Divorce vows to myself: with officiant Chris Lafazanos

09/08/22 • 45 min

In this episode I talk to Chris Lafazanos, a celebrant or officiant, and ceremony guide, about her own love and divorce story, how she created a divorce ceremony for herself. We do a deep dive into all the ways the hetero, white supremacist, capitalist, colonial patriarchy builds up marriage, to warp our perspective, experiences, and ultimately set us up for failure. Even how these systems define and put a value judgement on what 'failure' means. Most importantly we talk about all the beautiful things we can create together to make up for lost, broken, or missing ceremony. Alone, with our current or past partners, and our community. Throw in a few references to astrology, cultural appropriation, and being so, so happy to be queer.

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As a ceremony guide, Chris Lafazanos (she/her) supports people in creating meaningful, story-filled ceremonies that are either non-religious or spiritual to mark life’s important milestones like weddings, memorials, child welcoming ceremonies and divorce ceremonies. She’s passionate about how ceremony builds individual and community resilience as it creates opportunities for connection—to both celebrate together and grieve together. As a queer person, Chris is focused on serving fellow 2SLGBTQ in ceremony. For more information, check out woven-threads.ca

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Previous Episode

Breaking up with The Man: with Carlos Andrés Gómez and Jeff Perera

We're back baby! In this season two opener, I interview some of my favourite people, Carlos Andrés Gómez and Jeff Perera. We talk about helpful and unhelpful ideas of manhood and how they influence relationships. And of course, breakups. These unhelpful ideas of masculinity are not intrinsic to men or masculine people. So we talk a lot about character and qualities, what underpins gut reactions, and how we can do things differently. Together, Carlos and Jeff are the perfect messengers and I'm thrilled and entirely honoured to be kicking off the season with them. This episode is loaded with sweet metaphors, laughs, and mic drops: this conversation was like a healing balm. Join The Big D community by supporting on Patreon or following along on Instagram! - Carlos Andrés Gómez is a Colombian American poet, speaker, and equity & inclusion strategist from New York City. Gómez's poetry collection Fractures (University of Wisconsin Press, 2020) was selected by Natasha Trethewey as the winner of the 2020 Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry. Winner of the Foreword INDIES Gold Medal and the International Book Award for Poetry, Gómez has been published in New England Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, The Yale Review, and elsewhere. For more, please visit: CarlosLive.com Jeff Perera is a renowned speaker and facilitator having spoken across North America about our construction of gender, helpful versus harmful ideas of manhood, and inspiring men towards empathy-building, facing hard truths, and helping end gender-based violence. Jeff encourages men and young men to 'Be The Lesson in Action' and strive to become models of possibility for other men. Jeff started HigherUnlearning.com as an online space to explore how our ideas of masculinity impact all of us. You can hear, read, or watch media appearances, interviews, and news articles there.

Next Episode

The Ultimate D: Zach's grief story

This is a personal one for me. Yes, all the episodes are personal but this one involves some of my own grief. This episode is the Ultimate D, a title bestowed by my guest, one of my close friends, Zach. The ultimate D being death. Last year, my friend and Zach's wife Tarin, died.

In this episode, Zach shares his love story, and about his grief, we talk about what it’s like to be alone, after having the future you hoped for erased. And, we talk about what healing has looked like for him.

Join The Big D community by supporting on Patreon or following along on Instagram!

Zach was born and raised in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, but now calls Toronto home. As part of his resetting of his life, he is just in the process of launching a brand new travel company called Dinosaur Trips that specializes in dinosaur and paleontology-based experiences to destinations around the world. Maybe this will be the first job he's had that he identifies as part of who he is, but maybe not. We'll see. The main things he cares about are music, movies, books, pop culture in general, and sports. Plus friends and family, because of course. And he has a dog named Dixie and a Montreal Canadiens-centric podcast called The Montreal Bias that may or may not come back at some point soon. Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere else.