a reply I made in jeremyrichards' journal

[novapsyche]

He asked how we came up with our LJ usernames.

In college, a lot of my friends had odd nicknames and/or "spiritual" names. (I had a lot of pagan friends.) When I was 20, I wanted to divine my "spirit name" (a name I could use to refer to the persona I use in ritual).

I had several baby name books and I looked in all of them to find out the meanings of different names. I found that "nova" meant "chasing" or "to chase". "Psyche" meant "the soul". That seemed to be what I was doing spiritually--seeking the soul--so I decided to take those.

Since then, the name has taken on other meanings, like "new mind". Or I'll envision a supernova and apply that image to the concept of consciousness. I keep finding new interpretations.

Comments

[poetpainter77.livejournal.com]

Very interesting.