My new name
All right, let's begin the discussion of the vacation revelations with the religious/secular name I mentioned last night. That one at least will be the easiest for me to explain even if its still hard to wrap my mind around how it happened.
This came to me as one of the many future plans Hermes was laying out while he had my undivided attention. I just wondered it again for a minute, what will I be calling myself when I run off to live this interesting new life you have all planned out for me; he came back with this, "Come on, you already know the answer to that." And as soon as that thought was in my head I realized he was right.
Several years ago now I started writing this book where the main character was me. I didn't know he was me when I was writing it, its embarrassing now to think of how long it took me to realize that. I should mention that's not something I usually do, nothing of myself goes into the people I write about the way it is for some writers (naturally, considering the sort of people I tend to write about :-)). I wrote this book obsessively for years, and I do mean obsessively; I'd wake up in the morning, sit at the computer and that's where I would stay except for short breaks every now and then to use the bathroom or get something to eat, until I was too tired to see straight anymore then I would go to bed. I never intended to get this book published, I used to say it was too violent (it sort of branched out into two stories at one point, the one that had to do with me and one revolving around this sadist killer, I still like him and I'm going to do something else with him one of these days) but that's bullshit, I mean American Psycho got published (yeah, I read that :-)) any vile thing I come up with would probably have a chance too. But even though I knew I'd never make money off of it, would never even try to, I kept working on it anyway; it was in my head, pressing on the front of my brain and I had to get it out.
When I eventually realized the main character was me, the story went out of my head; I stopped working on it and I stopped having any desire to get it finished. This was a big turning point for me, to realize this. In writing about him I got to learn things about myself that I didn't know before, I could learn why I was the way I was, how I got to be that way, what my thought process was, the reasons why I did certain things or felt a certain way, everything really. I think that was the moment when I started to care again, when all the things that had been dead inside me for close to a decade started struggling to come back to life. I was able to find a way to allow him to move on and be happy (or at least he would've been had I ever actually finished it, I knew how it would all end even if I never quite got there), so maybe there was some hope for me after all.
His name was Gavin Porter. Naming him was an interesting process. I had the last name from the beginning, that was just something in my head already (this is becoming altogether typical of me), the first name was harder to find. I must've went through twenty different names (so glad Porter is an easy one to work with) and nothing felt right though I couldn't have told you why. And then I found the name Gavin in this book I was reading at the time (Clive Barker's Books of Blood volume 3, the story was called Human Remains) and I felt this incredible excitement, oh my god there it is, that's his name. I allowed a select few people to read this book when I was writing it and every one of them, without fail, would give me the oddest compliments on that name, how perfect it was and how well it suited him, how it was his name; I'd ask what the hell that meant but no one could explain, it just was. But I agreed with them, it did suit him somehow. And he is me, and I think it suits me just fine too.
I'll get this out of the way now, because I'm sure somebody reading this is thinking it. I told one friend of mine about this so far and she pointed out to me (not as a discouragement, just as a fact) that I'd have to constantly explain to people that I'm not a man. What else is new, I do that all the time anyway. I have a fairly deep voice that causes at least half the people I talk to on the phone to address me as sir (the other half figure out I'm a woman with a deeper voice, not a man with a not so deep voice), having to correct them has never bothered me in the slightest (though they clearly think it must, "Oh my god, I'm so sorry!!!"). There have been plenty of jokes for years and years about how I'm probably really a man, never bothered me at all.
While I know that Gavin is technically a man's name, it has a more androgynous sound to my ears. It doesn't sound particularly masculine, nor does it sound very feminine, its right in the middle. Or at least that's my opinion, but things can sound different to different people (I know there are people out there who think Nicole is a very feminine name, I've never had that impression). That's one of the things I don't like much about names, most are very gender specific and that doesn't work very well for people like me. I lack any real sense of gender identity, I've never been able to understand why that's such an obsession for some people; I may physically be female but that fact doesn't define who I am. Masculine and feminine are terms created by people and people decide exactly what they mean, and those definitions are subject to change across time and culture (in American culture a hundred years ago it was considered very unfeminine to be intelligent or to have ambition, now (most) people don't think that way anymore). I am not feminine, not by any traditional understanding of that term; and while I may have a few characteristics that would be considered traditionally masculine, not everything about me could be called such and I don't consider myself to be masculine either. I loathe applying definite labels to myself, I enjoy floating around in that large gray area between the black and white of masculine and feminine so many people like to pretend is not actually there (but a rant against those simplistic morons would take us far from the point of this post). An androgynous name would be the only kind that could suit me, that would fit the kind of person that I am, and for me Gavin works as that. If I have to correct a few mistaken assumptions along the way that's okay, I'm not insulted by it.
The one thing I did change from my character's name is his middle name. I never really loved it, gave it to him only because he needed one but it wasn't a name I wanted to keep (it was Russell, in case anyone is curious). So I wondered what to replace it with and it popped into my head almost right away. Renee. Not a bad name as far as these things goes, not one I'd want for my first name but for a middle name its okay, and it sounded pretty good with the other two. Its a name I feel I could go by.
Now why is it a religious name? Well, I visited home on the weekend briefly, after having the idea of that name sitting in my head for an entire week, solidifying in there, becoming a reality. And while home I picked up my sister's baby name book and looked up the meanings. That's not normally something I do, not something I usually care that much about, but since Hermes seemed so approving of this name, it made me kind of curious. This is what I found.
Gavin, means "white hawk". The hawk is one of the sacred animals of Hermes, associated with him in ancient times according to theoi.com. This may not have been such a big deal if my deity had been Artemis instead, a deity with many animals in her train; again according to information I found on the website, the hawk is one of only three animals associated with Hermes. Seems like less of a coincidence that I managed to touch on one of only three. But even this could've been dismissed if that was all it was, so let's continue.
Porter, the last name, the family name in my case, also can be a first name so I could look it up. The book I was reading said it meant "keeper of the gate". Now that is almost a direct reference to Hermes, isn't it? Hermes is "before the gate", in ADF theology he would be considered a gatekeeper deity, he is the god of all things in between of which the image of a gate would be a more than adequate symbol.
And finally Renee, the only change I made, the name that just popped suddenly into my head, I looked that one up last. The meaning of that name is "reborn". Well that couldn't be more apt under the circumstances, don't you think?
I'll admit, this creeped me out more than a little bit. I've had the name Gavin Porter in my head for years, and I do mean years. I've been trying like hell to remember exactly when I first dreamed him up, exactly when I first started writing about him. I have it narrowed down to eighteen, or maybe even as early as seventeen. To give you some perspective, I first found Wicca sometime between nineteen and twenty, I started worshipping Hermes when I was twenty-three; this fictional character of mine predates Hermes' official entrance into my life by several years. And yet, looking at it this way, it almost seems like something he picked out himself. I look back to how that book got started and the obsessive way I worked on it, everything it ended up doing for me when I finally figured out why I was really working on it; this whole new life thing Hermes has planned probably wouldn't even be possible now were it not for that. Makes me wonder now exactly how long he's been around, hanging out at the very edge of my awareness, waiting for me to look up and notice him.
Anyway, there we have it. Gavin Renee Porter, a name that I like, that fits my personality well, that has deep personal meaning for me as well as a strong religious significance, one I can use in the Pagan community and out of it. Does it get better than that?
So from now on, this is the name I'm going to use online with all of you, in all the lists I'm on; wherever I might end up in life there'll be an internet connection near by and I don't plan to leave this community anytime soon. I will plan to have it legally changed at some point in the near future but that will be a little more tricky. I'll probably have to wait until right before I'm about to leave home for good, unless I find some way of doing it without my mother ever finding out I did it. I've for years threatened to legally change my first name (which is not Nicole, that's my middle name; I was named after a deceased relative, though it was always my parents' intention to call me Nicole and the only reason that's my middle name instead of the first was because my mother thought it sounded better that way; don't bother asking what it is, if I had any plans of telling I would've done so) and my mother throws a hissy fit every time I bring it up, she's threatened to throw me out of the house and disown me if I ever did it, at the very least I'm sure she'd be a giant pain in the ass about it for a very long time to come. She's my mother and its her right to name me and I just have to live with it, I have no right to change it now, that's the way she looks at it. And I'm not talking about just my first name anymore, I'm talking about scrapping the whole thing. Its just as well I suppose, I have a feeling I should wait to do that until I am ready to leave, keep that name the clean slate that it is and not use it with anyone I don't plan to definitely bring with me when I go.
That's one thing that came out of my vacation. Next time I'll try to discuss some of what else I was told, the vision of what my life will be and what my journey to priesthood will entail. That might take me a few days to do though.
This came to me as one of the many future plans Hermes was laying out while he had my undivided attention. I just wondered it again for a minute, what will I be calling myself when I run off to live this interesting new life you have all planned out for me; he came back with this, "Come on, you already know the answer to that." And as soon as that thought was in my head I realized he was right.
Several years ago now I started writing this book where the main character was me. I didn't know he was me when I was writing it, its embarrassing now to think of how long it took me to realize that. I should mention that's not something I usually do, nothing of myself goes into the people I write about the way it is for some writers (naturally, considering the sort of people I tend to write about :-)). I wrote this book obsessively for years, and I do mean obsessively; I'd wake up in the morning, sit at the computer and that's where I would stay except for short breaks every now and then to use the bathroom or get something to eat, until I was too tired to see straight anymore then I would go to bed. I never intended to get this book published, I used to say it was too violent (it sort of branched out into two stories at one point, the one that had to do with me and one revolving around this sadist killer, I still like him and I'm going to do something else with him one of these days) but that's bullshit, I mean American Psycho got published (yeah, I read that :-)) any vile thing I come up with would probably have a chance too. But even though I knew I'd never make money off of it, would never even try to, I kept working on it anyway; it was in my head, pressing on the front of my brain and I had to get it out.
When I eventually realized the main character was me, the story went out of my head; I stopped working on it and I stopped having any desire to get it finished. This was a big turning point for me, to realize this. In writing about him I got to learn things about myself that I didn't know before, I could learn why I was the way I was, how I got to be that way, what my thought process was, the reasons why I did certain things or felt a certain way, everything really. I think that was the moment when I started to care again, when all the things that had been dead inside me for close to a decade started struggling to come back to life. I was able to find a way to allow him to move on and be happy (or at least he would've been had I ever actually finished it, I knew how it would all end even if I never quite got there), so maybe there was some hope for me after all.
His name was Gavin Porter. Naming him was an interesting process. I had the last name from the beginning, that was just something in my head already (this is becoming altogether typical of me), the first name was harder to find. I must've went through twenty different names (so glad Porter is an easy one to work with) and nothing felt right though I couldn't have told you why. And then I found the name Gavin in this book I was reading at the time (Clive Barker's Books of Blood volume 3, the story was called Human Remains) and I felt this incredible excitement, oh my god there it is, that's his name. I allowed a select few people to read this book when I was writing it and every one of them, without fail, would give me the oddest compliments on that name, how perfect it was and how well it suited him, how it was his name; I'd ask what the hell that meant but no one could explain, it just was. But I agreed with them, it did suit him somehow. And he is me, and I think it suits me just fine too.
I'll get this out of the way now, because I'm sure somebody reading this is thinking it. I told one friend of mine about this so far and she pointed out to me (not as a discouragement, just as a fact) that I'd have to constantly explain to people that I'm not a man. What else is new, I do that all the time anyway. I have a fairly deep voice that causes at least half the people I talk to on the phone to address me as sir (the other half figure out I'm a woman with a deeper voice, not a man with a not so deep voice), having to correct them has never bothered me in the slightest (though they clearly think it must, "Oh my god, I'm so sorry!!!"). There have been plenty of jokes for years and years about how I'm probably really a man, never bothered me at all.
While I know that Gavin is technically a man's name, it has a more androgynous sound to my ears. It doesn't sound particularly masculine, nor does it sound very feminine, its right in the middle. Or at least that's my opinion, but things can sound different to different people (I know there are people out there who think Nicole is a very feminine name, I've never had that impression). That's one of the things I don't like much about names, most are very gender specific and that doesn't work very well for people like me. I lack any real sense of gender identity, I've never been able to understand why that's such an obsession for some people; I may physically be female but that fact doesn't define who I am. Masculine and feminine are terms created by people and people decide exactly what they mean, and those definitions are subject to change across time and culture (in American culture a hundred years ago it was considered very unfeminine to be intelligent or to have ambition, now (most) people don't think that way anymore). I am not feminine, not by any traditional understanding of that term; and while I may have a few characteristics that would be considered traditionally masculine, not everything about me could be called such and I don't consider myself to be masculine either. I loathe applying definite labels to myself, I enjoy floating around in that large gray area between the black and white of masculine and feminine so many people like to pretend is not actually there (but a rant against those simplistic morons would take us far from the point of this post). An androgynous name would be the only kind that could suit me, that would fit the kind of person that I am, and for me Gavin works as that. If I have to correct a few mistaken assumptions along the way that's okay, I'm not insulted by it.
The one thing I did change from my character's name is his middle name. I never really loved it, gave it to him only because he needed one but it wasn't a name I wanted to keep (it was Russell, in case anyone is curious). So I wondered what to replace it with and it popped into my head almost right away. Renee. Not a bad name as far as these things goes, not one I'd want for my first name but for a middle name its okay, and it sounded pretty good with the other two. Its a name I feel I could go by.
Now why is it a religious name? Well, I visited home on the weekend briefly, after having the idea of that name sitting in my head for an entire week, solidifying in there, becoming a reality. And while home I picked up my sister's baby name book and looked up the meanings. That's not normally something I do, not something I usually care that much about, but since Hermes seemed so approving of this name, it made me kind of curious. This is what I found.
Gavin, means "white hawk". The hawk is one of the sacred animals of Hermes, associated with him in ancient times according to theoi.com. This may not have been such a big deal if my deity had been Artemis instead, a deity with many animals in her train; again according to information I found on the website, the hawk is one of only three animals associated with Hermes. Seems like less of a coincidence that I managed to touch on one of only three. But even this could've been dismissed if that was all it was, so let's continue.
Porter, the last name, the family name in my case, also can be a first name so I could look it up. The book I was reading said it meant "keeper of the gate". Now that is almost a direct reference to Hermes, isn't it? Hermes is "before the gate", in ADF theology he would be considered a gatekeeper deity, he is the god of all things in between of which the image of a gate would be a more than adequate symbol.
And finally Renee, the only change I made, the name that just popped suddenly into my head, I looked that one up last. The meaning of that name is "reborn". Well that couldn't be more apt under the circumstances, don't you think?
I'll admit, this creeped me out more than a little bit. I've had the name Gavin Porter in my head for years, and I do mean years. I've been trying like hell to remember exactly when I first dreamed him up, exactly when I first started writing about him. I have it narrowed down to eighteen, or maybe even as early as seventeen. To give you some perspective, I first found Wicca sometime between nineteen and twenty, I started worshipping Hermes when I was twenty-three; this fictional character of mine predates Hermes' official entrance into my life by several years. And yet, looking at it this way, it almost seems like something he picked out himself. I look back to how that book got started and the obsessive way I worked on it, everything it ended up doing for me when I finally figured out why I was really working on it; this whole new life thing Hermes has planned probably wouldn't even be possible now were it not for that. Makes me wonder now exactly how long he's been around, hanging out at the very edge of my awareness, waiting for me to look up and notice him.
Anyway, there we have it. Gavin Renee Porter, a name that I like, that fits my personality well, that has deep personal meaning for me as well as a strong religious significance, one I can use in the Pagan community and out of it. Does it get better than that?
So from now on, this is the name I'm going to use online with all of you, in all the lists I'm on; wherever I might end up in life there'll be an internet connection near by and I don't plan to leave this community anytime soon. I will plan to have it legally changed at some point in the near future but that will be a little more tricky. I'll probably have to wait until right before I'm about to leave home for good, unless I find some way of doing it without my mother ever finding out I did it. I've for years threatened to legally change my first name (which is not Nicole, that's my middle name; I was named after a deceased relative, though it was always my parents' intention to call me Nicole and the only reason that's my middle name instead of the first was because my mother thought it sounded better that way; don't bother asking what it is, if I had any plans of telling I would've done so) and my mother throws a hissy fit every time I bring it up, she's threatened to throw me out of the house and disown me if I ever did it, at the very least I'm sure she'd be a giant pain in the ass about it for a very long time to come. She's my mother and its her right to name me and I just have to live with it, I have no right to change it now, that's the way she looks at it. And I'm not talking about just my first name anymore, I'm talking about scrapping the whole thing. Its just as well I suppose, I have a feeling I should wait to do that until I am ready to leave, keep that name the clean slate that it is and not use it with anyone I don't plan to definitely bring with me when I go.
That's one thing that came out of my vacation. Next time I'll try to discuss some of what else I was told, the vision of what my life will be and what my journey to priesthood will entail. That might take me a few days to do though.