Survey 2: Therianthropy.Org's Entry Questionaire [November 2005]

Where did you learn about therianthropy?

That would probably be the Gryphon Guild, back in... fall '02? '03? Something like that. I don't quite remember specific dates, and I don't have them recorded anymore because I started journaling on therianthropy stuff on some obscure blog website a while before moving everything to livejournal. And I was silly and didn't record the dates. So it was either late 2002 or early 2003.

Some people kept mentioning "otherkin" - the Guild isn't otherkin-specific, just fantasy critter specific, and I'd joined it because of someone's link on deviantART - and I asked what the heck it was. The replies I got struck a chord, I started thinking that maybe those odd feelings weren't just an overactive imagination, and started doing research.

Are you a therian? If yes, What is(are) your theriotype(s)?

I don't know specifics. Something in the order falconiformes - that's raptors, birds-of-prey. The order includes eagles, hawks, falcons, caracaras, secretary birds, ospreys, vultures, and condors. Could be any of those. I'm really in no hurry to narrow it down, currently; I know that I am bird, I know how I feel and who I am. There's no real drive for me to define myself by specific species. If in the future I have experiences or read attributes that narrow it down, great. Until then, there's no real reason to specify.

I'll probably be volunteering at the wildlife rehabilitation center again sometime this summer; I haven't since... 2003? More close association with and observation of various raptors means I can match up the characteristics within myself to what I observe in the raptors I work with. But I've found if I push myself, force myself to define myself as something or make a commitment to something, I jump to conclusions, and I'd rather not do that. So - I take it slow.

What lead you to the conclusion that you are the theriotype(s) you consider yourself to be?

It was ... a long process. I've known I'm bird for quite some time; that wasn't a difficult conclusion. (It was just a matter, in the beginning, of figuring out whether the concept of therianthropy was valid, and if it was valid for me. Which meant 50 pages of printed research and lots of journal entries.) What sort of bird was another matter.

I jumped to conclusions in the beginning. I've always been rather obsessed with the phoenix mythos and had used the phoenix as a metaphor for myself many times. So after I finally decided "Okay, therianthropy is possible; and it's possible I'm bird", I sort of jumped on the idea that I might be a phoenix. Very shiny. (I was fluffy. I've read my early entries on therianthropy/ phoenix/ etc, and winced inside. I was quite fluffy.)

More recently (as in the past six months or so), I've re-evaluated. I realized I jumped to conclusions; I thought perhaps it wasn't possible to be a mythological creature (though I believe otherwise now); and I looked over past entries on shifts into bird and the characteristics I ascribed to me-as-bird. They were very raptoral characteristics, behavior I recognized from the birds-of-prey I've worked with. The phoenix of myth is a bit different from my descriptions - only the Japanese Hou-Ou might come close, and it's basically a golden eagle in appearance anyway.

I do have a connection with the phoenix, a strong one - but it's archetypal, metaphorical. Not my "self". I am raptor; I am connected to phoenix, or the idea of such.

Why do you believe you have this/these theriotypes?

I could say "I just know". In the end, that's the most honest response, and really the only response. It's a gut-feeling, a heart-feeling.

But like anyone else with a mind and a habitual use of salt, I've looked for other evidence (even just experiential evidence) to support my gut-response. I believe I am falconiformes for several reasons. There's the shifts, first - phantom beak, arms twisting back into wings, legs all wrong, feathers prickling on skin; instincts, fight-or-flight fluttering as bird-panic in the chest, eyeing slow fat pigeons as an easy tasty treat, words slipping away to be replaced by watching and reaction; often-illogic territorial instincts, sometimes amusing, sometimes very inconvenient... strong shifts, more than just memory, more than just imagination.

Or there's the kid-stuff. Like how I always used to make nests out of blankets and pillows and stuffed animals, poking and prodding until it was just right. Or the love of heights, how heights always felt right, scaring my family by sitting on the edge of a cliff when we hiked up that one mountain, my legs dangling over the edge. Or the dreams, almost always bird and flying, almost never human - how natural it is/was, how normal it felt/feels.

Others' observations, even when they didn't know I was bird. The mocking of friends about how I run like a bird, and my vehement denials even though they're right - I try not too, but it takes concentration not to, but I don't like looking ridiculous! The seer who looked at me when I was shifted once and just stared, and started poking my friend next to him and pointing at my beak. The reptile-boy on medieval faire cast who said he knew I was bird before I mentioned anything to anyone there, no way he could have known.

Should I go on? As I said, I've volunteered at a wildlife rehabilitation center. I've worked with crows, seagulls, pigeons, finches, robins, grackles, broadwing hawks, turkey vultures, redtails, blackbirds, kestrels, sawhet owls, screech owls, barn owls, great horned owls, barred owls, bald eagles, snowy owls, peregrine falcons, chimney swifts, woodpeckers, swans, ducks, geese, others that are slipping my mind, I'm sure. I've handled them, fed them by bowl and by hand, cleaned up after them, watched them; I've carried raptors outside on the glove and jesses. I've logged quite a few hours working at the wildlife center. I know my birds; I know how they behave and how they act. I've had fairly extensive contact with my theriotype. So I've been able to match what I feel to what I've observed and figure out what it is I am through that.

What is your "connection" to your therioside?

I am bird. I am bird and I am human both. Human body, mind, neurology, biology; I grew up in a human environment, with human cognitive-behavioral influences, with human social imprintation, with human parents. I'm a psychology major; I know just how irrevocably human I am. But I am just as certainly bird. How, precisely? In the same way that someone is female or male or somethingother or somethingmixed. It's part of who I am, what I am.

It's not totemic - totemic definitions of birds-of-prey say they're noble, magnificent, swift, fearless. Actual birds-of-prey are lazy, slow except when they're diving (and they've got gravity and wind on their side then), territorial but pretty cowardly everywhere outside their core territory, messy, nervous, reactionary. Yes, there are good things - motion catches their eye like nothing else, they have sharp vision, they can fly, they can dive and kill and their talons hurt if they grip. But they're not the magnificent nobles of the sky people make them out to be.

It's not a past-life memory. Maybe I was a raptor in a past life, I don't know. But I'm not the child I once was; I'm very different, I'm an adult or near-adult now. I'm not anyone I once was in a past life, either; I'm me in this life. Yes, the now-me is affected very much by the child-me and the past-life-me, but that's not me, it's memory; it's residual, not immediate. I don't shift into past-life-me, I don't shift into child-me. It's not constant and immediate and not who/what I am now, like bird is.

Do souls mingle and fuse, do souls get born into the wrong bodies, is my hindbrain influencing my mind more than the other brainparts, do I have a mental condition, some sort of psychoses? I don't know the reasons behind it. I just know I am bird, a bird, a feathered thing with claws and beak hidden under human skin. That's it.

Why are you your therioside, and not something else?

Because I am? This is all starting to feel a bit redundant, like I've already answered some of these questions above. I'm not a furred thing, I don't have teeth other than as a human, I don't have four legs. There's the two legs and there's the wings-that-are-arms-that-are-wings. There's a beak. I'm sort of a scaled thing, if you count feathers as a sort of scales, or the scalecrust legs, but not a coldblooded thing, not a reptile or fish. Not a waterthing, not amphibian. Not an insect or any non-bird-thing. I'm a bird.

I'm not a songbird. Too small, too small a beak, they're made too different; their movements are different; a couple of them can harass a bird-of-prey away from their territory easy, if they know where the raptor is. They're fast and agile in the air. Not a chicken; I have visions/dreams/knowings of soaring and thermals and wind, and all chickens do is flap short distances; I've owned chickens before, I know how they behave and move and react. I've worked with most of the general bird-types at the wildlife center, and worked with parrots and other pet-type birds because my sister owns several birds; I know the general behavior patterns and body types. I'm a raptor, not any of the others. What sort of raptor I don't know, but I'm a raptor.

Why does therianthropy feel "right"?

Should I say "see above" or use different words to express the same thing? I've read up on shamanism of various types. I've started to learn shamanism from an experiential point of view. I know about totem animals and power animals and all that. Thing is, totems (from everything I've read and seen) are the idealized forms of species. They're those spirits/ archetypes /thought-forms that the shaman mimics, joins with, shifts to, uses, etc to enhance certain qualities and accomplish certain goals. It's symbolic, it's idealized. There's a difference between being an animal and connecting with an animal, a difference between being an animal and invoking a totem.

In my opinion, therianthropy is being an animal, having an animal inside you, being an animal-person. Other forms of animal spirituality are a bit different, subtly different concepts. Therianthropy is what fits.

Have you questioned your thoughts at all? Have you just given yourself answers to make therianthropy seem 'right'?

Many, many times. Sometimes I wonder if I'm crazy; sometimes I wonder if I'm just deluding myself, if all the "evidence" I've found for me being bird is just stemming from confirmation bias. I'll think "I'm a human, a girl-person, I'm so very human I don't see how I could ever think otherwise" - and then there'll be a shift too strong to deny, or one of those eerie times when an outside individual who doesn't know remarks on the birdness, or any number of things that forces me to admit that "no, I'm human and bird, and to deny that is to deny part of who I am".

I constantly reevaluate myself. It's how I came to admit that I'd jumped to conclusions with the phoenix definition. It's how I slowly redefined myself as raptor. It's why I'm taking my time in specifying which subcategory within "falconiformes" is me.

And I've learned something. When it comes to a subject that can't really be determined by hard scientific evidence, that relies heavily on personal gnosis (something psychology has discovered is so very easily affected by subconscious desires and outside influences), you've got to make a decision to either be constantly conflicted with uncertainty or risk perhaps being wrong in your gnosis and conclusions. So in instances like that, I've asked myself this:

Is it unhealthy to believe this? Is it maladaptive? Is it more healthy to believe or be conflicted by uncertainty? Is it harming me to believe this?

If it's maladaptive and harmful, then it's something I should be very cautious with, if not throw out the window entirely and seek professional help. If it's not maladaptive, if (as is the occasion at times with therianthropy) it is actually more healthy for me to believe it than not, then there's no reason not to. That doesn't mean I stop examining myself and the situation; that doesn't mean I don't stop redefining myself and changing and growing. It just means I don't stress over it and make it too much of an issue and priority.

Have you ever doubted your therianthropy?

Isn't this basically the same as the above question? At any rate, I answered both with the above answer.

Have you ever shifted, if so, what sort of shifts? Were they deep, were they triggered, how often?

Many times. Mental, phantom, whichever. I don't tend to specify what sort of shifts - a shift is a shift, whether it's an m-shift or a ph-shift or an xyz123-shift. They've been deep, they've sometimes been triggered, they've sometimes just been. I've gone a day or more in a state of bird. It's more on a gradient for me - I'm never 100% human (which to me would mean I wouldn't be therian, I'd just be human) or 100% bird (which I think would require a complete and total physical shift, which I don't believe to be possible. Not in this day and age and place, certainly, if it ever was). But I'll be 5% bird and 95% human, or 90% bird and 10% human, or 50/50... It's usually about 75% human and 25% bird, but commonly goes roughly 50/50.

Triggers... sometimes I just wake up and am bird. Sometimes I'm in a physically confined area and bird pops out and is panicky. Every time I've been around an individual who matches my definition of a psychic vampire, I've shifted, until I've gotten accustomed to that individual - at which point I'll only shift in reaction to them if their vampiric nature is more prominent. (Believe in psychic vampires or don't; this sense of mine hasn't failed me yet, and most of the time the person has not said they're a psychic vampire, and almost none of the several individuals I've responded thusly to were dressed in anything resembling goth.) I'll often shift in response to extensive energy work, such as at a sabbat ritual or something similar. I'll usually shift when at a high-altitude location, such as a clifftop or mountain ridge or other high spot.

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