A Ceremony & An Aquarian Vision

On Friday the Naturalization Ceremony proceeded as planned, though with much unexpected waiting time.

After staying just south of the city center overnight Thursday, we set off downtown around 8am, Friday and found a carpark close to our venue. We listened to the car radio until 9, then wandered up to the Courthouse. A few people had already arrived and were going through the usual "take off your shoes and walk through the archway, empty your pockets, take off your belt, and put your bags here to go through the scanner" routine. We joined them, duly passed through, having been proved pure and without sin.

The Ceremonial Courtroom is on the 3rd floor. Already in the corridor a group of people had gathered and were being informed by an official of proceedings to come. She said that the actual ceremony would not start until 12 noon, there would be a large number of applicants. Paperwork must first be processed. Meanwhile family and friends could wait in an adjoining courtroom, or visit a snack bar on the ground floor.

After a while I moved into the designated courtroom to await arrival of INS officials, my husband waited in the courtroom nextdoor. The paperwork, I eventually found out, entailed waiting to be called up to INS officials at a bank of desks, hand in our greencards, check and sign our Naturalization Certificates, and be handed a form to make the change in our Social Security status. We were also given a seat number for the ceremony. A separate bank of seats for the 140 applicants was arranged to the right of the judges' bench. Paperwork processing seemed interminable, it was well over an hour before my own name was called.

At 11.30 applicants were told to take their seats, according to the number they'd been given (mine was 69 - no sly grins please!) By this time my husband had managed to slide into a seat towards the back of the Ceremonial Courtroom, now filling rapidly with families and friends of applicants. The overflow, and there was a large one, was accommodated in another court equipped with a large screen for viewing the ceremony.

At exactly noon, five judges filed in. Everyone rose as the judges took their places on the bench. The chief judge, a female, welcomed us, said a few words then handed over to a designated INS official to "present" the 140 applicants who came, we were told, from 42 different countries. The official spoke briefly then named, in alphapbetical order, the native countries of all the applicants, asking each to stand when their country was called. I was the only one of the 140 from the UK. Every continent was represented. This, of course, was just one of many similar ceremonies, held monthly in three areas of Oklahoma, and regularly in every one of the other 49 states. I find this a mind-boggling proposition!

Next, we, the applicants, were asked to stand, raise our right hands, and repeat after the Clerk of the Court the words of the Oath of Allegiance. Each of the five judges then spoke briefly, after which the Pledge of Allegiance was recited by all present. The judges then left and a video of President G.W. Bush, welcoming us as new citizens, was shown, followed by another video of scenes of American life, a patriotic song playing in the background.

I hadn't expected to feel as emotional as I did. I joked later that it was the sight of G.W. Bush that made my cry, but I lied. I had an overwhelming sense of the nobility of the original vision for the United States, as I sat there in the midst of 140 people, born in so many different countries. Many of my companions had experienced a far greater struggle than I'd had to reach this point. The thought passed through my mind then that the USA is truly an Aquarian country. Whatever chart is used by astrologers cannot change the fact that, in essence the vision was, and is, pure Aquarius. There have been broken dreams and wrong turnings, but beneath it all, I'm confident that vision remains intact.

Applicants were then asked to file out in seat number order to officially receive their Certificates of Naturalization, and some other paperwork, along with a small US flag - I can be seen waving mine in the photograph immediately below. The second photo, taken in our hotel room, shows the end result of the journey I embarked upon back in 2004 - my Certificate of Naturalization.





Reunited with my husband, I was happy to see that his son, daughter-in-law and grandson had also been present in the adjoining room watching the ceremony. We all went off to enjoy a celebration lunch, by-passing a huge and very slow-moving line of folks waiting to process their Social Security amendments at a desk out in the corridor. We decided to deal with this little matter at our local office early next week, rather than wait for what could be a further hour or two at the court.

A remark of one of the judges has stayed with me. His words: "The United States of America is no longer just your home, now it is your country."