From the very beginning, we knew we wanted to honor the number three. After all, there are three of us - Leila, Katey, and Patricia Briggs. My mother always felt it was significant there were three of us left after my father passed. She correlated this to a new and sacred energy. Historically the number three has always held great significance both esoterically and in Celtic culture. Our Celtic and Irish heritage has held a huge part of our lives. My father encouraged us to Irish step dance, to study and learn the history and language of Ireland, and he often accredited his ability to move forward in his life to his Irish heritage and family. Thus, “trí” (sounds like tree) or “a trí” (sounds like a tree) means three in Irish. And of course tri in English also means three. The question was where to go from there?
We were stumped. We spent a lot of time and many months reflecting and pairing various words with Trí/Tri. None felt or sounded right.
One evening, I laid down on the couch to meditate as I often did. As I drifted into hypnagogic state of consciousness, I felt my deceased father enter the room. As he moved towards me, I saw the Hill of Tara behind him. For a moment, I relived my last visit Hill of Tara in Ireland. And then I heard my father speak, “Leila. Lia. I think you should include Lia.” I snapped awake and scrambled to search the meaning of “Lia” in Irish.
I already knew “The Lia Fáil” was the “Speaking Stone” on the Hill of Tara. But what does the word Lia by itself mean? To my surprise, one of the Irish translations of Lia is “healer.” We were sold!
We decided to go with the Irish pronunciation of both words (though due to legal reasons we dropped the fada in Trí). Thus TriLia (sounds like tree lee ah) was born. Grammatically, it doesn’t make much sense; but it feels and sounds very right and very us! It’s a sacred and authentic name to our family and our spiritual journeys.
Mise le meas, Leila Briggs
P.S. The synchronicity doesn’t stop there! Many years ago, when my mother was just a teen, her father, my grandfather, was told a special stone would find them. The stone’s purpose was to protect the family on their spiritual journeys. He was told that he would recognize this stone because it would have “glowing green eyes or glow green.” At the time, my grandfather only shared this spiritual message with his wife, my grandmother. A few days later, my mother’s brother was playing in a stream and a green light shimmering off the waters surface caught his eye. The green light revealed itself to be a stone, with multiple “green eyes.” When my uncle showed my grandfather the stone, he immediately recognized it as the one that had been foretold to him. This stone has been carried within the family since then. The Lia Fáil also reportedly glows green. (I don’t suppose or even fantasize we have the seeing stone. I do enjoy the connection and coincidence though!)
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