The name Mary is of uncertain origin. From Hebrew, it may mean “bitterness” or “rebelliousness”. However, it could instead have been borrowed into Hebrew from an Egyptian root such as mry, “beloved”, or mr, “love”. Regardless, in the Bible it appears first in the form of Miryam, sister of Moses; and considering Moses’s career, perhaps the Hebrew meanings were not so inappropriate.

In Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus, the name was Maryam, and of course this is real the name of Jesus’s mother. (Jesus’s Aramaic name was Jeshua.) In Greek the name was translated as Maria or Mariam, in Latin Maria, and in English Mary.

Energetically, Mary is a name of power — specifically, powerful manifestation, balanced and evenly modulated. It’s no accident that the name is so similar in sound to marriage, more, and mirror. In many languages, the m-r combination is found in words for the sea.

Hats off to Slade for inspiring this word!

While John McCain’s name is not as exotic as Barak Obama’s, it still has some fascinating features. McCain shares a name with his father and grandfather — to what extent are their fortunes parallel? And what is the relationship, if any, between McCain and the famous Cain of the Bible?

But first, the historical background. The name John is ultimately from Hebrew Yohanan, meaning “Yahweh has favored”, and as it was the name of John the Baptist and John the Evangelist, it became a popular Christian name all across Europe. In Greek it became Ioannes, in Latin Joannes, and in Medieval Latin Johannes. Energetically, the name John indicates a difficult decision that gives rise to narrowed, targeted Source energy. People named John are ones whose own personal, hard-fought decisions have a particularly salient effect on the spiritual energies around them.

Sidney is probably derived from the Norman name Saint-Denis, and therefore was brought to England during the invasion of William the Conqueror. It is a sinuous name, one of light, tense energy that slides through a decision and results in stamina and longevity. Intuitively, it suggests a warrior’s energy — compare the word sword – mixed with endurance through hardship. McCain’s imprisonment in Vietnam, which defines so much of his character and life, jumps to mind in this connection.

McCain itself is an Irish variant of the Scots name McKean, which comes from Gaelic Mac Ian, which means — you guessed it — “son of John”. But the Gaelic Ian has a very different spiritual energy than the English John; there is no implication of decision or difficulty, but instead a strong, enduring energy that is channeled.

The Cain syllable, which sounds like cane, has that same narrowing, channeling quality, but the energy is elastic and wide, and the source is some kind of containment. The sense one gets is of controlled, coiled power, like that in a taut spring. In the story of Cain, of course, one sees personal energy channeled and directed against another, but there is nothing inherently evil or misdirected within the sounds of the name Cain itself.

The first, unaccented syllable, Mc, indicates forces of manifestation, encircled and gathered up. The overall thrust of the name is of tightly controlled, narrowly focused energy, which is nevertheless flexible and far-reaching.

My sense of the name John Sidney McCain is of a life of difficult decisions, directed yet malleable energy, and controlled power. Here is a man who is both focused enough to work towards a single goal for many years, and yet flexible enough to be adaptive and creative in the way he seeks that goal.

The other John Sidney McCains. Since McCain’s father and grandfather shared his name — and his son does, as well — it’s tempting to think about whether their lives paralleled his in any significant ways. While the similarities on the surface are striking — his father and grandfather were both US Admirals, and McCain’s son is currently attending the US Naval Academy — the differences are more interesting. McCain’s father (who actually preferred to be called “Jack”) was a submarine man, not an aviator; and his postwar career was spent deep in the Pentagon, commanding the Pacific fleet, — a very different environment from the US Senate. McCain’s grandfather served in WWI and WWII, and, like his grandson, was a naval aviator. He commanded an aircraft carrier and was a vice Admiral in the latter war; but apparently the stress of his wartime service wasted him away, and he died just four days after the peace treaty with Japan was signed.

Finally, it appears that in fact John McCain’s grandfather’s father was also named John Sidney McCain; so I wonder why our presidential candidate is not John S. McCain IV? This earliest McCain was not a military man, but owned a plantation in Mississippi.

Barack Hussein Obama is easily the most fascinating name of the 2008 US presidential election — and that’s saying something, when the field included the likes of Huckabee and Gravel (pronounced grah-VELL).

Barack’s father — also named Barack Obama — was from Kenya, and his name was Swahili, meaning “blessed”. The Swahili name is ultimately borrowed from Arabic b-r-k, a triconsonental root that is at the basis of many words dealing with blessings and good fortune. It is cognate with Hebrew baruch, also meaning “blessed”. Swahili has a large number of loan words from Arabic, so Barack’s first name has nothing to do with his father’s Muslim upbringing. Spiritually, Barack is a burst of powerful Source energy that is gathered up and contained — i.e. a blessing bestowed on someone.

The story doesn’t end there, though. Through most of his childhood, Barack went by the nickname Bar – which indicates the same explosive, powerful source energy, but lacks the direction and containment of Barack. When he grew older, he went by the name of Barry, which has a completely different energy — while it is still explosive and strong, it lacks a source connection; instead it is connective and social. Only when Barack went to college and began to seek out a deeper understanding of his roots did he decide to go by his original name. Choosing one’s name is a very important spiritual act, and marks quite a turning point in Barack’s understanding of himself.

Hussein, meanwhile, is an Arabic name of proud Muslim heritage, a diminutive of the name Hasan, meaning “good” or “handsome”. The original Hussein was a grandson of Mohammad, and Shiite Muslims regard him and his elder brother Hasan as the true successors of the Prophet. Energetically, the h-s-n root indicates a strongly directed, sinuous energy that arises from a place of safety and is grounded towards some goal or target. The u-ei vowels of the name show that the energy is well-rounded and fast-moving as it arises, and becomes elastic and far-reaching as it nears its goal. Interestingly, the English word that’s closest in meaning to Hussein is “cutie”, and the sounds of the words are not all that different — they have similar vowels (u-ei vs. u-ie), and energetically, “h” is similar to “c” and “s” is similar to “t”. Generally, the name Hussein indicates more challenges and growth than cutie does.

Lastly, Obama is a not-uncommon surname of the Luo people of east Africa. As best I can determine, it is of uncertain origin, but might be related to the root obam, meaning “bending” or “leaning”. The Obama family is tightly wound up in the politics of Kenya at present. Obama is a name of earth-source-energy, bursting out into spiritual manifestation.

Overall, it’s remarkable how much earth/source energy abounds in Obama’s names, while the repeating “b”’s indicate sudden growth. This name is an unexpected upswelling of grounded power, manifesting blessings. Hussein breaks the pattern: it modulates the growing source energy with direction, decision, and firm targets. Barack Hussein Obama is the name of a man who rises suddenly from the earth, and moves with decision and determination toward his goals.

Wednesday is named after the Anglo Saxon god Woden, otherwise known as Odin (the Scandinavian form of his name). In Roman times, Wednesday was known as dies Mercurii, “day of Mercury”, and classical theorists equated Mercury with Odin because they both led the Dead to their final homes. Of course, this is only one of Odin’s many roles — he is also the king of the gods, the god of battle and hosts, wisdom, magic, poetry, prophecy, and the hunt. He thus combines characteristics of Mercury, Jupiter, Apollo, Pluto, and Mars. Evidently those classical theorists needed to get out more.

Odin (or Woden)’s name comes from Proto Indo European wet, meaning “carried away” — either with anger, insanity, or inspiration. Wet also referred to “breath”, reflecting the ancient Indo European belief in the breath as a source of inspiration and spiritual connection (still reflected in Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, etc.). His name was Wodenaz in Proto Germanic, “he who brings wod; the Inspirer”.

The energy of Wednesday is one similar to that of the word win: a willful strength that initiates a rising, tight power, narrowed and targeted. In Wednesday, the result of that targeting is a flourish of directed power.

The tomato plant is native to the New World, either to the west coast of South America, or possibly Mexico. It is not known whether it was domesticated and eaten by native peoples: there is no evidence that it was, but a huge amount of horticultural information was lost in the upheaval of the Spanish invasion. In any case, the Spanish certainly enjoyed it, and it became a staple of Italian cooking by the late 1500’s; but in England and its colonies, it was thought to be unfit to eat, because it contained glycoalkaloids (which are indeed poisonous, but the fruit is safe to eat). Tomatoes gradually became acceptable fare there during the 1700’s.

The word tomato comes ultimately from the Nahuatl (Aztec) word tomatl, literally “the swollen fruit”. It entered Spanish as tomate, and English as tomate in about 1600. By 1750, it had become tomato, perhaps by analogy with the closely related potato.

The central syllable of tomato is a manifestation of expansive, elastic energy, fitting its plump shape. The manifestation arises from a movement of earthy energy, and the result of the manifestation is more movement of earthy energy.

From Proto Indo European bhlewas, meaning “light colored”, applicable to anything from yellow to light gray to pale blue. In Proto Germanic this became blæwaz, and descended into Frankish as blao and Old French as bleu; this was borrowed as bleu or blwe in Middle English (when spelling was a creative art). Old English already had a perfectly good word for blue — blaw – but the French term was preferred. It’s uncertain exactly when the word changed from meaning “light colored” to “blue”, but color words tend to be slippery in that way — in Scandinavian languages, for example, it came to mean a deep black, while in Middle High German it meant “yellow”.

Energetically, blue is much like a fountain of water — a burst of liquid energy, flowing, fast-moving. Compare it to its homophone blew, and remember the music named after it, the Blues – these words have the same energy.

Is there anyone who doesn’t know that Thursday is Thor’s Day?

Thursday was named after the Norse thunderer because, in the minds of the Anglo-Saxons and many other learned people of the late first millennium, Thor was equated with Jupiter, the Roman thunderer. The Roman name for Thursday was Jovis deis, “Day of Jupiter”, so when the Anglo-Saxons adopted the Roman (and Christian) seven-day week, Þurresdæg (Thor’s Day) was a logical choice — even though Thor and Jupiter have almost nothing in common beyond their knack for lightning.

Thor’s name may originally have been imitative of thunder (originally Proto-Germanic thunraz), and energetically it indicates a rounded, earthy strength surging along a difficult path. The “Thur” in Thursday is more relaxed, roomy, and expansive, but still powerfully channeled.

Here in Massachusetts the leaves are starting to turn amazing colors… Our second spring, my favorite season.

Tree is from Proto Indo European deru or doru, which meant “oak tree”. The oak tree was so central and sacred to the ancient Indo Europeans that in many of the daughter languages, including English, the word for “oak” was simply extended to mean all trees everywhere. It’s also the root of true, truce, betroth, truth, trust, dryad, rhododendron, and of course druid. The oak tree itself may have been too holy to have its name spoken; in any case, its name oak has an unknown origin — see oak.

Meanwhile, deru/doru became trewan in Proto Indo European, and treo in Old English; it was simplified to tree in Modern English.

The word tree seems to be concerned with growth and endurance: powerful energy moving along a path, with stamina and determination.

Thanks to Nio for suggesting this word of the day!

The Greek god of medicine and healing, light, truth, archery, colonists, prophecy, herds and flocks, music, poetry, and the sun. The origin of his name is uncertain, though there are many possibilities — apollumi, “the destroyer”; apolusis, “redeem”; apolousis, “purification”; aploun, “simple” or “unity”; aei-ballon “ever-shooting”; and apella “assembly”. The name may also be from the ancient Hittite diety Aplu, a god of healing, who may in turn have come from the Akkadian sun god Aplu Enlil, whose name meant literally “son of Enlil”, Enlil being one of the chief Sumerian gods. If this is the case, Apollo’s worship goes back to the dawn of Middle Eastern civilization.

Apollo’s name indicates Source energy that expands from a point to fill volume, like light; the result is a grounded, wholesome power.

Thanks to Mahud for the beautiful illustration!

Week comes from Proto Indo European weik, “to bend, to turn”, also the ancestor of wicket, wicker, weak, and vicarious. The idea apparently was that a week was a “turn” of the calendar. The word became wikon in Proto Germanic and wice in Old English; and it was in Old English times, under influence from the Romans, that wice was first used to mean “week”. It is not known whether the ancient Germanic tribes had any unit of time corresponding to a “week”, though the undoubtedly had months (based on the moon) and years (based on the sun). A Norse calendar from about 800 AD has been discovered with five-day weeks called fimmts, with six fimmts in each of twelve months, plus five ceremonial days not part of any month; but the fact that there are twelve months (rather than thirteen) shows probable Roman influence.

The Roman week — with seven days, each named after a Roman deity — began around the same time as the rise of the Imperium of Rome, and seems to have been adopted from the Egyptian seven-day week. Around the same time, Christianity was beginning to spread, and it had a built-in seven-day week as well; but even when the Roman Empire became officially Christian, the weekday names were never divorced from the heathen gods. The seven-day week was in use in Egypt and throughout the Middle East and India for thousands of years before the Romans arrived; apparently it was based on one fourth of the 28-day lunar cycle.

When the Anglo-Saxons adopted the Roman week, they tried to map the Roman deities on to their own. Unfortunately, the two pantheons had quite different structures, so the mapping is rather strained in places. For example, the Roman dies Martis, “Marsday”, was “translated” into Tiwesdæg, “Tiw’s Day”, even though Tiw wasn’t really a war god, but a god of sacrifice, honor, and swordsmanship. The real god of war, Woden (Odin), however, was also the ruler of messengers and divine inspiration; so he was matched up with Mercury for Wednesday.

The modern word week indicates a period of challenges, endurance, and the will to overcome them. It might be best considered a self-contained cycle of worldly effort.