merry meet
i as well am new to this group, but have known i was different from the mainstream from the time i was a child.
it has only been in recent years that i am realizing what the difference was.
thalia is a beautiful name and if it feels right you should use it. it is very personal and has to feel right.
my name ( bear ) came to me in a rather unusual way, way before i ever had an idea what it could end up meaning, or what it could be.
i was working as a helper in a paint and body shop as a teen, and i was working with a french man who pronounced my name ro bear (being my name is robert) and it slowly shrunk to bear. this was in the mid 1980's, many years before i started to learn about my beliefs.
it was not till the mid to late 1990's that i began to realize what and who i actually was.
my father has tried to steer me away from all religion as i grew up, and it was not until well after my parents passed that i began to learn about the family.
it seems that as my father was growing up he knew what he was but never got much training or learning about it from his mom who was also a witch, as were her 2 sisters.
in the 1920's it was kept hidden, and his father was a judge, so teaching was rather scarce and had to be kept hidden.
he learned enough to scare himself, and had very strong psychic ability.
i am so glad that the world is more open to this now, and am on a quest for knowledge.
i have a family line in my history and i wish to learn and be the best that i can be.
and one last ironic footnote here, in 1991, i was working for a group of adult clubs, and there was a baptist soup kitchen across the street from the shop, the minister used to come over and talk in the evening but never pushed his beleifs, he told me i was one of the most religious people he had ever met, but my path was not the same as his, and when i found it to follow it. and he actually used the word PATH!
this impressed me more when i realized what he had meant.
blessed be
Bear