Seeking a Name: Halcyon

I've been trying to figure out a meaningful 'spirit name' for myself, looking back through important words and names to me through the years and one of the more important ones I've used is HALCYON. I've named groups in my roleplaying Halcyon, I've named characters, I've used it for various things... it's meaningful to me because of the fact that it's meaning comes from peace within a storm (loosely translated). I think I've been drawn to things that have to do with peace because I desperately want calm, quiet and peace in my life. Halcyon does mean "Calm", it is Greek origin. It's sometimes spelled Halcyone, or Alcyone.

In Greek myth this name belonged to a daughter of Aeolus and the wife of Ceyx. After her husband was killed in a shipwreck she threw herself into the water, but the gods saved her and turned them both into kingfishers. This is also the name of the brightest of the Pleiades, the seven stars in the constellation Taurus.

halcyon 

1.calm; peaceful; tranquil: halcyon weather.

2.rich; wealthy; prosperous: halcyon times of peace.

3.happy; joyful; carefree: halcyon days of youth.

4.of or pertaining to the halcyon or kingfisher.

Halcyon--a mythical bird, usually identified with the kingfisher, said to breed about the time of the winter solstice in a nest floating on the sea, and to have the power of charming winds and waves into calmness.


Kingfisher Meanings: Connection to peaceful seas - Happiness and love - Peace - Indifference to surroundings - Clear vision through emotional waters - Ability to dive (focus) into emotional waters and catch ones dreams

How the Kingfisher Got His Bill
Story from James Mooney's "History, Myths, and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees"
Some old men say the Kingfisher was meant in the beginning to be a water bird but as he had not been given either webbed feet or a good bill he could not make a living. The animals held a council over it and decided to make him a bill like a long sharp awl for a fishgig (fish spear). So they made him a fishgig and fastened it on the front of his mouth. He flew to the top of a tree, sailed out and darted down into the water, and came up with a fish on his gig. And he has been the best gigger ever since. 
 
Some others say it this way: A Blacksnake found a Yellowhammer's nest in a hollow tree, and after swallowing the young birds, coiled up to sleep in the nest, where the mother bird found him when she came home. She went for help to the Little People, who sent her to the Kingfisher. He came, and after flying back and forth past the hole a few times, made one dart at the snake and pulled him out dead. When the animals looked they found a hole in the snake's head where the Kingfisher had pierced it with a slender tu-ga-lu-na fish, which he carried in his bill like a lance. From this the Little People concluded that he would make a first-class gigger if he only had the right spear, so they gave him his long bill as a reward.