About Clarity

about_clarityClarity (who also answers to Clare and Cal) is a queer nonbinary priest, musician, contemplative, and dervish living, working, and loving in unceded Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, and səlilwətaʔɬ land.

Clarity was born to an early music chorister and a coffee shop guitar player from very musical families, and grew up singing mostly in church choirs, studying under Anglican choral luminaries like Matthew Larkin, Rupert Lang, and Michael Gormley. They were introduced to the Celtic harp in 2001, and studied under Mehlinda Heartt for two years before striking out on their own, playing Celtic, Medieval, and classical music in tea houses, churches, and palliative care wards while receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Victoria with a focus on poetry, drama, and art history.

In 2004, Clarity spent a year in the wilds of Norwich, England at the University of East Anglia, where they joined the short-lived rock band Crosshair and rejoined the Anglican Church after several years as a Wiccan. They returned to Canada a much more complex and fascinating contradiction and have continued to deepen this aspect of their spiritual great work. They are just as comfortable in a church at high mass leading “Morning has broken” as in a Goth club playing Metallica’s “Nothing else matters” as in a gathering of Sufi whirling dervishes playing Mohammed Reza Lotfi’s “Biyah, biyah.”

In 2010 Clarity began seminary at the Vancouver School of Theology where they received the Lloyd Gaston award in New Testament studies for their major exegesis, “Courting the Logos: A Postmodern Genderqueer Femme’s Honeymoon with John 1:1-5.” Clarity was ordained to the priesthood in the Anglican Church of Canada in 2016 and served as curate to the parish of St. Philip’s in Dunbar Heights, Vancouver until 2017. They then served as chaplain to an intentional community and a complex care facility before being appointed in 2021 to serve as pastor to the St. Brigid’s congregation at Christ Church Cathedral in Vancouver. In 2022 they were also invited to serve as priorix to Sanctuary of the Arts, an affirming, intersectional arts-based spiritual community grounded in creative contemplative practices.

Clarity also serves as a mutrib (musician) in the Inayati Sufi community in Vancouver and has performed alongside brilliant local and international musicians, poets, and scholars such as Mukhtiyar Ali, Dawn Avery, Seemi Ghazi, and Amir O’Loughlin.

If asked to describe their work, Clarity might self-identify as a “Trinitarian threshold minister,” holding many identities within one container and refusing categorization in gender, sexuality, religion, genre, and doctrine while remaining grounded in their ancestral faith of Anglicanism, the sacraments, and their Scots-Gaelic, English, and Celtic heritage. Clarity’s deepest calling, referred to by one mentor as “the sacramental hearth,” is co-creating a home for all those who seek spiritual solace through chaplaincy, soul-friendship, preaching, and offerings of art and music.

Clarity, who also plays guitar, mandolin, ukulele, Appalachian dulcimer, and lyre, has self-produced eight albums of devotional material for Lent and Advent, and a musical setting of Christina Rosetti’s haunting proto-feminist poem “Goblin Market.” All are available for purchase and download at https://clarityharp.bandcamp.com/

You can hear more of Clarity’s music on Soundcloud here.

Clarity also performs with a local group called The Neighbourhood Gospel Band, founded in 2023 by the Rev. Dr. Pitman Potter, OC.

BOOKING AND RATES

Clarity has twenty years’ experience performing at weddings and corporate or private events. If you would like Clarity to perform at your event, please email clarity@clarityharp.ca

RATES

Performances lasting 1 hour or less: $300.00

Additional hour: $75.00

The starting rate includes early arrival, set-up time, and ambient music before/after weddings or other ceremonies.

Clarity will write or send an invoice prior to the date of your event. Amounts are determined by performance time agreed upon before the event. If Clarity plays for less time than agreed upon, the amount on the invoice is still the amount that must be paid. If Clarity plays for longer, they must be paid for the extra time.

WEDDINGS

Clarity has been performing at weddings since 2002 and is honoured to perform at weddings of any faith tradition or orientation. Please be advised that at this time Clarity is not in the habit of booking more than six months in advance. Clarity has a typical “wedding set” consisting of the Pachelbel Canon as well as other wedding-appropriate music. If you have something special in mind, please let Clarity know. Note also that while Clarity is licensed to wed you can’t get a “package deal” for a celebrant and musician at this time – but they are happy to preach if you ask!

Please be advised that weddings held outside the Vancouver area may be subject to an increase in rate for travel time. Clarity does not perform on Vancouver Island or any of the surrounding islands.