I bet you are all wondering “So what is up with the new name?” Well as a matter of fact there is a story behind it so I will tell you.
As I said in yesterdays post I was blessed to go to a retreat held by my school the beginning of the month in the beautiful Redwood forest in Northern California. I finally got to meet all the people who I had heard via phone conferences over a period of a year. One person that works for the school is named Mary. She is the registrar and has been very helpful in keeping me and my participation in the school fairly together this long year as I struggled with my sanity. I actually met her at a breathwork class I took in Durango Colorado last August and the minute I saw her I felt instantly at ease. I have always been drawn to her as if she were familiar (in a very good way) to me.
The day I had to be at the retreat I got up at 2:30am and drove straight through to California and to the retreat site which took approximately 14 hours. I arrived around 5:00 that evening. I got set up in my tent located under the towering Redwoods (I brought way too much stuff) and then went about finding where I could take a shower. After I worked that all out I went into the dining hall and there was Mary. For the rest of the evening and into the next day she would address me as Lori, Lana, Lorelei, etc…in other words she was calling me everything but Lisa. I finally stopped her and said “Mary, you have known me for a year. Why is it you cannot call me by my name? My name is Lisa, remember?” She stopped and looked at me and after a minute said “Yeah, see here’s the thing…I don’t think so.” I was a bit stunned. That is not something one hears everyday when discussing their name. I replied “What do you mean…you don’t think so? It has been my name for 47 years ever since my mother named me that.” and she replied with a very serious face “I think your mother got it wrong. I am very good with these sorts of things and I don’t think your name is Lisa.” Hmmm….I wasn’t sure what to say at that point. My mother has a history of being wrong about a lot so it certainly gave me pause. So I then asked, “Okay then…so what is my name?” And she just said as she turned to walk away “Oh I don’t know that. You will just have to ask Spirit.” Very matter of factly.
So that night alone in my tent in the darkest of darks I prayed to Spirit and just said “If Lisa is not my name please give me a sign. And while you are at it if it isn’t would you please give me a sign that tells me what it is?” Becareful what you ask for.
During one of our activities in our temple the first afternoon a ray of sunlight streamed down from the skylight and rested on my head illuminating me for the longest time. I was the only one it did this to. Several of the instructor/mentors noticed this and smiled. Also before this particular activity the school’s director, Jyoti, handed each of us a card while repeating “This is you now.” The picture on the card was a person seated in lotus position looking sideways at a snake that was coiled up beside him looking back at him. The person’s head was glowing as if the sun was shining on his head. I had gotten this card BEFORE the sun had rest on my head.
The next day I went through some pretty intense experiences that is what triggered my great shift in consciousness. Before going through my experiences I got another card from Jyoti as she said “This is you now.” On the card was a skeleton glowing yellow. That pretty much was the theme for the day. I was finally stripped completely bare. I was able to forgive and achieve compassion for myself and others in my life and the weight of the world had been lifted off my shoulders. While my partner was helping me we were on the opposite side of the room from the day before when the sunlight rested on me and that was in the afternoon but here it was morning and the sun rested on her and only her.
The third day I got a third card from Jyoti. She handed me the card and said “this is you now”. On the card was a giant sun smiling. It occurred to me perhaps Spirit wanted my name to be Sunshine. And then it occurred to me my last name was Day….Sunny Day?
When I brought it before the circle everyone seemed to agree and it has stayed with me. When I went to my new job I was filling out my paperwork and my boss looked at my name and said “You don’t really look like a Lisa to me.” Hmmmm….so I told her the story of Sunny and she agreed so my name is Sunny there as well. It just seemed natural that I needed to change it on my spiritual blog since it was Spirit that showed me that Sunny Day is my name and not Lisa.
“Keep your face to the sun and you will never see the shadows.”
― Helen Keller
Namaste
Sunny Day
