Medicine Name

In the ancient traditions, children were given a medicine name a few hours after their birth. The Tribe’s Medicine Man or Medicine Woman would go to the newborn, take it in their arms and raise it towards the heavens, as if presenting the child to the Great Spirit, to the four powers, to the four elements. They would walk around in nature until a Totem name for the child came to them. That would be the child’s first name.
Other medicine names would follow at specific moments, throughout the child’s life and into adulthood, as a personal initiation or a rite of passage.

The ancient people had many medicine names, each representing a moment of transition in their lives. To be given a medicine name isn’t simply about getting a beautiful, powerful or seductive name. It is a name that carries a huge meaning of initiation for the one who possesses it. The person getting a medicine name needs to actualize the qualities represented by the name in its fullness, so that they can radiate out the name in its full glory, for the self and all his/her relations.

Nowadays we can get a medicine name through the lucid dreams of a Medicine Man or Medicine Woman who may happen to cross our paths. To be given a medicine name means to truly become who the Great Spirit meant us to be so that we can fulfill our roles here on earth. It is to uncover all the facets of our essential origin.

Medicine Name – Shining Woman – Song of the Woman of the West

I am neither afraid of living, nor of dying
I am Shining Woman

I am neither afraid of shadow, nor of light
I am Shining Woman

I am neither afraid of disease, nor of healing
I am Shining Woman

I am neither afraid of dreaming, nor of realizing it
I am Shining Woman

I am neither afraid of union, nor of separation
I am Shining Woman

I am neither afraid of power, nor of weakness
I am Shining Woman

I am neither afraid of illusion, nor of reality
I am Shining Woman

I am neither afraid of touching, nor of being touched...
I am Shining Woman

I am neither afraid of giving pleasure, nor of receiving it
I am Shining Woman

I am neither afraid of being myself, nor of being someone else
I am Shining Woman

I am neither afraid of seeing wrong, nor of seeing clearly
I am Shining Woman

I am neither afraid of loving, nor of being loved
I am Shining Woman

I am neither afraid of being nothing, nor of being all
I am Shining Woman