In The Beginning...
The truth is I have been resisting the inevitable since before my birth.
It was a sunny winter day when my parents decided to go out for a drive. They had been living in Phoenix, Arizona for some years as they traveled between Los Angeles for their restaurant business, The Chesapeake Crab House. This particular weekend my parents set forth to spend a relaxing time in Sedona, Arizona where they were curious about exploring crystal shops and energy vortexes.
Upon arriving, and in the fashion of my parents who are now happily divorced, they were involved in a heated argument. Driving north on Highway 179 my parents were having anything but a quiet relaxing weekend. Suddenly my mother felt a calling. “Elio, please shut up, we need to pull over now. I can feel something is off” my mother exclaimed as they passed Bell Rock. My mother put her hand on her belly and inhaled a long deep breath. Six months pregnant with me she closed her eyes and began to feel her intuition. “I need to get to the top of Bell Rock today. Something is up there and I need to go.” “Leslie, are you crazy? You are six months pregnant with Shaina Monique Danille (okay he did not say my conceived full name but go with me) and you are not going to climb any mountain!” My mother was already out of the car planning her, our, ascent. My father, closely behind, questioned how she planned on scaling the mountain. “I’m just going to go up this way…” which meant a straight climb without any ropes, gear, or training. My triple Cancerian father decided against my Taurus mother’s suggestion and embraced a zig-zag approach to the top of the ginormous red rock formation.
When my father arrived at the top, thirty minutes after my mother, he found her with a small group of people. They had captivated my mother by claiming to channel information from the other side. They had asked my mother if she wanted to know more about the baby coming into her life. My father, a powerful but guarded witch, decided to join them since he was intensely mesmerized by their collective work. What started as a simple meeting of people turned into a monumental life-changing rite of passage.
This group, who I am forever thankful for, told my parents I was to be a powerful being, far surpassing their legacy having the capacity to transform the world. They also confirmed I was a girl which was against what the doctors had claimed up until I was delivered. My mother would later explain in my youth that she would resist this notion. “She told me she is a girl” she would repeatedly proclaim to a room full of Western Medicine Practitioners over and over again during scheduled appointments. This group of Light Workers also said my name was not supposed to be the conglomeration of my mother’s Hebrew choice Shaina (beautiful) or my father’s thought of the French name Monique (Advisor) which he thought sounded pretty. Instead, they said my name was Eleena (Wisdom) Gabrielle (Archangel Gabriel) Danille (my parent’s last name they made up based on numerology, and my father’s nickname Dan Daniel Danútz growing up in Romania). This meant my birth name carried the vibration of “Wise Woman of God”. My parents thanked this group for their time before heading down Bell Rock together.
Three months later I was born at The Good Samaritan Hospital in Tempe, Arizona. My parents were both incredibly excited to have a girl, which was a surprise to everyone but my mother. They were even more proud to have my body front and center in the maternity ward’s star display window. The art deco’s ovular window of the building cascading a beam of perfect sunshine across my glowing newness of life. I would go on to embrace my true nature over time changing things others expected of me like my gender. But for then, I remained my parent’s tiny beacon of hope.
I would grow to change my name many times over in my youth. Jessica, Leenie, and Kitty becoming identities I would choose to embrace about my whole being. People would often not know my birth name. I had struggled with the weight of being a Wise Woman of God. It was a lot of pressure for someone to take on. What did it mean to be a wise woman of God anyway? All I wanted was to feel like a relatively normal kid, in a big city, figuring out life. Or at least one who could be seen only when I wanted to. However, connecting with spirits and feeling energy as a child meant I was never going to be normal. It meant I was destined to become much more than anyone’s name. Eventually, my life path arrived at many decisions that lead to my becoming Fe(lix) Sorting Wild, my probable final form and name I’ve gone by since 2008.
Sometimes I wonder what my life would have looked like if my mother had ignored her intuitive senses and not gone up the mountain. I wonder if I would have still had the same impulse to tell my first-grade teacher, Mrs. Ellias, that I wanted to go by my middle name Jessica which, was not true at all. The way she erased my legal name on my file with a number 2 pencil and trusted an imaginative 6-year old’s wish still brings me moments of joy. Later in life, I would dream about The DMV and Social Security Office being that flexible with name changes and taking people at face value. Sure, my name was not really Jessica, but it was not Eleena either.
My soul has had many names in this lifetime and others. In the great mystery of life unfolding, my mother listening to those subtle parts of her that said something is different here and I need to investigate it changed the course of my life.
Some things are chosen for us toward the beginning of life. But that is only the beginning.
For now, I am.
It’s really that simple.