Ever since I started this website, people ask me questions. What is your name? Because some people know me as my given name and others know me as my chosen name. It’s not that complicated. Let me take you through the progression.

My name is Martha and I”m also known as Mera. Mera is a name I started using at the NYRenFaire where many people have a Faire name. It’s been my name there for 40+ years. The year the Faire will begin August 17, 2024. It has an extra weekend, different from last year becaue it’s starting earlier.

 My full name is Martha Elizabeth Rand.  I made my Faire name Mera because it is all my initials with an A at the end to make it feminine.  I also use it on some of my artwork, because it’s easier to write simply 4 letters than spell out my whole name on a canvas or any background IMHO.

Mera is also the ocean.  La mer, in French and so sensuous and powerful. 

Mira, spelled a different way means light or to look.

I didn’t change my name in this marriage, but I’ve thought of what it would mean to define Mira Ryzman (Ryzman is my husband’s name). Or Mira Beth Ryzman.  Shortening the Elizabeth to it’s nickname Beth.  Then my name is Traveler (Ryzman) who brings home (Beth) the light (Mira).  I love that.

Martha Elizabeth are my paternal grandmother and maternal grandmother’s names.  The  name Elizabeth goes way back and brings me to names of relatives who signed the Flushing Remonstrance against Peter Stuyvesant to bring religious freedom to the colony of New Amsterdam.  Amsterdam and Holland has been known for it’s religious freedom/tolerance and was so even back in the 1600’s.  It also brings me back to signers of the Revolution and slaveholders and people who freed and educated people (slaves) whom they had owned. 

There’s a lot in a name.

Then of course, Martha is a Biblical name.  A really good friend of mine in this lifetime is named Mary.  We worked together at the Inpatient Eating Disorder Unit in the 80’s and we are still friends. The Biblical Martha, who I am primed to think of with regard to this friendship is the one where Mary and Martha are sisters.  Passover morning, Mary goes to the well.  She’s on an errand for her household.  Martha is charged with creating the dinner.

As I imagine the story, Mary comes back late-ish.  She’s probably been talking to her girlfriends at the well and then of course there’s a cute boy who she hasn’t seen in the village before.  So, Mary starts to flirt.  With Jesus, who in a lot of pictures has the hippie, transcendental, disrupter energy.

When she gets home, Martha is annoyed.  It’s later than she thought it would take Mary.  Why didn’t Martha think about how all the girls would be at the wells sent by their mothers or older sisters to get the water?  Martha knows that  Mary can never resist ‘the moment.’  Because Martha is often ahead of the moment.  Dinner will not take care of itself.

“Mary, why are you late?” was Martha’s question, often.

“I had ‘a moment’ with Rachel.” Or name any girl or boy in the village.  Sometimes it could have been someone’s pet or other animal with whom she felt drawn into connection.

Today, Martha has a lot to do.  No time to waste.

I imagine that Mary walks through the kitchen door and the door hits the wall behind it, which also annoys Martha because it  leaves a mark that she’ll have to clean up.

“Mary, why are you late?” is Martha’s question today.

“There were a lot of people at the well.” Mary paused and then thinking it would be easier to just come out with it.  If she held it in, there would never be a perfect time to tell her sister about what she has done.

“Martha, there was a new man at the well. He’s a stranger here.” Mary began.

“Did you invite him, no one should be alone on Passover?” Martha asked.

“I did. You’re not upset? Are you?”

“No, of course not, you did the right thing.”

Mary was still standing there instead of putting the water jug on the ground. 

Martha turned to see her standing as though in a trance. “What are you dreaming?”

“I don’t think I’m dreaming.  His name is Jesus, the man I invited.  And here’s the thing…”

Martha motioned with her head to go on, as she prepped the vegetables with her hand.

“He travels with 12 friends and he asked if he could bring them.”

“Twelve friends!” Martha shouted.

“Yes, we could have dinner in the courtyard. I don’t think there’s anyplace else for everyone, and we have lots of pillows.”

“That’s a lot of work! Put down the pitcher.”

“I don’t think we have to be concerned.  Jesus just makes more fish and more wine.  He said, he’s done it before and he can bring…”

Mary didn’t’ get to finish her sentence. Martha interrupted. “Sure, and you better get busy. No newcomer standing around the well looking to go to a girl’s house for dinner, is bringing everything, get moving!”

Martha’s so pragmatic, she needs help with this entirely unexpected dinner to prep for and Mary is simply faithfully convinced that all will go well.

In modern terms, we might say that Martha is a strategic thinker.  She’s planning and putting the schedule for dinner together.  I’d say that’s one of my strengths.

At dinner Jesus tells Martha to relax and praises Mary for her faith.

I’m sure it’s no coincidence that Margaret Atwood chose the name Marthas for all the women who keep the ones who bear children in line.

For me that’s not the kind of Martha that I want to be.

We all have a little of every archetype within us.  One or another may stand out at any given time.  As a ‘Martha’ I’m not Atwood’s Martha.  I have too much disrupter energy, especially when I see people being taken advantage of.  Disrupter is not my strongest archetype but it’s been a part of my repertoire in a few major life situations.

As a coach and a reader, I desire to support people in looking at what patterns they stay in that no longer serve them.  I’m typically a gentle disrupter when I work with people, but I can be fiercer in institutionalized settings.  That’s where my strategic thinking shines. 

In groups when there are a lot of Martha’s I’m comfortable being Mera.  I answer to both.

Sometimes I think about this double name and in many ways my double life with my Gemini ascendant.  Gemini, the twins.  I’ve lived these twin lives professionally since I started to realize that I was a body mind spirit healer, which feels like forever ago.  I’ve worked in the non traditional healing/spiritual realm as a yoga and meditation teacher, a somatic educator and now a pleasure coach, as well as an astrologer, tarot reader, and past life seer.  Additionally, I have the traditional training and alphabet soup including LCSW (licensed clinical social worker), certified dance/movement therapist, trauma informed interventionist, past life regression therapist, and plenty more.

In relation to my name, I answer to both Martha and Mera, pick your fave and I’m good.