Balancing Names and Influences on the Tree

[qos]

For the past couple of years I've been contemplating changing my last name, the name I inherited from my father, to LM's last name. The more I progress along this path, the more that name reflects who I am and who I am becoming.

It's a little bit ironic, because all my life I've been someone who did not intend to take a husband's name -- and indeed did not take my husband's name when I was married. But my initiation as a priestess was catalyzed by LM's death, and my ongoing union with him is something that defines me and continues to distance me from the restrictions of my childhood socialization and expectations.

But as my long-time friends know, I continue to have a strong connection to my parents, especially my father. I don't change my last name in large part because I don't want to hurt him. (There are also not insignificant issues of keeping my kinky-Pagan identity at least somewhat distinct from my mundane life and day job, but that's an entirely different set of issues than what I'm focusing on right now.)

At some point yesterday I started silently repeating a new form of my name to myself: my first name, my father's last name, and LM's last name. For the first time, it seemed appropriate to have my family name as part of my into-the-future name. So much of who I am, of how I interact with the world, so many of my strengths, are symbolically reprsented by that name.

And that's when I suddenly saw my name on the Tree of Life: LM's last name on the pillar of Force, my father's last name on the pillar of Form, and my first name on the Middle Pillar, integrating and balancing those energies.

It felt very, very right. It felt balanced and whole, honoring the very different but very potent family/union energies which have gone in to making me who I am today.


(And, it occurs to me, it might appeal to a particular ancestor as well. . .)

Comments

[rin-x-x.livejournal.com]

I was just going to suggest, up until I got to the part where you mentioned keeping them both, of having a hyphenated last name? Or would that not be an option (too complicated, privacy issues, etc)? I never wanted to really change my last name either, since at the time (and I still do) don't really see the point since I figure I'm never going to be in a union that would require me to do so (although obviously, things can change).

I actually really wanted to take on my mother's maiden name for the longest while after hearing her family discuss the fact that their family name would die out since all the women had taken on their husband's names, and none of their brothers had any sons (although that changed years and years later, with the birth of my male cousin). And I remember getting this whole "What? You don't do that. No one does that." kind of reaction when I suggested changing my name, because I didn't like the idea that their family name would "die" out.

[shadowandstar.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, even if privacy were not an issue, the two names would not hyphenate well.

Taking one's mother's maiden name is something I've heard about other women doing. I'm sorry you caught flak for it. I've found that a lot of people just don't understand name changes, don't understand the power of a name -- or they do understand it on some level and it disturbs them when someone else talks about changing something they think should be immutable.

My dad told me once that his father told him he was sorry that the family name would end with us. My father had two sisters who (of course) took their husbands' names, and my dad fathered girls. I kept my father's name, so it lasted longer than my grandfather expected, but my then-husband and I gave our daughter his last name.