About Me
Warm Greetings and Bright Blessings!
I am Karen Andersen, High Priestess of Ash Grove and active clergy person to the wider Pagan, interfaith, and alternative communities. I have been a legal officiant since 2005, performing all manner of official and unofficial ceremonies in MA and RI. I am currently working on my M.Div at Cherry Hill Seminary with a focus on Public Ministry, Advocacy, and Leadership. I am on the staff at the First Unitarian Church in New Bedford, teaching religious education to 8 to 12-year-olds. I also serve that congregation as Chair of the Religious Services Committee, as an officiant, and as a representative to the Inter-Church Council.
My calling is to write and perform personal, customized rites of passage for everyone, regardless of your beliefs or lack of beliefs, no matter who you love or how you love them, and for whatever occasion you want to bring meaning to.
I am Karen Andersen, High Priestess of Ash Grove and active clergy person to the wider Pagan, interfaith, and alternative communities. I have been a legal officiant since 2005, performing all manner of official and unofficial ceremonies in MA and RI. I am currently working on my M.Div at Cherry Hill Seminary with a focus on Public Ministry, Advocacy, and Leadership. I am on the staff at the First Unitarian Church in New Bedford, teaching religious education to 8 to 12-year-olds. I also serve that congregation as Chair of the Religious Services Committee, as an officiant, and as a representative to the Inter-Church Council.
My calling is to write and perform personal, customized rites of passage for everyone, regardless of your beliefs or lack of beliefs, no matter who you love or how you love them, and for whatever occasion you want to bring meaning to.
About Rites of Passage
The life passages we go through shape who we are, and I believe in marking those passages with something meaningful - not to me, but to YOU, whoever you may be and whatever you may believe. This is my calling. I create and perform ceremonies for welcoming new children, rites for young men and women, weddings and handfastings and renewals of vows, new house blessings, rites for healing or dying, memorial services for our beloved people or pets who have passed on, and just about any other occasion deserving of ceremony.
We live in an age where "spiritual but not religious" resonates with many people. There's a wide swath of people who are under-served in the area of rites of passage because of a lack of clergy who understand the practices and beliefs of alternative spiritual paths and religious groups, or those who choose to avoid religious overtones all together. As an active community clergy-person, I hope to make meaningful rites of passages accessible to all.