I'M AIA.
Updated: Sep 18, 2021
I was renamed long before I would tell anyone what that new name was. If you're meeting Aia June for the first time, you're not alone. She came to me less than a handful of weeks ago in June - like most of my biggest awakenings, come to think of it.
I was deep in an effortless, surrendering meditation in this hammock on the shore of the Mayan coast. Suspended and gently rocking from side to side, weighless and enveloped - safe - soaking in salty late afternoon breeze. Perhaps my body memory subconsciously took me back into the womb - weightless and safe - because as my conscious mind quieted down and released all thoughts for this (relatively new-ish) daily practice of mine, the word spelled itself out right before me (and my gently closed eyes).
I didn't know what it meant. I didn't know why. I just knew that it was there, crystal clear, that this is who I was meant to become.
It felt equal parts awkward and effortless twirling in my mind and weaving itself gently into the crevices of my tongue. I could feel it in my veins. I could feel myself singing it. I could picture myself delicately and contently turning my head in its direction when called. The scientist in me began to scour for sources, proof of its meaning or origin. Auto groups, insurance firms, international aerospace organizations. Which brought up the interesting fact that all these global brands were named an abbreviation that must be enuncable in various languages. AIA. It's more like a sound than a name. How primal. The sound AIA, when stretched and teased around in my mind, with different pitches and tones, evokes so many senses, sensations, moments of thought. Drawing out the different syllables and attaching to them different pitches can change its entire perceived meaning. But aside from my reflective musings, all I could find on AIA was a short form, a convenient abbreviation for something long and complex. Well... I wouldn't realize it then, but this description right here, "an abbreviation of something long and complex" would end up being the most unintentionally perfect why.
But, back to the search. My recent deep-dive into my own shadows, and specifically the recent year-long search I've made for my feminine nudged me to give some context to my internet search:
"Aia feminine." ..... nothing.
"Aia divine feminine." ..... nothing
- though "Aia divine feminine" did lead me to a mention of a goddess Maia... so I adjusted my search:
"Aia goddess". .... Finally! Some results.
There was an Aia goddess, but spelled Aya, an Akkadian Goddess evolved from Sumerian Goddess Sherida. In Akkadian she was associated with the rising sun, considered the Mother Goddess, and her name meant dawn.
- the rising sun, sexual love, youth.
- associated with a practice called Hasadu, loosely translated as "Sacred Marriage"
I mean, it was a start. It wasn't earth-shattering by any means, and spelled differently, but it resonated with me. Wikipedia tells me it was a popular personal name in Ur III, which, (for those of us who have no idea) obviously refers to the 3rd Dynasty of Ur (... right?) , circa 2000 B.C. - Wow. How primevil, primordial - to identify a soul by nothing more than a sound. So elemental. Raw. Curious, really, how simultaneously then all and nothing Aia could be. Someone's entire sense of self, or the sound you make when you stub your toe.
I had unwittingly given my girl-twin the middle name Maya.
Em. the first initial of my birth-given name - one that I'm positive will continue echoing across the globe among those who've known me, but also one that no longer serves who I care to be moving forward.
m. Aia. I asked for synchronicities - whether they come as science or sacred - and open-heartedly accepted what would appear. But what I didn't realize at the time was that, in retrospect, beneath the full moon in June on the 24th, during a reflective writing session with one of my teachers, I had asked her then to guide me to messages I'm meant to receive. When I make this request she turns to her source - the decks of cards from which she draws her divine insight, reflection, and wisdom. That day she chose tarot (still largely unfamiliar to me, but I trust her with my whole self) and the reading was decidedly powerful (though I couldn't know at the time just how big an impact it would make). More on that powerful reading shortly. But for now...
The second card drawn was the Queen Of Wands. "To me, this is you." she explained with endearment.
"Outgoing and independent, determined, a social butterfly, a badass."
* {I would later do some additional research on my own and came across a particularly insightful description here}
I'll have to make it into a separate post to explain the significance of even being in Mexico that day, under that moon, over the Summer Solstice at that. But, unsurprisingly, only a few days prior, under the particularly atypical-as-of-late circumstances of being in a mystical magical foreign place, a gentleman friend messaged me me, "Your inner unicorn is shining through again." I felt deep in my bones that the timing was no accident. But back to Aia..... as I researched, I came across this image:
I didn't (still don't) know what the Babylonian Tarot meant. But here was Aya side-by-side with the Queen Of Wands that just a few weeks prior came through in a reading as "Me", and the synchronicity of symbolism wasn't lost. While my research on the Goddess Aya continues, the essence of Aia has seeped deep into my veins. A short-form of something multi-faceted and complex.
Natural and progressive. Mystical and complex. Effervescent. Connected deeply with ancient roots, entangled and mystified by the magic of sacred ritual. The cumulative and chaotic confluence of lessons from a thousand teachers from hundreds of places, across countless spaces around the world. Pure in my intentions, an architect of an alternative life fully aligned with my innate desire to permanently colour outside-the-lines.
And June? June was the easy part. The twins came in June and I who I was before them died. Two years later in June I met a cosmic soul put on my earthly path who would throw me to the wolves of my shadows but then stand alongside me to lick my wounds and hold me close while I conquered them one-by-(painful)-one. A year later, June would (against-all-odds) pull me to a place I'm magnetically drawn to: across the globe to the Mayan coast, upon which I would stand for Summer Solstice Litha and the full moon in June. There I would receive a powerful message of transformation, and right on its heels the message of my new self. An undeniable and unignorable guidepost toward the role I'm meant to take and the village I'm meant to build.
Aia June. And mine is a village built upon the dusty soil of genuine arrival in full and authentic vulnerability; a celebration of the honour and privilege it is to share the space of this life together. A warrior heart, with healing hands and words that have both sparked and soothed thousands of souls over the years. Currently stepping barefoot into the fire of my core self, experiencing for the first time in my life the awakening power of pleasure on a journey that's gone beyond hedonistic and immediate gratification into rediscovering authentic, integrated life experience across deeply transformative life rites of passage.
There is power in my search. There is salve in my authentic truth. A journey of alignment, demolition, reconstruction, and integration.
A guide, a mentor, a motivator. An inspirer, an alchemist, a Goddess in my own rite. A luminary, a muse, a vessel for deeply immersive transformation (both my own and others).
Sourceress. Enchantress. Priestess. Huntress. Temptress. Protectress. Prophetess. Aspiring Tantric Goddess. Maven. Sage. Warrior against the Imposter Illusion inside of me, Mother to the souls I've birthed and Unconditional Safe Space for those who choose to seek refuge in my presence. Or be awakened by my missive. Or allow themselves to be seen fully, whole, and in every shadow they've hid from everyone else; to be called into complete authentic truth.
I'm reminded of a powerful poem I read at the very beginning of my awakening:
In June I died.
And in June I came back to life again. Different.
Like everything I had ever lost, all come flooding back to me at once.
My science has met my sacred.
And the magic is only just beginning.
