Issa whole slew of Amber’s in my generation and as a kid that ish bothered me. it also bothered me because most of the Amber’s I saw portrayed on TV were yt mean girls with red hair, and while I dug the hair the rest, I just couldn’t relate.
As I got older it switched from too many Ambers to too many people pulling on Amber. Too many people telling me who and when and how I should be. My name became associated with all the things people needed, expected, and wanted from me.
It felt like folx were offering up my name with no care for the person behind the name and every expectation that I should always meet their needs above my own.
So I stopped using it. I started going by my last name. Amber became my dead name. I dont know that initially I called it that because this happened well before my quee(a)r existence made itself known. I just made a switch. And it felt good to know I could rename myself in the face of my name being taken in vain.
Kiing came when my quee(a)r identity blossomed. I also chose it as a complement to
my partners same Siir.
We are a poetic peoples and so it makes sense that renaming is just as important as your initial name. they both hold the shells to something deep within that is ever changing and evolving depending on the state of your waters.
Fast foward to the now. Honestly, just a few weeks ago I was talking to an anciently new (see)ster and she was speaking to the importance of naming.
that your name is the shell that beholds all that you are.
And this time I heard a ringing in my hear. It (see)ded and rooted in me differently. I know what Amber is, but had I ever looked it up, the meaning of the prehistoric stone from the resin of ancient tree that saw the beginnings of the earth.
The first thing I read. “Amber is a soul-stirring stone” it is the sun.
Amber is a healing talisman.
Amber is known the cleanse spaces and auras.
read that one mo gan.
I cackled loudly and the whooping hollers of holy Asés I let escape as my throat chakra confirmed the ancestors and my (see)sterd affirmation that there is MUCH in a name.
Amber is an ancient stone and stones are the bones of the earth.
I had also just learned that I was mineral in the Dagara cosmological wheel.
Mineral hold the records and stories of earth. They are the storytellers. my two degrees in theatre rolled to the forefront of my mind then went back to dusty corners where the remain.
Right there in those 5 lil letters. My name was pointing to my mission in this life all along and it had to die so I could resurrect it
like a phoenix from the ashes
my name that is
Amber Curry a spice
of the prehistoric kind
ancient memory
restored
what’s in a name?
Thank you for sharing your journey, the coming full circle (or perhaps shell) to birthing from the fire as Kiing Amber Curry.
Like you, I was given a name that was hella popular when I was born. I felt discontent with my given name, felt more like a plaque for family that came before me rather than my own name. The "knowing" feeling when things slot into place as they should is a calm I can't quite express, but those that have felt it know.
Mercury retrograde be retrograding. I am posting this comment on behalf of the hom(e)ie Dimah.
Asé 🙌🏾🙌🏾
Yeeeeesss!! The trees call us by our names!! The water too!!
I met you as Kiing Curry and yet I knew a kind of ancient emanated from you well before the resurfacing of the Amber.
I never thought of the phrasing or framing of ´dead name’ though l use the reclaiming of name in a lot of my healing journeys with clients.
Without realizing we disconnect our meMOREies of names and versions of ourselves we shun or send to corners of our consciousness in resentment, disbelief, disappointment or simple release. They hold keys to all that came before them.
But dead name....i have…