Often at women’s circles, when we do introductions at the beginning, I’ll say something like, “Don’t worry if you forget peoples names; names can be the least interesting thing about a person. What matters is how you feel around someone“.
That’s true and it’s not true. Paradox! While it’s understandable that you might forget someone’s name when you’ve just met, it is important to call people by the name they wish to be called if you are going to call them by name. Same goes for pronouns.
From there, we’ll sometimes segue into talking about how that’s also true/not true about plants’ names. Call it Usnea barbata, old man’s beard, or that stringy stuff on trees, whatever. What matters is when does it appear in your path? What’s it telling you? What does it remind you of? What does it want you to do with it? That’s what matters. And (paradox!) a precise Latin name can be really important when talking with others or identifying plants - specificity matters when you’re ingesting stuff!
Back to people names. A person’s name does matter in that it expresses a specific energetic signature. Both of my daughters told us their names before they were born; one before she was conceived! Those names fit them perfectly. My son carries a super patrilineal name. His first and middle names trace four generations of men, and the surname would go back even further.
That patrilineal surname thing has been tricky for me of late. My parents gave me my father’s last name when I was born, as is common in my culture. When I married in my 20s, I exchanged that name for my husband’s name; again, as is common in my culture. Our two children carry that surname, which has a beautiful meeting and sounds like bells ringing when you say it in its own tongue. I’ve loved using that name for many years, even opting to keep it after their dad and I divorced. My youngest one has her dad’s last name. He offered it to me as well, but I declined to take it because, at that point, I was weary of taking men’s names. As much as I love my littlest’s dad, his name is not my name.
It’s been a few years now that I’ve been sitting with this question: what is my name? (What is my name? / What is my name?) It only took me a few months to come up with names for each of my children. Why has naming myself - who I know much more intimately than those babies I’d not yet met - been so difficult?
Because I resisted it. Ah, resistance, you sticky little thing, you. I resisted taking the name that kept coming to me over and over - my maternal great-grandmother’s surname - on the basis that it technically is her father’s name, but we’re going to disregard that on account of what an absolute spit-fire my great grandmother was. Red-haired, Scotch-Irish, from western Kentucky. I’m not very tall but I would’ve towered over her, apparently. She ran away with a railroad man against her parents wishes, and buried coffee grounds under the fruit trees in her yard. Once she knocked a guy out with a cast iron skillet that she kept by the back door for that very purpose. So I think her name, like everything else in her life, was plenty her own.
In my mom’s family, we pass first and middle names down the matriline. Granny’s first name is my middle name. Taking her surname brings those names back together again. Elder. Her name was Kathleen Elder. So my name is now Michelle Kathleen Elder.
With that name, I reclaim not only my place in a line of women all the way back to Scotland and beyond, but also what it is to be Elder. Sambucus Nigra. I first met her when I was living in England, on a plant walk with a local herbalist. I remember feeling such a resonance with her, this bushy tree at the edge of the woods. “What’s that?” “That’s Elder.” That’s Elder?!?” I’d read about it in books and seen pictures, and taken it in medicine before, but I’d never sat at her feet.
That was more than seven years ago. She came back to me last summer, twice almost making me swerve off the road to interact with her! She told me two things in those interactions. First, “You do this [wild-harvesting] to remember who you are.” And second, “Give me your anger, I will protect you.” That second time I was lost on a backroad, late for an event, and quite livid. She offered me berries and wanted me to pee on her! Which I did, because plants like that. It’s a way to show gratitude for the gift of their medicine. Also, there’s something about peeing when you’re angry. Like that idea being “pissed off”. I was so mad and I pulled over and I gathered some berries and then I peed on her. And my anger disappeared into the earth at her feet. Then she gave me her protection, a shield of immunity, her berries made into an oxymel. I took it by the spoonful all through that fall and winter.
Last New Year’s Eve, she showed up again. I like to make a vision board each year. As 2019 began, two dear girlfriends came over. We ate roast duck by candlelight and visioned what we were calling forward in the coming year. Elder ended up right in the middle of my vision board.
There’s red elder growing on the land here. I have very much wanted blue elder, however. For two years, I’ve planted seeds, tried to propagate it from cuttings, repeatedly attempted to bring it here. Nothing. Then this past July, she just...appeared. Appeared! She was not there, and then one day, there she was! Four feet tall and in bloom! Right outside my back door! That was a few days before I left for an herbal gathering, Plants EnChant. At that gathering, I called her in, journeyed with her, and got the message to sit at her feet...to sit at my great-grandmother’s feet. Without even meaning to, I had pitched my tent in a meadow with the door facing east looking out at an Elder bush. I buried some important stones there, at her feet.
She’d been there all along.
Be Well All Ways, —Michelle Kathleen Elder
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