Grammar's Daily Blog: Today on "Wells Of Thought:" The screen name "Lorienian," its origins and symbolic significance

Heya, this is going to be another post partially taken from the Tolkien website where I posted thoughts under the title #Wells Of Thought: Notions and Expositions. More Tolkien talk, but mostly just me trying to simply describe why I picked that screen name so long ago--and then realizing that it describes who I am in a way I never realized, and furthering that train of thought. But first...

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About Lorienian

I have been a fan of Tolkien's works since I read The Fellowship of the Ring in 2008. Since then, I have re-read the Lord of the Rings trilogy many times, I've listened to the Rob Inglis-narrated audiobooks on hourlong drives to and from work, and I've been read to aloud from many of his books.

About names

I've been using the name "Lorienian" since way back when... It was my Quizlet username in 7th grade, so that tells you something.

I always loved the dreamflower... And Lórien was the "land of dreams". It's no wonder why it drew me in, for I found myself living in my own daydreams for most of my childhood....
...wandering the woods on the edge of our home in the Appalachians....
...climbing into the old silo lying on its side to serve as playground equipment and closing the hatch, pretending I was an astronaut on my way to the moon....
...sitting on the beach before sunrise without a soul in sight, just to listen to a song about watching the "night turn light blue"....
...looking out of an airplane at the sea below and wondering what it would be like to sail the seas and find a desert island, far away from the hustle and bustle of life, a place to steal away to when all of the work was done....

Later, I tried to make those dreams come to life in fantasy stories. I began so many stories that started with "Once upon a time, there lived a girl...", but they were just dreams: imaginings with little meat to them, unless it was the descriptions of their perfect lives. These were the stories from "the Candara Period."
I couldn't keep myself from wondering what a fantasy world would be like...
...what it would feel like to wake up in the morning to the smell of freshly cooked, sizzling janji, ("similar to bacon...invented by a man named Janji, son of Sútä Chikä")?...
...what would it be like to grow up playing in a treehouse in "a stout fléutl tree", where I had to be careful to watch out for the sap of the tree, which was so sticky that if it got in your hair, you'd have "to hunt for the rentzal, an insect like a harmless grayish-purple bumblebee, to squash to work the sap out".... --"The Fleutl Tree", middle-school.

Where did I get all of this? And why is it that I'm just now looking at this story from at least 2011, over 7 years ago, and I can still vividly picture the jungle that they lived in?

And that's just when I transferred the document from .doc to .docx; I'd have to dig to find old manuscripts, and see if they were dated, to find out when I really started writing that. It might have been 4th grade, pre-2009. Before I had even finished reading the Lord of the Rings.

It's weird to think that a time existed before my knowledge of Tolkien. In all my travels, domestic and international, I've packed his books with me in my carry-on bag. Even though I generally trusted the airline to get my checked bags would make it to my final destination, I didn't trust them enough to surrender my precious collection of paperback Tolkien into their hands. I've always put them on display wherever I hung my hat. These books have, besides the Bible, most certainly influenced me more than any other book.

Nevertheless, to date my first encounter with the books, it had to be early 2008, because I can remember getting into trouble badly enough that my parents' punishment was forbidding me from watching the Two Towers and the Return of the King before we moved (in like Feb 2009). That felt like forever.

Tolkien's works have still been a common backdrop for the latest scenes of my journey, or rather....hhhm... I'm going to wax eloquent again. I'm just getting a taste for it and my thesaurus just smells so good. It's like walking into a bookstore and seeing a sale for 70% off. ☺ Anyway.

In my life's film, the characters acted out scenes of my childhood against a matte painting hung for scenery. This backdrop, upon inspection, was always curiously illustrated in a fashion closer to fantasy art than it appeared from a distance; one saw it in a haze closing in to shroud a horizon, and in vapors swirling in fantastic shapes across the forest floor. An almost-hidden clearing filled with butterflies and dancing fairies was impossible to find again once one's eyes had strayed. It was my perception of the world, and if I formed that concept around my experiences, as psychology would suppose, what experiences influenced and created an outlook so filled with mystery and disguise? A field of daisies may seem harmless, and a cheerful sprite can look tame. But I am reminded that while Lothlorien was called dreamflower, the race of Men whose horses' pastures bordered the wood called it Dwimordene, "vale of phantoms". The song of an unknown bird, though beautiful for its exotic nature, can still breed apprehension. I believed the world was vastly beyond my knowledge, and still I was curious. These are the thoughts that keep me awake at night.

Later on, the backdrop began to incorporate Tolkienian motifs into its design, and, not only those of his books, but of his source material. The matte painting hanging against the wall has consistently borrowed shades and hues from the mosaic of Tolkien's mythology and the canvas of the culture of the Lord of the Rings. These themes are patterns of light that reveal hope, flowering despite the growing shadows, and of depth that unveil the far-off sides of a valley, sinking and descending to converge on a winding river, imparting a now-tangible grasp of its unreachable purity.

The places which were hid with fog do not discard their mystery fully, but, as they are explored, one gains a greater familiarity with the sheer wonder of their indescribable essence. I'm trying to describe life, the way everything depends on everything else; and fate, the tapestry woven before time itself by the Creator. The older I get, the more I realize how little I really understand about reality. I am unaware of so many things, and so many perilous fates lie behind a foggy perception. This journey has wound its way through many a thicket of thorns: through many dangers, toils, and snares1. No matter what some may say, there is truth, and there are clear black lines, even in all the grey, that point to the source of truth. 'Tis grace has brought me safe thus far. I'm not out of the woods yet.

I've been out of creative writing for several years. High school was the high point, and ever since then, the roads of narrative have seldom seen a soul. While some may say that my daydreaming manner was a byproduct of the whimsical fantasies I lost myself in when I read and wrote--and that it has faded, now that I'm too busy for books--I know that it remains.

The dreamlike shadow of a surreal phantasy still lingers, luring my soul toward its sweet solace in times of chaos.... It is a mist of the otherworldly and the enchanting: warm in its embrace, but icy, proud of its expertise in bewitching all who enter, delighting in lulling them with a sense of security and confidence that a noble pursuit of purpose and meaning will suffice. 'If only you find your "center",' it says, 'if only you discover your life's "bottom line", if you can only figure your damn self out, then the world will unfold before you and you will succeed in everything you put your pretty little mind to.' Forgive me, but that's how the surreal mist talks.

When I stir from my slumber, waked by a noise in the night, it's all too easy to drift back to sleep again. 'I need to get back to my dream,' I mutter, and shut my eyes and recall every detail I can so that I might slip back into the numbness of sleep.

Ignorance is bliss, but it is not peace. The dreams that I entertain to keep the world away cannot escape the bounds of my reality. Instead, they magnify the questions that I've been running away from during the day. I run from a dream-monster, and I wake to find the monster present and unavoidable.

There, I've gone and written myself into a corner again. I'm trying to paint a picture of the inkling of self that is present in childhood, which grows and branches into a tree as time goes on. I pray that the leaves that receive life from the sun are always facing toward it; I pray that the clouds that sometimes hide its rays are not stagnating, and that any afflicting weather is strong enough to produce rain, which is as vital as the sunlight which the clouds like to hide. I pray that the clouds of tribulation that roll in over my soul only wash away the complacency, and that the lightning that strikes in the field and brings fire against the tree trunk only "burns the doubt away"2.

The questions of life may show up in my dreams as giants that chase me down. But the answers are found in only One. The name of the Lord is a strong tower / The righteous run into it and they are saved3.

As I grew up, so did my mind, my awareness of the world around me, and my understanding of the things within me. Mind, body, soul, and spirit, I grew to recognize all of their habits and peculiarities. If I lie around all day, it drains my body of energy and fills my mind with circular thoughts and my soul worries that they won't go away. And if I don't eat an actual breakfast meal, my body wants to lie around all day and my mind goes to sleep, leaving my soul to seek escape. I've learned that if I go out to spend a whole day running around with friends, my body gets slow and my mind relies on instinct, though my spirit is lifted by the afterglow of friendship's flame. I've learned that I'll enjoy a day out with the squad if I sleep a full night and give my body some rest.

I've learned of the way personalities and thinking styles affect one's psyche. The more I learn about the created world and the Creator, the more I learn about myself. I studied myself and answered the hard questions, tired of running from them.

And so it came to be that the name Lorienian was about the dreamer in the woods. The vale of phantoms was a battleground of the heart, and she had a choice: to run from the nightmares, or to wake up and face them. The dreamflower was sprouting up where it had been planted, and though it was uprooted and moved from season to season, there was always a ray of light to grow closer to for nourishment.

Connecting that "dreamer" archetype with my childhood image of myself, I have discovered what "self-aware" might mean.

"When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known." --ESV, 1 Corinthians 13:1-12.''

Thinking back on claiming Lothlorien "by chance" as my symbolic home, I see it now. Somehow, 7th-grade me looking for a screen name created a perfect alias.

The Dreamer in the woods.

--Ashley, July 10, 2018