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Thursday, June 10, 2004 |
Since this is the day I celebrate the anniversary of changing my legal name, I'll tell how this came about. The year I did it, 1982, was the year we moved from Atlanta to the north georgia mountains. I'd had a career in Atlanta as a human relations consultant, working mostly with nonprofit organizations on conflict resolution and team building. I'd done a lot on racism. Also I'd designed and led a lot of workshops and groups for individuals - on personal cycles, vocational development, assertiveness training, visualization, and more.
All that was about to change. I was coming to the mountains to do homesteading, blacksmithing, and writing. It seemed to me that it was time for a new name.
I consulted the I Ching about various options combining the names I'd accumulated by then. I could go back to my maiden name, Catherine Bowman Sterrett. My father had been an artist, so that might be appropriate. I Ching said "stagnation." OK, moving on...
I'd been married twice, so I had several names and combinations from which to choose. None of them "worked" when I checked with the I Ching. So I began to imagine a new name altogether. As a teenager I'd wanted to become a popular singer named Cathy Morgan. Why not try Morgan? I don't remember how I got Jo - I suppose from Robert Burns.
The I Ching said, in response to Catherine Jo Morgan, "Creative Power."
Done.
Doing the legal part was easy. I went to the courthouse and asked to see copies of name change petitions. They all followed the same format. I copied it down, inserted the appropriate information, and filed it with a very small fee. The judge approved it and that was it. Oh, I think I had to pay to have it published in the legal section of the newspaper too.
But I certainly didn't have to pay a lawyer. Legal advice is essential for some things. Changing names isn't one of them.
I still remember sitting in the back of our VW camper, parked up here on the ridge in the woods, with the I Ching on the table before me. I knew I wanted to live in such a way that the right side of my brain would be dominant most of the time. To do that, I needed a break from the past. The new name helped with this. I'm still grateful - still celebrating.
1:26:32 PM 
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Still celebrating bringing home Brigid, my studio power hammer, I'll tell you another story. Back in 1986 I went up to Indiana to pick up the power hammer. Another blacksmith, Steve Wooldridge, had met me at an ABANA conference and offered to rebuild a power hammer for me for a reasonable price. We made our arrangements and my "new" Little Giant power hammer was now ready.
Steve loaded her onto my pickup truck with the help of a front end loader. Covered with a tarp, the power hammer was just a big heavy lump back there. I was set to drive home.
I stayed overnight at a motel in Kentucky. My room overlooked the parking lot where Brigid lay under the tarp. All night long, I kept waking up. A car out there...noise in the parking lot...maybe someone is stealing my power hammer!
In the morning light, I realized how absurd were my fears. What were the chances of someone coming to that motel, that night, interested in a power hammer, equipped to transfer it from my truck to theirs? Hmm...pretty small, actually.
Now if I could just remember this story when I wake up in the night and worry about something else, wouldn't that be great.
1:15:02 PM
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Today I celebrate two private holidays: the day I bought Brigid, my power hammer, in 1986, and the day back in 1982 that I changed my legal name. Brigid, as you may know, is the Celtic goddess of blacksmithing. After I came home from teaching at the Campbell Folk School in 1996, I painted Brigid more as she deserved to look.
There's a story behind that. At the folk school I taught a small class of blacksmiths "Expressiveness in Iron - Finding Your Own Way With Iron." (Part of this name was copied from the wonderful book by Paulus Berensohn, Finding One's Way With Clay. On the first day of class, I asked each of us to let a name come to mind to use during the whole week there, a name for the artist self in us. We called each other by these names all week. It had a tremendous effect.
When I came home, my newly named artist self came with me. Entering the studio, she was very critical. "I won't work here. Clean up. Paint Brigid." She had a long list of demands.
I obeyed. Brigid got painted. And my artist self began to work.
1:08:50 PM
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This is just a first impression, the morning after watching "In America." I say that because this is the kind of film that stays in the mind and may grow there for a while. It's a story about death - how a family recovers from losing a child, how a man dies of AIDS. (At least I gathered it was form AIDS. This isn't made explicit in the film, but is very much implied.)
Maybe I should say it's a story about taking death in, embracing it, and finding hope and life thereby. Yes, that's a much better description of the film. I'm making the film sound very heavy and actually, it's not. It's mostly lively, active, and engaging. It's not light comedy but it's not at all depressing.
I think this is because so much of the film is about the children - the two daughters who have lost their brother - and about how the children really pull everyone back to life. They're vibrantly alive, active, and interesting. They keep the story from bogging down in tragedy.
Certainly I recommend this film. I'd like to see it again sometime. I'll give it 3 stars. Why not 4? Can't explain it. Maybe I'll come back later and change it to 4.
12:14:43 PM
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© Copyright 2004 Catherine Jo Morgan.
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