I’ve had five name changes in my life. Five official name changes. No marriages….to people at least. What I mean is that I was ordained a priest and took celibacy vows and sort of felt ‘’married’’ or at least ‘’taken’’ – you know, bride of Christ and all that…
 
My name has always been a topic of conversation. I can track my name changes the way people track where they’ve lived. Like OAK --> PDX. Mine are:
 
Maria Alicia González --> Marialicia Estrella González --> Rachel Marie González --> Leora Marie Bernard --> Leora Marialicia González
 
Why? Why so many changes? The story around my birth is that my father went to city hall and didn’t get it right. That my mother’s intention was always the name Marialicia but my dad separated it. So, when at 26 I moved to the town next to where I was born in New Jersey, I went to city hall, added my mother’s middle name (Estrella) and made it official. Or so I thought…
 
Rachel was my name for 10 years. I was ordained a priest (Rev Rachel) in 2002 and grimaced immediately when I heard that name. I was told specifically it was not Raquel, as would be in my native tongues of Spanish or Portuguese. It was Rachel. Simple. American. It was part of the process where the spiritual group I was in attempted to distance me from my heritage and family and cultural roots. I was not allowed to have the name Maria for my middle name either. Too culturally significant.
 
But what’s in a name? At this point in my life, I’m shifting back to my birth name of Marialicia. I was named after the Brazilian nurse who bonded with my mother so much I became her namesake. Leora was the name given to me by the spiritual order I was part of for almost 13 years. I’m shifting back to the simple honesty of where I’ve come from which is the solid foundation of where I am now. It’s been a funny experience to feel shy around my real name. The name I grew up with. Feeling shy around asking people to call me by my name. Stepping back into my name; it always made me smile, albeit it always came with a story because people can’t pronounce it or get stuck in rolling their r’s... But it’s true. I’m the daughter of Cuban refugees and my name carries that story. My name carries the story that I was ‘’supposed’’ to be born in Brasil but in a turn of events, my family had to move back to the U.S. two weeks prior to my arrival. That I was the third daughter and last child and my mother wanted one of her girls to have the name “Maria” to honor Mother Mary.
 
Names carry an energy of being. They are history and present day circumstance. They carry memory and resonance of family and promise. I promise to live up to mine. How about you? What’s in your name?

This morning I was listening to the podcast “On Being” with Krista Tippett. An interview with Xavier Le Pichon.

It's the fourth time I’ve listened to it. More like drinking it. It, satisfying a thirst in me for the truth that has set me free. Xavier Le Pichon is a geophysicist. He’s a spiritual thinker and has lived his life in intentional community that centers around individuals with mental challenges. He speaks with so much grace about his life, raising his six children with his wife, within these intentional communities, where the ‘’weakest’’ members of the tribe are what and who the whole community centers their lives around. He speaks also about plate tectonics – how the earth, in areas where it is most rigid, it is most likely to quake and brake.
 
So, what I love about it – the frailty of mind, the frailty of body - it’s just like the frailty and softness of heart. In my life, when I put what I saw as the ‘’weakest’’ part of me, my grief, at the center of my life, my life kinda blew up. In a really good way. My circle and quality of friends improved. My happiness deepened. My joy overflowed. I took grief as my lover and let my lover have his way with me. Makes me smile just thinking of it. Right now, as I write. I chuckle. Grief – a really good fuck.
 
We’re only as strong as our weakest link – so no matter what we say about how we want to be or feel or think or love, we can’t follow through with it, when we’re not awake to all our parts; especially the painful ones. Grief isn’t something we have to put our lives on hold for. It is part of our lives, the rhythm of our heartbeat. Our lives keep growing and shining as we move through grief and embracing it, changing everything. Acknowledging it and letting it breathe. Taking time to feel it and love it – seeing when it rears its head and welcoming its roar.
 
The roar of my grief has been isolating at times but mostly uniting. Uniting me to myself, to my heart, my strength, my wisdom, my feelings, my hunger for life, my honesty & integrity, my perseverance, my friends, my family, my creativity, ingenuity, courage, and so much more that I continue to discover every single day.
 
Today, I invite you to breathe into the place in you where your grief has been sequestered off. Or if you love it, if you’ve claimed it as your lover, then make love to it. Right now. Have yourself a really sweet lay. 

The interview: http://www.onbeing.org/program/xavier-le-pichon-the-fragility-at-the-heart-of-humanity/101 

Today I’m starting a 21-day challenge to write and publish a blog every day, for 21 days. Today’s day one. I’m scared – scared it’ll suck, scared I’ll have nothing of value to say, scared no one will read it, scared I’ll embarrass myself, scared my mother’s words about how I lack discretion will finally prove true.

​But I’m also scared of what’ll happen if I don’t. Scared of how I’ll feel about myself if I don’t carry through with this. This website, this vision, this honest-to-goodness dream, only has me to bring it up. This child of mine has been gestating for years now and I can feel where the only way to see its sweet face, look into its eyes and hear its sweet voice, is to get ‘er on the page.
 
So that’s my commitment – one blog per day for 21 days. Today. Day 1. Holy shit.
 
I’m not the first person to do this. Blogging isn’t unique. Oh wait! Those are fears. Ha!
 
The commitment here isn’t that this will be great or unique or interesting. The commitment is to doing it. So here I am. Doing it.

​On the topic of god giving us only what we can handle. Bullshit.
 
I am consistently given more than I can handle. As are most of the people I know. I get it, that statement is a source of comfort for some but it’s also a way for people to alienate from one another instead of leaning in to someone else’s unimaginable pain and being with them. Or being with our own unimaginable pain and letting someone else in. To be witnessed in our ugly, awful places.
 
Admitting we need someone to accompany us is brave. To share the intimacy that is life stretches us together rather than apart. There are poetic metaphors that speak of flowers and trees not crying when they fall or are cut or die. Really? What is the sweet sap of a maple?
 
One of my favorite teas is a leaf-bitten High Mountain Oolong. In the high mountains of Taiwan, cicadas bite the leaves and in response, the leaves produce a sweetness that is remarkable and mysterious. I love imagining the vulnerability of the leaf and the chomping of those little tree-hoppers. But even more, the fortitude of the leaf reminds me the best of me is the result of my pain and my struggle.
 
That my heart is constantly being formed by where I am sweetly kissed and bitterly bitten.
 
Being given more than we can handle is how God (the Universe, Spirit, Shakti…. whatever you believe as the larger creative force that couples with your beautiful creative force to soar) invites us connect with each other. Care about one another. Feel deeply for another. It’s about love. Deep, connected, devoted, love.
 
When we love deeply, we can’t throw lines at one another like, ‘’don’t worry, god wouldn’t give you more than you can handle.’’ Instead, we might dare to say, ‘’damn, that hurts like hell, I’ll walk with you’’ trusting, trusting, trusting….that in being and seeing another, we are cherishing that tender place in ourselves too.