As you may know, I have been on an almost ten year journey to publish a book. I went through the process of writing an incredibly detailed book proposal that I polished over and over again. I knew it was time to send it out into the world when I was barely changing a single word every time I read it. Still, it took me months before I finally got my courage and a long list of potential publishers together. I submitted my proposal to all of the publishers I thought might be interested, which turned out to be 10 out of the 35 entries on my spreadsheet. Rejection letters filtered in, and ultimately I wasn’t able to find a publisher that was interested or able to make it cost effective for their business models.

So now I am new to the process of self-publishing and, as I began looking into it, I arrived at the the place where I needed to come up with an imprint name for my business. It’s not required – the ISBNs that I will purchase for the book are tied to my name not the publisher. But it seemed like a fun exercise, so I jumped right on it. Mostly I was focused on looking at variations on the title of this blog, which is “Integrating Toward a Wholly Life.”

I really like the play on words of wholly and holy, which is how “wholly” ended up in my website title. As I remember it, the name for my website came as a gift – it just seemed to naturally come from my spiritual development over the course of many years. I didn’t stress about the name – it just appeared wholly there. And realistically, in the process of becoming holy people, I do believe that we must work to integrate ourselves into whole selves. Of course we never quite get all the way there, which is where the word “toward” comes in. For more on this concept, I highly recommend the book Urgings of the Heart: A Spirituality of Integration, by Wilke Au and Noreen Cannon. I recently re-read this book and find it to be a practical and challenging look at inner life and external relationships. It also provides an introductory take on Jungian aspects/ideas, such as shadow, projection, and animus/anima.

I was initially leaning toward Wholly Life Press or maybe just Wholly Press for my self-publishing business. But, I quickly found that names like Wholly Life or Wholly Living or Wholly Books were not as original as I had thought. There are lots of other people who love this specific play on words too. There are books, podcasts, Facebook series, company names, and many other endeavors that also use the word “wholly.”

So then I thought – oh, I will just avoid this problem completely by translating it into Spanish. So off I went – obsessing about how to do that so that it would be a relatively short, memorable title. I thought “enteravida” would be pretty good – it’s mostly short and it translates to English roughly as “whole life” or maybe “entire life.” Plus, it’s slightly reminiscent of the fabulous woman at the well story in the gospel of John, where she tells her friends that Jesus told her “her entire life.” But still, it wasn’t exactly what I was going for – the play on words was now missing. Doing my (thorough as per usual) research, I found out that there is an insurance company called Enteravida, but not too many other references, which was good. But then came the death knell – I discovered that if you spell enteravida wrong, it becomes eternavida, which means eternal life. Ok, yeah eternal life is good, but it is just a little too close to death for me at this moment. And anyway, it is easily misspelled and might cause my imprint not to be found or otherwise result in confusion.

So I moved on to my third possibility – Elati. Of course, Elati is just the name of the street I live on, but I looked into where the name might have come from. Turns out that Elati has a number of different meanings and associations.

Elati – An extinct dialect of the Cherokee language

Cherokee tribe members are descended from native peoples, who were located in the southern Appalachian Mountains, dating back to approximately 8000 BCE. The Cherokee were also referred to as the ‘Tsalagi’, meaning the “cave people.” The Cherokee language is classified as part of the Iroquoian language group, and Elati is one of its dialects. It was historically spoken by inhabitants of the Lower Towns on the plains in the vicinity of the South Carolina-Georgia border before their forced removal in 1838. The Elati language uses an R sound rather than the L sound of the other two Cherokee dialects (Otali and Kituhwa). The Elati dialect is believed to have become extinct around the year 1900. 

The image at right is of Sequoya, a Cherokee also known as George Guess. He was instrumental in establishing a written version of the Cherokee language. He created a syllabry over the course of 12 years of work, completing the project in 1829. A syllabry is a type of alphabet where symbols are used to identify spoken syllables. In the Cherokee language, there are 85 symbols, and each one stands for a different syllable or sound. Our street is named Elati because of this Native American dialect. Many of the street names in our neighborhood, such as Acoma, Cherokee, Delaware, Fox, and Inca, also have Native associations.

Elati – The Greek word for mountain

Elati (Ελάτη) means highest point or mountain (or possibly also pine tree) in Greek.  There is, for example, a mountain on the island of Lefkada that is named Elati. But the more commonly known Elati in Greece is a small village between the forest and the riverbeds of Mylaon, not far from the provincial city Trikala.  This village, Elati, is traditionally thought to have been established just prior to the fall of Constantinople of the Ottoman Empire. Before 1943, the village had a location slightly more west than it is currently, closer to the river. However, the original village was burned down, during the World War II German occupation of Greece, so it was relocated. Elati in Greece looks to be a mountainous area that is well-loved by many who hike the Menalon Trail, which is where the photo below was taken. I find this image gorgeous. I always love the juxtaposition of water and moss and rock…..

Elati – the Latin word for having been raised up

Elati is also the inflection of the word elatus in Latin (elating?) and may be part of the derivation of the English words “elated” and “elevated.” Elatus means brought or carried out, forth or away, borne to the grave, having been buried, brought forth, released, sent forth, lifted up, elevated, raised, reaching a high level, having been elevated. Sounds like resurrection to me – appropriately joyful.

Elati – In the Marathi language of India

Elati, Ēlaṭī, Elaṭī, Ēlāti is also from the Marathi language in India. It is a common term for the two cross pieces (the upper and the under) composing the cāḷā.  In Marathi, cāḷā means in-motion, the gait, or pace that is a manner of walking, moving, journeying. So, this is the connotation of Elati that is most foreign or exotic to me, but if it is a cross that is moving on a journey – that sounds pretty relevant as well.

Elati Publishing

So after much agonizing and many google searches to vet names, I finally decided that I wanted to call my imprint Elati Press. Yay – a decision!! However, when I searched the Colorado business registration database, I found Elati Press had been registered by a guy in Grand Junction between 2015 and 2018. No way… you’ve got to be kidding me… It is an expired name, but I still decided not to go with it.

So Elati Publishing it is! It’s apparent to me that Elati is a name with multiple meanings, that has a real richness and depth associated with it. I registered my business with the Secretary of State of Colorado and am moving forward. So, self-publishing? I say bring it on!

Reference 1: “Cherokee Language,” Cherokee Phoenix, Volume 1, Issue 25, Page 2, Column 1b, August 20, 1828, as-accessed at Western Carolina Library Website.

Reference 2: Michael Conrad, Cherokee Language Lessons, Volume 1, March 26, 2020.

Reference 3: “History of the Cherokee Language,” archived web page saved from Geocities website, October 2009.

Reference 4: Elati, https://discovertrikala.com/listings/elati/.

Reference 5: Elati, Trikala, Greece, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elati,_Trikala.

Reference 6: Elati, Ēlaṭī, Elaṭī, Ēlāti: 2 definitions, Wisdom Library, https://www.wisdomlib.org/definition/elati.

Image 1: Urgings of the Heart: A Spirituality of Integration, cover design by Janet Duffy, C.S.J.

Image 2: Sequoya, a lithograph of Sequoya (also known as George Guess) from History of the Indian Tribes of North America, derived from the portrait by Charles Bird King in 1828.

Lithograph of Sequoyah

Image 3: Photograph along the Menalon Trail, Elati, in the area of Trikala, Greece.