number.

Eight plus eighteen is twenty-six.

Two plus six equals eight.

The number eight on its side is infinity, which looks like two circles kissing.

Tonight, may we honor the Infinite as it expresses through Emily and Preston, blessing and supporting them with amazing kissing circles, drawn with our hands, our words, and our love.

May their marriage and future together be as luminous and magical as a new constellation that is formed, named, and recognized by all.

It did not begin at the tree...

passion and healing has merged with creative love countless times and so the time came again for the world to witness such luminous grace in two bodies divinely guided to come together for the purpose of sharing one soul both ready and open...

it was still a surprisethe yin in his iris, the yang in her pupil;

no struggle, resistance, or force at their crossroads;

electric rings formed around their interlaced fingers...

the Big Bang contained within their handclasp...

the union instantly ecstatic; this time-honored alchemy,

this harmonious sanctuary did not begin at the tree;

it was only a landmark which needed to bring together what has never been apart.

 

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"Any thought that is not filled with love seems unholy." - Andre Gide"

 

Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love." - Leo Tolstoy

 

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Commitment Statements:

"The physical expression of Spirit through dance and other forms of music is an essential part of the mystical experience everywhere in the world. Unity in Chicago's monthly "818" Friday evenings are a joyful link between ancient traditions and cutting edge raves, giving everyone from infants to seniors a chance to feel and celebrate the creative power of music, movement, and healing." - Reverend Ed Townley wrote:

 

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Lord, Make me an instrument of your Peace.

Where there is hatred, let me be Love,

Where there is injury, let me be Pardon,

Where there is doubt, let me be Faith,

Where there is sadness, let me be Joy,

Where there is pain, let me be Healing,

Where there is dark, let me be Light.

Grant that I may not so much seek,

To be consoled, as to console,

To be understood, as to understand,

To be loved, as to Love and be Love.

For it is in giving that we receive,

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

And it is in letting go of limits, that we are born to new Life.

Amen

 

 

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"Until one is committed there is always hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness.

Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans:

The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too.

All sorts of things occur to help that would never otherwise have occurred.

A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising to one's favor all manner of unforeseen accidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would come his way.

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.

Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it."

- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

 

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The subject tonight is Love. And for tomorrow night as well. As a matter of fact I know of no better topic for us to discuss until we all die! - Hafiz, translated by Daniel Ladinsky

For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of our tasks; the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation. - Rainer Maria Rilke

"Some day after we have mastered the winds, the waves and gravity, we will harness for God the energies of love; and then for a second time in the history of the world, humans will have discovered fire." - Teilhard de Chardin

"Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you; bless those who curse you; pray for those who treat you spitefully." - Jesus Christ

"Right now, we are appearing as the very light of consciousness, alive as love, although we may require some training, like an artist would, to fully offer our self as love's gift." - David Deida from "Waiting to Love"

When I think of you,
fireflies in the marsh rise
like the soul's jewels,
lost to eternal longing,
abandoning my body
- Izumi Shikibu

Pillowed on your thighs in a dream garden,
little flower with its perfumed stamen,
singing, sipping from the stream of you --
sunset, moonlight -- our song continues.
-Ikkyu Sojun