Post by Thylae on Dec 16, 2007 14:18:57 GMT -5
So I decided for a while that I may be a cladotherian. I thought I was most likely canine, yet one day as I was thinking about my connections I realized I seem to understand cats far more than canines.
Now this seems to have been a small, almost meaningless discovery, but it sparked some thought. I remembered my first shift (mostly phantom), which was into some large, muscular, spotted feline with a long tail. I remembered how that seemed to make sense to me when I entered the therian community. I then thought back to wanting a tail when I was very little...which just so happened to be a long, thin, feline like tail. I always have felt empty without this. I have always been an obsessive chewer, and very posessive of food. Always identifying things by smell. This, in part, made me later think canine. I've also always had a feeling, a "weird" feeling that I get around people. It is a feeling of self that later I realized may very well feel animal. I will also mention that when I was young, I always loved cheetahs.
At age 11, I knew I wasn't "human"...at least not in the sense that most are. That was also the time I became totemically connected to wolves.
As I grew I began to push things away, until I found the therian community through a friend, and everything pushed back again. Of course, I was young then, and naive, and fell for someone telling me that I was a "wolf", which I know very well now, only I can know. I thought I was a wolf for quite a while, until I realized I didn't feel like a wolf. That was when my search went crazy. I was so confused about who and what I was because of earlier lies, that I went from thing, to thing, to thing.
Now, for the past few years, I have been seeing myself in meditations as either a lion or cheetah. The lion, I believe is a guardian. It feels separate from me, and like it is watching over and protecting me. The cheetah is hard to say.
Recently I meditated on cheetah. I saw its face, and wondered if it was a totem. I was told by a friend who practices shamanism that in order to connect with an animal, I must somehow "integrate" a bit with it. Still not sure if this was correct or not, despite the fact that it did make sense at least in my mind, I attempted to communicate with cheetah in this meditation, and asked if it would "integrate" to show me things. Instead, I got this feeling that cheetah was already "integrated" and that it could teach nothing, really...at least nothing I don't know..almost if it had my memories.
A bit later, I went for a brief run. I tried to m-shift into cheetah just slightly to boost my speed. (I often shift just for the fun of it in general, sometimes for purposes like this one.) I remember becoming very happy...feeling very integrated with cheetah, very myself. Now I have felt somewhat myself in other shifts...and once when I shifted into veloceraptor, I did feel extremely happy, but this shift was much less of a "forced comfort" for lack of better terms. The happy/comfortable feeling came naturally, and very quickly. Unfortunately I could not run much longer (even though I was running, as usual, only in short bursts) due to my asthma, and quickly got myself out of the shift.
During the past few days I felt the feeling I tend to get around people...a feeling I have long found hard to describe. Possibly an "animal" feeling, but it was always hard to know for sure. (It's the feeling I mentioned above.) Well this feeling I have never been able to truly accurately associate an animal to other than probably mammal, probably somewhat furry, but again hard to say. Each animal I tried to fit into it seemed to not quite go in properly. Recently, although I still shouldn't say for sure, it seems cheetah may fit in. In fact, it may fit as if it is a missing puzzle piece...so well that it has almost no "holes"...hard to say though.
I have researched cheetah slightly, and have found as well that I share a couple dietary behaviors. A. High tolerance of thirst (which may or may not be related), and B. craving fruit (especially melons) when very thirsty. I found that cheetahs can go 4-10 days without water, and when extremely in need for liquid, eat a wild melon called a tsamma melon.
Anyway, that's what I am looking into. I feel I am definitely a mammal, definitely four legged, and now likely a cheetah. I think maybe another reason I thought canine is that cheetahs are very canine-like felines.
-Rana
Now this seems to have been a small, almost meaningless discovery, but it sparked some thought. I remembered my first shift (mostly phantom), which was into some large, muscular, spotted feline with a long tail. I remembered how that seemed to make sense to me when I entered the therian community. I then thought back to wanting a tail when I was very little...which just so happened to be a long, thin, feline like tail. I always have felt empty without this. I have always been an obsessive chewer, and very posessive of food. Always identifying things by smell. This, in part, made me later think canine. I've also always had a feeling, a "weird" feeling that I get around people. It is a feeling of self that later I realized may very well feel animal. I will also mention that when I was young, I always loved cheetahs.
At age 11, I knew I wasn't "human"...at least not in the sense that most are. That was also the time I became totemically connected to wolves.
As I grew I began to push things away, until I found the therian community through a friend, and everything pushed back again. Of course, I was young then, and naive, and fell for someone telling me that I was a "wolf", which I know very well now, only I can know. I thought I was a wolf for quite a while, until I realized I didn't feel like a wolf. That was when my search went crazy. I was so confused about who and what I was because of earlier lies, that I went from thing, to thing, to thing.
Now, for the past few years, I have been seeing myself in meditations as either a lion or cheetah. The lion, I believe is a guardian. It feels separate from me, and like it is watching over and protecting me. The cheetah is hard to say.
Recently I meditated on cheetah. I saw its face, and wondered if it was a totem. I was told by a friend who practices shamanism that in order to connect with an animal, I must somehow "integrate" a bit with it. Still not sure if this was correct or not, despite the fact that it did make sense at least in my mind, I attempted to communicate with cheetah in this meditation, and asked if it would "integrate" to show me things. Instead, I got this feeling that cheetah was already "integrated" and that it could teach nothing, really...at least nothing I don't know..almost if it had my memories.
A bit later, I went for a brief run. I tried to m-shift into cheetah just slightly to boost my speed. (I often shift just for the fun of it in general, sometimes for purposes like this one.) I remember becoming very happy...feeling very integrated with cheetah, very myself. Now I have felt somewhat myself in other shifts...and once when I shifted into veloceraptor, I did feel extremely happy, but this shift was much less of a "forced comfort" for lack of better terms. The happy/comfortable feeling came naturally, and very quickly. Unfortunately I could not run much longer (even though I was running, as usual, only in short bursts) due to my asthma, and quickly got myself out of the shift.
During the past few days I felt the feeling I tend to get around people...a feeling I have long found hard to describe. Possibly an "animal" feeling, but it was always hard to know for sure. (It's the feeling I mentioned above.) Well this feeling I have never been able to truly accurately associate an animal to other than probably mammal, probably somewhat furry, but again hard to say. Each animal I tried to fit into it seemed to not quite go in properly. Recently, although I still shouldn't say for sure, it seems cheetah may fit in. In fact, it may fit as if it is a missing puzzle piece...so well that it has almost no "holes"...hard to say though.
I have researched cheetah slightly, and have found as well that I share a couple dietary behaviors. A. High tolerance of thirst (which may or may not be related), and B. craving fruit (especially melons) when very thirsty. I found that cheetahs can go 4-10 days without water, and when extremely in need for liquid, eat a wild melon called a tsamma melon.
Anyway, that's what I am looking into. I feel I am definitely a mammal, definitely four legged, and now likely a cheetah. I think maybe another reason I thought canine is that cheetahs are very canine-like felines.
-Rana