I've had a week. I was feeling under the weather, but I'm beginning to pull through. I've had events and classes for which I am grateful. When I don't feel well I get easily bored. There is really only so much a person can rest before they get well restless.
I have been thinking for a while about this post. People ask me all the time about my name. I get the, "Is that your real name?" or ,"So are you Native American?" The answer to the second is as far as I am aware I don't think I'm Native American. I've not had the DNA ancestry test done to see where all my people are from so I can't know for certain, but I was not raised on a reservation or with any of the disadvantages that a tribal heritage brings in this country. As to whether or not my name is real well that depends on what you mean by real.
A name is a placeholder, a description. It is a shorthand for identity. The name Mooneagle was given to me by one of my teachers. She just walked up to my booth at a psychic fair and said, "You're Mooneagle." It stuck, I mean she's a shamanic practitioner and she used the power of naming. I liked the name but was nervous about using it. At first it felt like I was misleading people, or that people would think I am silly. What made it stick was that at the time I was being stalked by a group of people I had cut ties with. I was beginning to teach and offer services and I didn't want them to find me. So when a flier was made about a workshop I was going to help teach I joked with a friend that they should use Mooneagle. They thought I was serious and by the time I told them no the fliers were all printed. The rest as they say is history.
A funny thing happened after a few years. The name of Mooneagle felt more and more like me than my birth name. I sort of grew into it. Occasionally people still try to shame me about it, but I am Mooneagle and Mooneagle is me. It allowed me to become more than my family's expectations or limits, it allowed me to be just myself. Plus after I published my book that pretty much sealed the deal.
What does the name Mooneagle mean. Well although people think it sounds vaguely Native American it is more astrological in nature. My moon was in the sign of Scorpio when I was born. There are 3 animals associated with that sign: the serpent, the scorpion, and when the sign transcends its shadow the eagle. The moon sign often is thought of as our hidden side or our inner emotional landscape. I've been sneaky like a snake, sharp like a scorpion, but I want to soar like the eagle taking in the view without being mired in it. To feel and to understand rather than just react, that is what the Mooneagle means to me.
So how about you? What names do you claim for yourself? Are they limiting or do they give you space to grow into them? There is a power in a name that most of us have forgotten. We should be respectful of them and wary of the names we choose for ourselves and others.
Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle
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