My beloved eldest daughter Josi was married yesterday to Eli. Today those who brought their great hearts and huge spirits to join in this celebration are travelling back to the furthest reaches of this continent, including those who drove down from Canada, flew in from New York, California, Chicago, Colorado, across the fields and through the hollers into the Magic Field at Fines Creek to watch these two make their vows and promises in the cradle of the glory mountains. It has been the most real and surreal period, and happiest time of my life since the day my second daughter, Arlene, was born in 1986.

Alone in the quiet after-stillness on the mountain now, with tables, tents, flowers, leftovers and witnessing trees, while the neighbor’s chickens scan the yard for pickings, my brain starts to organize ever so slightly how to regroup from here. First thing in the realm of priorities would be to write a thank you note to every single person who helped make it happen. This could take me a happy month of writing and would include a note to each spirit who walked in the door having bravely accepted the challenges of arriving at a place no map service or GPS system seems to know exists, where no cell phone signals arrive, coming over seemingly endless miles of unmarked gravel roads. Yet the smiles and braveheart energy kept walking right up the driveway to my home on Friday night for the hootenanny, and into the field down the mountain on Saturday for the wedding ceremony and festivities.

Overwhelmed, exhausted and beyond words I can’t lay my body down now without sending out a thank you letter into a vibratory field acknowledging the nameable and unnameable miracles that made a convergence such as this transpire with so much grace, with the spirits of Josi and Eli at the center of the whirl, while the mountain and weather spirits cradled them. Now there is a new saint up for recognition, Jim Beam.

Josi had heard that there is a mountain legend saying that if you bury a bottle of bourbon one month to the day before your wedding the mountains and weatherbeings will hear your prayer and save rain for another day. Since I was to be in Weaverville at my office on the day of August 17th one month before her wedding, I invested a mountain friend with the responsibility of stopping by my place to bury the bottle for me. As it happened, my friend Lou arrived as my neighbor J.R. happened to be here, so they buried the bottle together. J.R. said, “You’re burying that bottle before you drink it?” Lou explained the legend. He told me the next day that that was the most unnatural thing he has ever done, to put a full bottle of bourbon into the ground. He said, “Let’s drink it and then we won’t care whether it rains or not!” Nevertheless they honored the request.

I arrived home the night after the burial and started watering plants in my new flower garden. Behold, there was a cross sorrowfully and lovingly placed in the soil that read: “Jim Beam, buried alive. 2011.” J.R. had had to give his respects to this unnatural death.

As the wedding day approached our countyhad sunny gorgeous day after day leading up to the weekend. However a foreboding forecast was announced everywhere that over the weekend the temperatures would go to very cold, with thunderstorms expected on Friday and Saturday, the days of my party and the wedding. I imagined the possibility of all of us freezing and wet, yet kept faith in our rite to Jim.

Against all weather odds, he pulled through. We had bright blue skies, moderate temparatures, just enough sunshine to make us feel kissed, not enough to feel scorched. The weather couldn’t have been more perfect.

The magic field was magic. The wedding was, according to numerous people, the most beautiful wedding they had ever witnessed – full of thoughtful intentionality, heartful enthusiasm, poetry, music, humor, joyous dancing and most of all Love.

September 17th, a new feast day. A day of grateful  toasts to Jim Beam and his connection to magical spirits. Endless thank you notes to come, from the mother of the most beautiful bride I have ever seen.