Finding My Name….Like a Viking

This past weekend I boarded a vessel across the water to Whidbey Island and stepped through the hedge into the sacred sanctuary of Aldermarsh. I was attending one of Joanna Powell-Colbert’s Gaian Soul Retreats, something I had been wanting to experience since I first discovered Joanna and her stunning deck, the Gaian Tarot, in 2012. This was a special EarthDreaming retreat, and the first of its kind to bring men into the circle with us. Having been in female-dominated spaces most of my life (my mother has five sisters, most of whom had girls themselves, and theatre these days has a definite XX leaning) I was excited to share the space with them. I had previously attended two of Joanna’s one day tarot workshops in Bellingham and so I had at least a little bit of an idea of what to expect. Nevertheless, as I drove from the ferry and into the woods I could feel a knot of anxiety tightening up in my stomach.

An accurate representation of what life often feels like.

My spiritual life has always, always been intensely private to me. I am not open about my pagan beliefs with my family, and only in the past two years have I started to be less secretive about it with my friends. It’s less out of a fear of judgement and more that it’s such a deep, core part of my nature that sharing it feels like too great of a vulnerability. Like telling your true name to the Sidhe. I did not have good experiences with sharing myself and being vulnerable in my childhood and adolescence, which makes the “I” part of my INFJ personality very strong indeed. I’m nervous around new people, and here I was putting myself not only in the midst of new people but these were new people who would want to know things about me. Let me tell you, there is nothing more terrifying to an introvert than a stranger asking personal questions! (Except phone calls. Phone calls are the worst).

But that night after James Wells (our amazing co-host) led us in the opening invocation of drums and voice to welcome the spirits in to our work I began to have a realization: No one, not a single person, here was going to find my spiritual actions at all weird. No one here was going to tell me that I was doing it wrong, or be perplexed by me sitting by myself in silence. I was even accepted, by telepathic consensus it seemed, as ‘resident valkyrie’. It was like taking off a blindfold to find yourself looking out over a waterfall or at a stunning work of art. I felt suddenly so much lighter.

My cards for Day 1: Queen of Wands (Mary-el Tarot) and The Shaman (Wildwood Tarot)

What I take home: Temperance (Mary-el Tarot)

Goddess eye: ‘She Who Wanders’

Our beautiful center altar

We went to some very intense places with each other, the highlight of which for me was the Double Circle of the Work That Reconnects. It was cathartic and left me feeling hopeful that despite all the obstacles that seem so insurmountable we really do have a chance to change our ways of life to be sustainable and kind to this world which is our only home. In the glow of that hope I went for a walk on the beach. I breathed in the beautiful salt air and just wandered the shore, picking up shells and peering into tidal pools at the little darting fish and scuttling crabs (one even climbed up on my toes and began grooming me with his teeny claws). I followed two different herons down the shore and saw my soul’s home, my mountain, ever watchful in the distance. 

My greatest revelation, though, came at the very end. On the last day we each had the opportunity to speak into the circle our goals and our needs to accomplish them. I talked about my two crafts–stitchcraft and wordcraft–and my intention to be dedicated to them, using in service of of worthy causes. I also spoke about my need for support in taking ownership of my work, since for a long time I’ve taken pains to separate especially my written art from myself. After our closing ritual, as we all milled about Marsh House snapping some final photos, one of my retreat sisters gave me a message. The specifics I’m keeping for myself, but what made it so incredible is that part of it was a charge to find my own name. My struggle with my given name is something that I hadn’t discussed at all with anyone. I have never felt at peace with my legal name. I’m quite attached to my middle name and it’s the one I now use in my daily life, but as far as making a presence for myself as a creative mystic even that doesn’t quite feel right. For a long time I’ve been skeptical of the concept of a “magical name”. I do have an Elvish name that I made for myself, but it is my Cilmesse, my chosen name and not for public use. I’ve had multiple pen names online in the fanfiction community over the years. I was AuroraOrodel for a while, then Mayhem O’Malley, and now MayhemCirheryn on AO3. But when it comes to claiming ownership of my worlds when the time comes to send them out into the readersphere, what name will they belong to? When I expand and begin sharing my stitchcraft, what name will those creations belong to? What name does this blog belong to?

As I unpacked my bags and looked through my pictures after returning to the world, it came to me in a rush of perfect synchronicity:  What rune do I carry with me every day? Where am I happiest and what has called to me through stories and in my heart since childhood?

wynn

the young woman and the sea

It was so obvious once I knew it. Scribbled hastily in my devotional, the first thing I did when I returned home, is the phrase “I am She Who Dances in the Surf”. The rune I carry is wynn, joy, and though I love the fields and the mountains and the forests, my heart belongs to the sea.

Hello, big world. My name is Saewynn. 

Dreaming. Becoming.

For the past few weeks I have had vivid dreams. Some of them terrifying, others revelatory. I used to be in the habit of recording my dreams and more than one has proven to be very fertile story soil, but my dreams are mostly inconsistent at best. I often don’t remember them, even in the moments after waking up. But one dream in particular has stuck with me this week.

My boyfriend and I had come into possession of an old house. The sort with rough wood and creaking stairs, paint peeling away from the single-pane windows. It looked out over the water and was built right up on the shore so that it even had basement boat access. The only furniture was a dilapidated sitting room couch and a rather fancy pool table. Outside was an old swimming pool that had overgrown into a lake from disuse, but the water was still crystal clear. As I walked around it (accompanied by my father and boyfriend) I could see all the way to the mossy bottom and all the myriad sized goldfish that had taken up residence there. We were in search of the landlord, or perhaps he was the groundskeeper? We found him and he showed us to what he said was the library. It was a wholly separate building tucked in a stand of evergreens. It was one large circular room, bookshelves lining the walls. The domed ceiling was carved with stars, but the room itself was full of chairs and there was a stage as though it’s real purpose was to be a small woodland theatre. In that sudden way that dreams have, the scene shifted and I was standing among a crowd of people in the audience of that tiny theatre library. A drum beat began to play and the drummer, a huge man with wild black hair, leaped into the room. As the drums grew louder and the rhythm more intricate we were all drawn into an ecstatic spiral dance.

And then I was handed a book. I knew this book was an index of sorts, cataloging deities and spirits and that I was looking for Someone in that book. I thumbed through a few pages and landed on on showing the pen and ink portrait of a stern but not unkind man, pale, with high cheek bones and black hair. Below him was a sigil, a variation on the Gates of Moria, but with the eight point star resting between the hammer and anvil rather than below it. Looking at that symbol I knew the portrait was that of the Smith God, and it was Him that I was seeking.  A familiar feeling of connection welled up within me, the same sensation I experience sometimes in ritual or when compelled to write for my gods, and then I was awake.

Now I have no skill at dream interpretation, and I’ve not asked anyone who does for their thoughts on this dream (though I’d certainly welcome insights). I don’t know who the Smith God may be, but I do know that whoever he is he chose to appear to me as I prepare to begin a massive creative endeavor in the guise of Fëanor, the greatest (but also most wild-tempered) creative spirit of Middle-earth. I have had a none too small obsession with this character and his family since the age of 12. It is clear, to me anyway, that his wild creativity and dedication to his craft is what I need going into this project and in my life in general.

A few nights later, I dreamed of a flower–a pale pink water lily, I think– unfolding from my belly. I’ve been feeling disconnected from my spiritual self, afraid that my impulses are disingenuous. I feel a need to get back into readings, but I have this fear that I’m only tricking myself and therefore would be tricking others were I to start reading publicly. I question whether I really have what it takes to be a spiritual and creative person at all. But this half-dream of a blooming flower made it clear, again, what I need.I have always been a very closed off, private person, but it’s time to let go of that fear and allow myself to open. I need to tend my spiritual side as much as I need to tend the rational and physical parts of myself. I must allow myself to Become.