Call Me Azila

I had a dream once, back when I began studying Witchcraft. In the dream, I sat at a table in my backyard where I lived at the time, a stack of papers in front of me. It was dusk and I was in a hurry to finish letters that I was writing to people. My dog (who is now my familiar) sat at my side, watching a fox wander through the small garden I had planted nearby.

I quickly signed each letter with the name Azila Tihi, which is nothing even close to my real name.

As I folded each letter, the fox abandoned his raid of my garden and began to approach me slowly. I tied the stack of finished letters together with a piece of twine and held the stack out to the fox, who gently placed his mouth on the other end and took it. I whispered a sincere "thank you" as I watched him hurry off with my letters, escaping my backyard through a small hole in the bottom of the fencing. The last thing I remember before waking up is turning to go inside the house and calling my dog to follow.

I don't often pay much attention to dreams that seem so random and pointless but when I woke from this one, it was stuck in my memory like a coat of fresh paint. I spent the next couple of weeks trying to work out what it meant. That fox had shown up in my dreams before, so that wasn't new. He was usually there in the background of my dreams for seemingly no particular reason. I've always had a thing for foxes, and they seem to show up everywhere I go in one way or another, so the presence of the fox didn't surprise me.

The part that had me concerned was the letters. Why was I signing them with that name, and who was I writing to? After doing a little bit of research, and coming up with nothing, I decided to run that phrase through a translator app on my phone. I was astounded when it told me that "tihi azila" was a term that mean silent seeker in Croatian. Aha!

I had no idea what the purpose of signing my name in Croatian was, as I wasn't really even aware of the existence of that particular language until this happened. But Silent Seeker really resonated with me. It fit, and it stuck. I decided to make Tihi Azila my "magical name." I use Azila for short, and that is what I call myself in all things Craft-related, including my journals and BOS.

That is the story of why I'm called Azila. I didn't exactly pick it for myself, but I love it! I don't think I could have picked a better name if I had done it entirely on my own!