We got pregnant for the second time in October of last year, and as we welcomed the idea of having another baby, secretly I think John and I dreaded the conversations and arguments we were bound to have when it came to picking names. For months we struggled finding one- I think we looked through Nameberry at least a hundred times...each. As weeks went by and our due date got closer, we got even more demanding when it came to criteria:
- Her name had to be equally as firey as her elder sister’s name, Scarlett
- Her name had to be unique but classic
- Her name had to start with an S
- Her name had to have meaning
- Her name had to be easily pronounced in English, in Bahasa Indonesia, by Scarlett, by other kids
- Her name this
- Her name that
- Bla bla
We had come up with a list of names, but as our due date came and frustratingly went, all those names had expired. At 41 weeks pregnant, we had yet no baby, and no name. My best friend told me how my baby is never gonna come out if I had no name for her, and I bought into that belief. My husband took me for a spicy spaghetti arrabbiata (spice is meant to coax a baby into labor, apparently, but what I got was the toilet as a new best friend instead) and we revisited the idea of names mentioned in some of our favorite songs. There was Layla, there was Siouxsie, but there were also Lucies and Sharonas that we could rock out to but couldn’t find any spiritual connection to. One week late, and we were back in square one.
Not a name of a song, but Siouxsie Sioux was an eccentric role model for me growing up!
There was a song that I never listened to but managed to get stuck in my head, and with that came this peaceful yet powerful imagery. It was a strangely comforting and subtle song, and it wrapped around me like a warm towel fresh from the drier. Before I knew it, I was sold, and fell in love with the name, even if it didn’t fit into any of the criteria mentioned above! I even had a dream of a skylark flying through the night sky with the moon on her shoulders.
Rhiannon, a pagan goddess of fertility and the moon
Exactly a week later, she was born, and we named her after the Fleetwood Mac song Rhiannon. I remember singing the song in my head as my contractions got shorter, and the chorus screamed in my head as I silently pushed her out into the world!
Derived from Welsh legends, Rhiannon was a Celtic goddess of fertility and the moon. Coincidentally, our Rhiannon was born at 8.40 in the evening of a new moon (that is a crescent moon). I have always been infatuated with the moon since my days as a Sailor Moon fangirl (still a fangirl) so to honor the moon by naming my daughter after a Celtic moon-goddess was just incredibly becoming (you can tell how much I worship the moon by how many times I mentioned it in this paragraph).
Rhiannon rings like a bell through the night and
Wouldn't you love to love her?
Takes to the sky like a bird in flight and
Who will be her lover?
All your life you've never seen
A woman taken by the wind
Would you stay if she promised you heaven?
Will you ever win?
She is like a cat in the dark and then
She is the darkness
She rules her life like a fine skylark and when
The sky is starless
Click here to listen to the song in this iconic 1976 live performance by Fleetwood Mac
Stevie Nicks <3
Even though the legends associated Rhiannon with a white horse, I wanted to pay tribute to this amazing Fleetwood Mac song by using the skylark instead. The style in which I drew the bird and crescent moon started out pretty dark at first. In black and white, the whole illustration seemed too witchy for a newborn so I started experimenting with colors.
Original illustration for “Rhiannon”
I ended up using the illustration for my crystal pouches! Click here to shop my healing crystals!
A simple crescent moon
The more colors I used the more the picture as a whole looked like a combination of legend, song, and baby. At the end of the day, the illustration was meant to be used as a print for goodie bags for Rhiannon’s 30-day ceremony, and it is not auspicious for Chinese tradition to wear black for such a joyful occasion, so the colorful print worked out better!
The skylark
Print layout for the pouch
Finished product for gift souvenirs! Click here to customise your own.
For both my kids, I had illustrated a symbol for them that I associated with heavily as a sort of pillar of support during labor. My firstborn’s is a coy white rabbit with flowers on the base of her ears— the extreme pain from my 20 hour labor induced strange hallucinations for me, and it felt like I was chasing for her to come out of the rabbit hole and coax her into this world.
Scarlett’s bunny
My labor with Rhiannon was short, painless, sweet, and probably the best two hours of my life being surrounded by my husband and family and the best Doctor one could ask for; however, the month leading up to it was horrible as we were so hyped up for her due date (she was two weeks overdue), and back and forth trips every other day to the hospital wasn’t mentally great either. Singing along with the Fleetwood Mac song and picturing the skylark in the night brought me great comfort, and I hope my illustrations brings her namesake justice 🖤