N a m e R e v e r b
To our infantile, new-born senses our name is first an abstract music. The consonants and vowels coalesce and echo the imprint of their original sounds within our cells. Like a mantra repeated, a prayer incited, our name conjures us as animated personalities within a specific, framed context, identifying us to the manifest world of our familial settings and rooting us in the 3-D of physical reality.
Often these names, particularly our last names, are deeply infused with preliminary definition, reference and meaning. Be it through cultural, religious or socio-political association, our names become an activating principle which imbue us with the blueprint of pre-rehearsed character traits from the modest or epic people who embodied our names before us. This lends a pre-defined history and ancestral guardianship/ memory to us before we have even developed as distinct, autonomous beings; our very first map from which we learn to navigate the course and context of our emerging lives.
When socialized as children into the complex world of human relating, we further infuse and empower the myriad frames of reference every time we speak our name to another and hear it spoken back. The memories we create become the gems that go into the very treasure chest (or Pandora’s Box!) of our name, echoing the experiences which linger there as living legacies. By way of transmission, these reverberations in our name continually pass onward as personal inheritances and we extend this complexity of ourselves, attracting the very conscious and unconscious associations which imbue our name with its radial living story.
This is far from being a neutral gift given at birth. It suggests a non-negotiable commitment to be of the specific affiliations to which we are named, to actively carry on the family torch by way of the “passed down” name, to be forever bracketed by the ghosts of these former bloodlines. Despite the mysteries of DNA and genetics and the latent biological information we actually carry of our blood lineages, the family name we are given often emphasizes one particular line of this blood; generally the patrilinear line of the historic male hierarchies.
As last names historically suggest an "ownership" and economic hierarchy (as well as the gifts of ancestral guidance and blessing), the passing down of a patrilineal name is weighted with the assumption that we will continue to be primarily identified within this male artery, like traceable property of our forefathers. Our mothers, grandmothers and their mother’s mothers were stripped of their “Maiden” name upon marriage with little choice or say in the matter, often with great difficulty adjusting to such a disorienting shift. Women were immediately re-contextualized and assimilated into a socio-political position primarily defined by their new husband and his family reputation and standing, obscuring a woman's own personal story. This was originally intended so men could uphold a pinnacle position in the referenced world. By the power of a name change these historic wives became “of” and “for” their husbands, even in lieu of any genuine love bonding them in the first place.
To choose a name for oneself is a powerful, transformational act, which can facilitate a deep connection to aspects of our being dwelling within the core of our current experience. It can be integral to the fusing of our physical, emotional, and spiritual life-currents. Like consciously taking a partner’s name in marriage, an act which claims you are now changed and have aligned with a new identity, a personal name change, whether self-chosen or given is also marking a rite of passage, an emergence into a new form, a new life. Like a marriage to the Self, a name change can signify a renewal of our life purpose.
Name change can happen in many different ways, for a variety of reasons. At the heart of this experience lies the desire to actively align with the significant changes of our life, be it the physical changes of childhood and adolescence right into adulthood, on through marriage, parenthood, divorce, illness or by way of our aging. It may arise from the emotional charge of our many heartbreaks, healing crises, and relationships and the subsequent integration of the insightful, sometimes cataclysmic understandings which accompany these. Or name change may be triggered by a deeper connection to God/ess, to an identity so newly infused with Spirit as to midwife a symbolic, psychological rebirth.
In changing our name we can intimately invite others to observe, even participate and share the remarkable changes we have experienced from within. This can be particularly meaningful and necessary for those on an accelerated spiritual/ learning path, or for those whose life’s events have been so dramatic and life-changing that a new orientation of name is what gives a “face” to the altered and renewed perception of life. Though not for everyone, the journey toward choosing an authentic name can be a heightened and truth-seeking quest, a unique form of self-enlightenment and personal-cosmic flight.
A name, whether given at birth, given later in life, or a name self-chosen, is an opportunity to enter into a doorway of awareness and glimpse what is true therein. A name is the presence of mind, of heart we give when we comprehend something of honest meaning and wish to touch it more intimately. Within a name there is mystery and definition, resonance and potential. To this we listen, pure and clear, and if we truly hear, we will find that within all names lies a name, within another name, echoing, whispering and weaving hidden tales into living dreams.
Listen.
Listen............
