More on the name change

The last few weeks have largely - and strangely - been devoid of the desire to post anything. It is not that I have not felt indignant, inspired, happy, angry etc at events and thoughts that have occurred during that time. My internal life has certainly been active and I have also been busy doing things. But a desire to share any of these on this blog has not been present.

I think much of this is due to the name change. I have felt strange and found this strangeness difficult to articulate. It has been a sort of limbo - suspended between identities neither of which seems completely fixed. And neither of which seems completely me.

Medusa, in a comment to an earlier post, mentions that some people reserve their new name for spiritual and creative work and retain their old one for other purposes. There is a lot of sense in this and there are many ways in which it would be a lot easier. For example, when signing a birthday present for a friend, I found myself writing Brian. Which is hardly surprising - I had, after all, been Brian for 62 years. Idris, although a given name, was hardly ever articulated. In fact, it was often almost hidden and denied - an occasion for mockery at school and outright hostility from my stepfather at home. So to hear myself addressed as Idris, as my partner does, is strange. It will take a bit of getting used to.

Perhaps, I never will get used to it. In this case, I may find myself simply using Idris as a magical name. And as such it would remain on this blog and other written works. I am not sure. I have a very real feeling that a complete change is necessary. This may be due simply to the fact that I am a quadruple Aries and have in many ways an all or nothing outlook on life. This has certain virtues but there are also associated difficulties. For one thing, it has meant that the (possibly necessary) compromises of the day-to-day are very difficult for me to make and I have often fled from the necessity to do so into a depressed and alienated state. The emptiness that this entailed then would become filled with a sterile self-reproach which would then feed into even further inaction. Not a healthy, and certainly not a happy, state of affairs but one with which I have been horribly familiar.

As I mentioned in the post referred to above, one of the first things that happened after the ceremony in which I claimed my new name was the loss of my glasses. I thought I knew where they had fallen and when I returned to that place looked all around but could not find them. A few notices were then placed around but no response. Then, last weekend, a full two weeks later, as I was coming home from the shops I glanced at a low wall and found that someone had placed my glasses there. They were undamaged and yet the place where they had been lost was a verge where many cars were parked. I could see comfortably again.

Like Medusa in her comments, I saw the initial loss as a sort of sign or commentary and certainly I slipped into a period of unseeing - in which all was fairly indistinct. And in the week since finding them I have found that many things have become clearer. Something new has entered my life. Vague and indistinct still - but definitely there.

Problems remain. My financial situation in particular is pretty dire and this causes an occasional bout of fear. And yet, the amount of money involved is very small on a global scale and even on the level in which I live. One successful workshop or a dozen or so tarot readings will sort it. That is all.

And here is where the name change is important. I know how Brian used to react to such difficulties and I do not want this to be an option any more. There is too much to do.