What’s in a Name

Eight years ago Trillium Awakening was chosen as the new name for our organization, formerly known as Waking Down in Mutuality. After an intensive search, the name Trillium Awakening was brought forth at the last moment and carried the day by a close vote over Core Emergence.

Not everybody was in love with the name then and it still can be perplexing. Certainly ‘Core Emergence’ was a very good name and would have represented this work well as we elicit the emergence of core essence into our lives.

At the time it was impossible to predict how we would grow and how our teachings would develop. What is clear to many now, with the advent of maturing whole being realization, is that Trillium Awakening is an ideal representation for the integrative transformation our teachers are ushering in.

The three-in-one amalgam of consciousness, embodiment, and mutuality is symbolized by the three petals of the Trillium wildflower. This symbolism is common to many spiritual traditions as they, with their own emphasis, represent that relationship using different names – knower, known and process of knowing from the Vedic tradition, father, son and spirit from the Christian tradition to name a couple.

Whole Being Realization is the awakening that has emerged from this Trillium work and represents the synthesis of our identity as transcendent awareness, conscious embodiment and non-separate interconnection.

As our appreciation of each of the three major facets of creation matures and integrates, our experience will reflect ever more refined realizations and stages of connection leading to a sacred ownership of who we are as both the author and expression of all that is.

Trillium teacher Rod Taylor’s Whole Being Evolution Map uses these three fundamentals to build detailed expressions for each realization, shift and stage of evolutionary development. His map is an emerging representation that chronicles the dynamic integration of consciousness, embodiment and mutuality as they manifest in our lives.

The value of a name resides in the capacity of that name to reflect the fullness of what it describes. The power of a name grows as your relationship to its symbolism is comprehended. Trillium Awakening has turned out to be a name capable of holding the full range of our evolving teachings.