What is in a name
Note: This blog is from the summer of 2018 and has been unpublished until now.
There is this moment in Frank Herbert’s classic sci-fi novel Dune that has stuck with me ever since I was a small child. Paul Atreides, the leading protagonist, takes shelter with the desert people, also known as the Fremen. Once he was accepted by their tribe he begins leading and training them in ways of combat and, based on his characteristics and their impression of him, they give him a new name. They called him Muad’Dib.
Muad’Dib comes to instructs them on how to use a sonic weapon that translates specific sounds into beams of varying degrees of power. As one of his men calls out his name the vibration of it gets picked up by the weapon causing it to fire. The blast deploys and destroys a massive section stone made of the hardest material known. It crumbles before them.
There was a moment of silence among the men as Paul discovered the power of his name.
As Frank Herbert put it - Every thought has a sound.
It was not until much later in life that I began to be fascinated by frequency - the frequency of light, of thought, of shape, of sound, of everything. I think that moment stayed with me because it resonated with a part of my soul that I had not yet seen. All this time the Fremen had never stopped talking to me and clearly I have never forgotten them.
They say the desert is a place for transformation. It is a place where one is exposed to the elements and to one’s self. There is no hiding and it demands a form of letting go and allowance because to fight with the desert is useless. It is to be accepted, respected and co-created with for within that level of exposure and allowance there are countless gems to be discovered unseen by our current ability to perceive life wherever we are in that moment.
Five months ago, on my way to Charlotte, NC, I was given an opportunity to allow such an opportunity. I kept getting an itch that I was supposed to be in the desert. I could not understand why, but the desert would not leave me alone. I thought it was a little ridiculous because I was on my way to Charlotte, NC and it had been awhile, but as far as I could remember there wasn’t a dessert in Charlotte. I was on my way to help my mother move and, to support myself, ground everything that I felt like I was lacking in my relationship and ground my energy around business and finances. So the desert did not make much sense at the time - at least rationally.
Most of my life I have found myself running to get from A - to - B consistently forgetting that there is a dash between those letters where so much possibility remains. I would eliminate those opportunities because I was not listening during the dash. My focus always on where I was going and often how much more time it would take to get there instead of where I was. This time I was going to do it differently - especially when I was traveling through the desert.
Looking for support, I spoke to a dear intuitive friend of mine to see if she could give me any insight on the matter and she said, “Look at bulletin boards.” I was like, “ok… Bulletin boards. Right. Sure.” So while I was passing through Sedona I did and didn’t really know what I was looking for. I think that was the problem - I was looking for something. I finally gave up and I took a detour to meet a woman I had been teaching workshops for online, but never met and an old friend and his partner for a minute in Santa Fe for lunch the next day. While at lunch my friend said, upon returning from the bathroom, “Have you seen the bulletin board by the bathroom?” I had not told him a thing.
“No I have not, why?” (and of course this is happening).
“Because there’s some cool shit on it.” (or something like that)
So I go to the bathroom and on the bulletin board is everything I was looking for and more. I took a photo and a bunch of numbers and logged it all in the back of my head. At this point I was open, but not fully convinced.
So I went to meet up with the woman that I do webinars for who lived on the other side of Santa Fe just to introduce myself. As soon as I got there I received 4 clients, a place to stay indefinitely, an invitation to ecstatic dance and was pummeled by 5 dogs. The next morning I was awoken by a woman singing Elton John’s “My Song”, which had tremendous meaning to me both in my relationship and in my life. Two days later I had enough money to have a professional moving company come in and move my mother to her new home and I stayed in the desert. I stayed in Santa Fe. The city quickly took me under its wing where I studied poetry, my voice, male sacred sexuality, African dance, enrolled full-time in a Taoist school that offered two levels of Kung-Fu, Medical Chi Qigong, yoga and radical theatre. I created new habits, new patterns, became vegan, dropped 20 pounds without knowing I had it to lose and got in exceptional physical shape. I began playing with, researching and learning from various business masters, Tony Robbins, Donnie Epstein, Robin Sharma, Psalm Isadora, Lisa Nichols, Steven Kotler, Judy Scheur, Kevin Trudeau, Fredric Lehrman, Patricia Alebre, Jovinna Chan, Malcolm Gladwell, Tom Bird, and countless others about the consciousness of money, life, creativity, manifestation, relationships, energy, sex, intimacy, human behavior, connection, presence and time. More then anything though I was learning about the Divine Masculine/Feminine and the discord of humanity. I was learning about myself. I was rediscovering and unearthing myself in a land where no one knew me and I had no identity giving myself once again the ability to effortlessly be a student with beginner’s eyes and a curious heart.
The one person I was not fully allowing to be my teacher was me.
A few days after I arrived I was invited to a communication workshop with a very interesting structure. One person is put in the hot seat and everyone else can ask them any question they want and they can respond in any way they want - lies, truth or a mixture of the two, but you have to provide an answer and you have to respond immediately.
At this point in my life I had begun to access my channel. More on that in another blog post.
So I had Started hearing things, seeing things, and discovering things that were not of this realm and felt like extension of my soul from another time and space.
As the questions went on I was asked among other things what would be the ideal woman for me, do I like my name and if I could have any name what would it be?
A collage of fun, exciting and interesting questions.
The name questions caught me by the most surprise. Until recently I have felt strange saying my name. Like it wasn’t mine. Though it is. So the idea of allowing myself to pick another name or even an additional name was an interesting surprise. To date I have only had thre nick names: Dick, White Lightening and Rabbit. All three given to me in the space of play and respect. Yet I didn’t choose any of them. Apparently I wasn’t going to choose this one either.
About three seconds after I as asked if you could change your name to anything what would it be I saw the word AKANA in huge letters more towards me in the imagination of my mind. So I said Akana? . . . Akana.
I had no idea what I was saying or what it meant though it sounded cool. So I went with it.
Later that day I went home and googled the word ‘Akana’ and discovered a rabbit hole of meanings, history and information going back to:
Ancient Egypt - powerful complete Vessel
Hebrew - bridge between heaven and earth
and South and Central America - a space set for transformation
As much as I have rolled my eyes at people who had taken on names of various spiritual and religious entities and figures, I thought I would accept the name and see what happens. Since I had just moved to a new city where virtually no one knew me. Every name has a vibration and consequently operates as a magnet. Though I have never tested it out. So an experiment would ensue and, little did I know, the result would forever change my life.