As we discussed the age old question of what family name we should have after our marriage, it quickly became clear that we did not like the traditional approach of taking one person's last name and the other person losing their last name. To us, this felt unbalanced -- as if one person were more important than the other. And clearly this is not the case! We are both amazing rock-stars! Equals coming together to share life! And so, we decided we would find a new family name which represented both of us equally, something that we newly created out of our partnering. And thus, SunSpiral was born, a combination of our two personal symbols:
Fascinated by his Lithuanian heritage, Vytas used a sun as his personal heraldry on his shield when practicing medieval sword fighting for almost two decades, and thus the sun has become a strong personal symbol of his. The initial inspiration for this symbol came from the old Lithuanian Pagan religion which treated the sun with respect and worship. Vytas also took the opportunity of marriage to formally take 'Vytas' as his first name. This is also an old Lithuanian name that is a shortened version of 'Vytautas' -- which can be translated as either "Speaker of Visions" or "Vision of the People."
Claire has been fascinated with the spiral for much of her life, seeing it as a common element in nature -- found again and again in plants and even our DNA. Furthermore, she follows the spiraling path in her own life... She has an open heart and love for the world, but it can only be found by those who take the time to walk the spiraling path and get to know her slowly. Claire took this symbol into her own identity when she legally changed her name to Claire Spiral Gaia Rose back in 2003. Incorporating all elements of that name, her full married name is Claire GaiaRose SunSpiral.
