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This page is a much fuller version of that more brief statement I made on the first "Rhyader" page...  My "real" name, or the one that was given to me, is Chris B. Wilcher.  But you may call me either Chris or Rhyader, as you choose.  As I said before ...

Many of us, when we go "on-line" in the computer world, choose names for ourselves: "handles", "screen-names", or some other pseudonym (meaning "false name").  I have coined the term autonym to mean a name one chooses for himself.   I made up the name "Rhyader", or thought I made it up, thinking I was being original. I came to like this name I had chosen for myself, and to like the fact that there were people who knew me as "Rhyader", and called me by that name, even on the street.  Indeed, are not the names that we choose for ourselves just as much ours - perhaps more so - as the ones that were given to us?  And so I shall bear the name in this or any world.

I first made up the name "Rhyader" as a name for a wizard character in a role-playing game. I played that game only once, but the name I kept, and it lived on. I later found that I had not been so original; and that there were even some strange coincidences linking me to the name.

I had gotten a modem for my XT computer and learned how to dial up and connect to other systems - local bulletin boards (BBS's) and the Internet via the local college. I got a guest account ("rhyader", of course) on Project Gnu's MIT machines. When I became a member of The Pentode BBS which used to exist in San Luis Obispo, I used Rhyader as my name there. Under that nomen, I became a different sort of wizard; casting forth my cyberphotons of interlocution into the electronic æther. I made many friends through The Pentode; some of which called me "Rhyader" all the time.

Indeed, I miss the passing of the local BBS as a computer forum; for it provided meaningful and intelligent discussions, and the opportunity to meet LOCAL computer users in your community. Unlike the World Wide Web, local computer forums could actually encourage one to leave the computer and go meet someone in the real world.

Then when I entered the Modern Internet, the World Wide Web, this graphically driven land of drivel and spam, I of course used my name, Rhyader, on my various accounts and services.

Coincidences ...

I thought that I had made then name Rhyader up - but I had previously listened to the album "The Snow Goose" by a band called "Camel". This theme album has songs named after the characters "Rhayader" and "Fritha" - who are the snow geese. So perhaps I didn't remember remembering that name and spelled it "Rhyader". Perhaps. Then again I have discovered at least two other people on the net who have taken the name "Rhyader", spelled the same way, who were also fans of the musical group "Camel" and had also apparently forgotten that Camel spelled it "Rhayader". Then I heard from someone who informed me that it wasn't Camel's original idea anyway.

They got the idea from a novel titled "The Snow Goose" - in which Fritha is a wandering woman who meets a reclusive semi-hermit fisherman named Rhayader and they marry. Shortly thereafterward, a pair of snow geese appear to them. The geese return at the same time each year, and Rhayader and Fritha take the geese as symbols of their love. But WWII came. Rhayader went to Dunkurk, to help in the evacuation, and did not return. When Fritha sees one - only one - of the snow geese appear outside the cabin - she knows that Rhayader is dead.

THEN I heard that this fictional novel is based partly on fact. Though there is no proof of a woman named Fritha, a fisherman named Rhayader did, in fact, live in England in the period.

If you do a web search on "Rhyader", you will find out that it is the name of a town in Whales. Is it in eastern Whales, and would that be anywhere close to Wilshire, perhaps? My sirname is Wilcher. Supposedly our family lived there (in Wilshire) before we moved to America.

Then, one lonely night, I did in my web wanderings come to the site of the on-line I Ching. Being in a sour mood, brought on partly by a bad relationship, I asked the I Ching if I would ever get over it. (I of course entered the required information, and my name, Rhyader.)   I got back a story about geese. The geese had a friend who played with them and made them happy. But all good things come to an end. Sometimes tragically. The geese moved through a dry place, clamoring over boulders, and eventually reached a High place where they went on with their lives.
And so do I.

Was this some sort of a cosmic syzygy ? Or the universe speaking to me??
Sometimes the universe does speak to us, you know.

Pronounskiation? Well, I had in mind Rhy-ah-dur. ( rhy rhymes with rye ).
But others have called it Ree-ah-dur.   I like the ambiguity. 8)

Cyon Symbol I also made up a symbol for myself. (The symbol to the left.)
I call it a Cyon. I was thinking it looked like a stylized star image ...
but others have suggested it looked like an antenna, or like a butterfly.
I like all of those.
Star : for higher concepts and infinite realms... no limits.
Limits are things we invent and impose on ourselves because we cannot handle infinity.
Antenna : broadcasting (and receiving) messages into the endless æther.
Butterfly : Freedom.

Or perhaps it could be a Moth, or perhaps the star the moth is after...

+ Reach for the Stars

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