{"id":116,"date":"2021-02-02T22:19:34","date_gmt":"2021-02-02T22:19:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sonne.sonverrid.org\/sanctuary\/?p=116"},"modified":"2021-02-03T08:52:04","modified_gmt":"2021-02-03T08:52:04","slug":"awereness-forums-re-introduction-2006","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonne.sonverrid.org\/sanctuary\/blog\/2021\/02\/02\/awereness-forums-re-introduction-2006\/","title":{"rendered":"Awereness Forums Re-introduction (2006)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Awereness Forums Re-introduction (2006)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Early this year, I became somewhat sickened by my ways of going about the introductions on the Awereness Forums in a \u2018mechanized\u2019 manner, whether I was doing a \u201cgood job\u201d with them or not, and I eventually realized that I didn\u2019t feel comfortable anymore replying to the intros in such ways when I had my own massive questioning to do to myself. So, I found that no one seems to offer me better criticism than my own self, not that I tend to go out looking for such criticism, but I have a tendency to criticize *myself* by example of the subjects and ways other people offer criticism on others\u2019 therianthropy. Basically, I allow myself to be my own \u2018competition\u2019 and my most difficult obstacle in certain areas of my life, including therianthropy, especially because I can get away from other people and groups, but I\u2019m always stuck with myself, so I make it quite worthwhile, which includes in challenge\u2014as harsh as I can be on myself with criticism and questioning, I seem to prefer it that way, plus I\u2019m more apt to investigate my own questioning than another person\u2019s toward me (although it\u2019s not to say I don\u2019t look into\/consider questioning presented to me, because I certainly do). But, I also have my times when I just need a smack or \u201cwake up call\u201d from someone else, whether the words are directed at me specifically or just for someone in a similar situation as me, and so I took advice from various people and places, and some of them gave me those motivations I needed to make particular steps on my introspective journey during my time off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One motivation I got was to give myself more of a break from visiting the therian places I spent the most time on, those being the Awereness Forums and Werelist. So, at the beginning of May I went through with not visiting either board entirely for awhile, and it did help clear my mind better and let me sort out my thoughts, and thusly to clear away some influence I was getting from discussions on the boards, which were throwing me off. I got the opportunity then to focus even better on my therianthropy, yet I did go back to Werelist in mid-June, and not to AF until very late June (almost early July), but most of what I\u2019ve read on both boards during those times hasn\u2019t been much about therianthropy, I\u2019ve mainly read the other topics (spirituality, and discussion & debate section, on WL), and read a few intro posts, among parts of some therian topics, although not much. Anyway, I ended up wandering onto \u201coutskirt\u201d or just other therian\/otherkin boards while away from AF and WL, and I discovered that I found no reason for me to hang around reading much of any of the material on many of those places; it didn\u2019t interest me, and I\u2019ve reduced the amount I visit (I mainly just check the Therianthropy LJ community sometimes, but still don\u2019t find much of interest on it for me). I\u2019ve been mainly focused on myself, my own therianthropy and thoughts regarding it, specifically, and have also enjoyed reading some personal essays by other therians\u2014many have been intriguing, and some even helpful in my journey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, the big question is what did I find while I was gone on my time off? Well, a lot, too much for me to write up here (though it probably appears otherwise). I gave myself the opportunity to finally root out what *my* thoughts, feelings, ideas, et cetera are pertaining to my therianthropy, which has helped me greatly in various ways especially in allowing me to figure out how to \u2018listen\u2019 to myself again, which I had strayed far from up to a few months ago. There are masses of things I still need to figure out again and learn things for the first time about myself, but I\u2019m making progress in that area and yes, most especially in the area of therianthropy. I\u2019m not just \u201cproving my sincerity\u201d in this (I\u2019ve already done it times before anyway), I\u2019m sharing my thoughts and experiences because I honestly want to, and such personal, in depth experiences often get left out of the discussion boards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some basics, and \u201cnon-typical\u201d aspects<\/u>:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If anyone would expect me to say the clich\u00e9d \u201cI\u2019ve always known I\u2019m different\u201d, I won\u2019t be saying it in regards to my therianthropy. Yes, I have been \u201coutcasted\u201d, I\u2019ve been and am still \u201cdifferent\u201d, but that doesn\u2019t at all suffice for me believing myself to be a therian, and neither do I think it really has much, if any at all, attribution to my therianthropy. My whole family has always since we moved to where we are (a short time after I was born), been outcasted by most people (though not all) here where we live, and for various reasons and even some that probably aren\u2019t really \u2018reasons\u2019 anyway, but it doesn\u2019t mean it has to do with my therianthropy. I\u2019m also not the clean cut-out example of someone who has \u201calways known I\u2019m non-human on some level\u201d because in all honesty, I never doubted my humanity (as in being entirely human on all levels) until late 2004, when I was close to 19 years old, but that doesn\u2019t mean that I haven\u2019t \u2018felt\u2019 and experienced my therianthropic aspects prior to that time. Actually, I\u2019ve felt them for many years, and things get blurry about it if I try to trace them back before my middle school years (I\u2019m not very trusting in any substantial validity of my thoughts and self during most of my childhood anyway, in regards to who I am now). I experienced them, I felt them, and they were a part of me, but I just never gave myself the opportunity to consciously recognize them in the way I can now\u2014as the concept of therianthropy, not just the \u2018label\u2019, per se, of it. As also, you won\u2019t be getting some template-form \u201cexplanation\u201d of my belief and reasons for believing in my therianthropy through means of simply listing some traits, shifts, et cetera here like some kind of list of validity. For me, it goes far beyond any simple list I could ever compose, as I\u2019ve seen so many people do to try to \u201cprove\u201d their therianthropy; it may be other people\u2019s preference, just not mine though. It\u2019s still how I felt in my first introduction, that it wouldn\u2019t at all suffice, for myself, to just name off a few things like it\u2019s a list, and think that will do me justice for verifying why I believe and feel the way I do about my therianthropy. Because as I\u2019ve put it, my therianthropy is like an entire, complex puzzle (made up of \u2018sub-puzzles\u2019, those being the particular theriosides), and if I just pull out a few pieces for people to see and say \u201cthis proves\/validates my therianthropy\u201d, it just wouldn\u2019t suffice because the audience\/readers will have an extremely minute view of the entire image, when I\u2019m the only one who can view the entire, finished puzzle (although I may never reach that point, I can come close, and thus far I\u2019ve managed to see a large amount of it). Instead, what I choose to do is describe the puzzle image overall, while including specifics about it, but not just relying on those solely, and I also describe some of what I\u2019ve done to put the pieces together in the proper manner (including my failures and attempts at trying to slam pieces where they don\u2019t fit). So, essentially, when I \u2018prove\u2019 my therianthropy (or rather my sincerity of it and research into it), I use a variety of means to convey what I feel I want to and have the capacity at the time to convey. It makes the explanation long, and it doesn\u2019t make it simple, but I think it does it more justice than if I tried to go the typical simple way that has been used so many times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To back up and cover some basics for those unfamiliar with me and what I\u2019ve mentioned of my therianthropy: I believe myself to have three theriosides (as also, I\u2019m looking into a fourth one, which I mention later in this; however, I don\u2019t identify it as a therioside at this time), those being cat, canid, and horse. Each of those is still under introspection and research, although I feel I have discovered the most about Horse, and am still in a greatly narrowing-down process for the other two (especially giving that they are more generalized in species possibilities). However, figuring out the species (and in the case of Horse, the breed or coloration) for each of them is only a portion of what I look into pertaining to my theriosides and what I search to consciously know about them\u2014what species they are is far from the end-all to how they are me\/parts of me and how I experience them. Just like I, as a human, am an individual and can\u2019t just be summed up like a \u2018representation\u2019 of the human species, neither can the species that my theriotypes happen to be, especially since just saying \u201cdomestic horse\u201d (for example) doesn\u2019t cover anywhere close to the extent of what it means and feels like to *be* that, as just saying \u201chuman\u201d doesn\u2019t at all cover the vast extent of what it means and feels like for me to be human; something that isn\u2019t noted enough, it seems. I\u2019ve learned not to get so caught up and frustrated with species specifics that I forget to realize what it\u2019s like to actually *be* the animals of my theriosides, yet I also like the challenge and opportunities offered up to me (in self-discovery) by finding out what the species specifics are of my theriotypes; the key is to keep myself balanced in the searching and not get so caught up in any part of it that I forget other important parts of myself, theriosides and human.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My theriosides manifest in what I can see called \u201cmultiple primaries\u201d (not as oxymoronic as it may sound to some), in that there are times when Cat, Horse, or Canid are in the forefront for an extended period of time, such as days, weeks, or months, as also there are times when two are in the forefront and one in the \u2018background\u2019, along with times in which all three are balanced out so that there isn\u2019t a forefront or background. However, it\u2019s not to say I don\u2019t feel and experience each of them during those times, because in actuality I experience each of them everyday to varying levels in a wide variety of ways, it\u2019s just that when one or two are \u2018primaries\u2019 they are the main ones that manifest, that I experience, the most profoundly and in the most ways for the majority of days during which they are primaries. After observing the switching and time-span of my primaries for a year and half I\u2019ve realized that, at least at this point in my life, Cat is the primary the longest and most often, with Horse next up and Canid being the least. There are whole other levels and extents to the multiple-primaries aspect of my therianthropy, which I am still delving into and discovering, and what I\u2019ve found thus far there isn\u2019t room and place for it in this writing (maybe I\u2019ll get those things down in a future essay sometime). It\u2019s also to be noted that though I refer to my theriosides in a way that makes them sound rather separate from \u201cme\u201d, it\u2019s mostly for practicality reasons when writing and that they are separate to an extent, and are different to varying extents from each other, however they aren\u2019t like separate entities and are all aspects of me, in differing ways; they are all integral parts of me, just not fully integrated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At one point during my time off from the Awereness Forums, I reached a point in which I began to doubt my therianthropy as a whole, for the first time in the year and half since I first consciously realized it. I knew it was bound to eventually come up, but it did throw me off and left me quite confused about my therianthropy and overall self for awhile, and thus I kept thinking about how so many individual aspects of what I\u2019ve perceived to be likely attributed to my therianthropy could have some other explanation, non-therian related. However, I did come out of that stage, and I grew further in aspects of myself and things I believe about my therianthropy, and really, I came out of it better assured that it is therianthropy. I realized, for one thing, that it wasn\u2019t for me to sit here and figure out what individual aspects of me are exclusively \u201ctherian\u201d and can\u2019t be attributed to a non-therianthrope, but instead I noticed that those things, individually, of course can be attributed to non-therian human traits, feelings, aspects, and that what really results in the answer of \u2018therianthrope\u2019 for me is not those things individually, by letting them stand alone, but the overall compilation of them (the \u2018puzzle\u2019, as I mentioned, not just individual pieces here and there). Does it really make me any less of a therianthrope (or rather, not one at all) just because each little aspect, and even some small sub-groups of them, can be attributed to a non-therian human, and not be \u2018therian-exclusive\u2019? No, as I\u2019ve found out. Humans aren\u2019t so different from [non-human] animals that there aren\u2019t animals who can share similar attributes to us, including in mentality, and maybe some of the supposed \u2018human\u2019 aspects of myself are shared with in conjunction or are \u2018filled\u2019 by my different theriosides; it doesn\u2019t make me \u201cnot therian\u201d. I\u2019ve never tried to squeeze myself into the term of therianthrope, but I say I fit it because I believe I fit it through the research I\u2019ve done of myself and of the concept\/term\/therians themselves, and it\u2019s been about who I am, my experiences, my feelings, and so forth, not about whether I can twist what I believe and say about those things in order to squeeze under a particular definition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Technique of narrowing down the specifics<\/u>:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Considering this is a rather important part to the narrowing down of the specifics of my theriotypes, I\u2019ll explain part of my tactics for it. This goes along the question of whether I\u2019ve seen my theriotype in dreams or meditations, and my answer to that is a simple, no. I don\u2019t do meditation (in the typical sense, I guess it could be said), though I\u2019ve attempted it sometimes and found that it just isn\u2019t right for me, at this point in my life at least, although to some extent I do other \u2018meditative\u2019 things, but that\u2019s off topic right now. Besides, even if I meditated, I\u2019d end up too wary about accepting any visualizations I\u2019d see, if I would see any, in thinking they were specific of one of my theriotypes; I\u2019m a rather visual and imaginative person, though granted not so much now during my \u201cartist\u2019s block\u201d, but the most vivid visualizations I\u2019ve had have been during my waking hours, usually to music, and they were always highly imaginative. As for dreams, my dreams are a crazy mess of pointlessness, though they may have point for their own sake, any symbolism in them hasn\u2019t yet been worth my time to untangle, so I haven\u2019t bothered, but I can\u2019t say I\u2019ve bluntly seen myself as any of my theriotypes in my dreams, and if I have, they are dreams I never remembered to begin with or haven\u2019t been able to recall since.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it comes down to it, I haven\u2019t ever visualized myself, by any means of actual \u201cvisual image\u201d in my mind of what any of my theriotypes look like clearly. I do, actually, visualize myself as a feline, canine, and horse, especially when I get feelings of how my body should be in a position or moving in a way that is of any of those, yet the images have always been vague, fuzzy, and colorless (that I\u2019ve been able to tell) of the animals, so I can\u2019t say that what I\u2019ve found to be specifics of the \u201cvisual aspects\u201d of my theriotypes are \u201chow I see myself\u201d because honestly, the seeing part wouldn\u2019t be literally how I see myself in an image within my mind of how I \u2018look\u2019 as these animals. So, how have I gotten as far as I have in narrowing down these visual aspects? The only way that\u2019s seemed to do for me thus far\u2014feelings\u2014and yes, that\u2019s a very vague way of putting it, but my mind isn\u2019t working completely in perfect harmony with the human language for everything pertaining to my therianthropy. Maybe I could sit here and say that these are idealized concepts of how I would \u201cprefer\u201d to look as my theriotypes, or some such thing, but as far as I\u2019ve found, it doesn\u2019t seem to have much to do with \u2018preference\u2019 but a lot to do with what I *am* and how I *am*. I\u2019ve visualized for years \u2018myself\u2019 as a horse in a prototypic way of a medium-dark brown horse with black points just standing still against a black background (as I said, a manner that makes it sound like a \u201cprototype\u201d idea), and I\u2019ve aesthetically loved so many colors and patterns of horses (especially all black, all white, shiny silver, and dapple grey), and I often artistically prefer to see thin-build horses, like thoroughbreds, and I like the \u201cfeathering\u201d on horses, although it is mainly seen in Friesians and draft horses, plus I\u2019d prefer for my theriotype to have always been a mustang (going by a past life) and never \u201ctamed\u201d. Yet, those just don\u2019t stand up as being \u201cright\u201d to me, and it took quite awhile to get that much out of me. I\u2019ve never been crazy and obsessed, or even greatly aesthetically liked true buckskins, and it took me awhile to stop idealizing what I would have preferred my life as a horse to have been like and just fessed up that I was a \u2018tame\u2019 domestic horse that someone owned and rode, though I had possibly been taken from the wild, I\u2019m not betting on it though; although with that part, I\u2019ve never had \u2018past life memories\u2019, at least in the sense of visualizations, but rather this was based on feelings and consistencies over a long time, longer than I\u2019ve even been consciously aware of my therianthropy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I could sit here and say that I\u2019m a caracal and\/or a dhole, because that\u2019s at least what I\u2019d prefer, for reasons I don\u2019t even know. But I can\u2019t yet say either of those, but it\u2019s also not to say I\u2019m neither of them, I just don\u2019t know at this time because I haven\u2019t figured this all out enough. I seriously got sick of beating myself in the head over fretting about whether I could narrow down the species for my canine and feline sides based purely on behaviors and such things. It took awhile, but I realized that in order for me<\/em> to narrow them down enough, I had to start figuring out the visual aspects, too, alongside the non-visual things, like behaviors. I have a rather in depth book on wild felines with comprehensive species accounts, and I\u2019ve looked up other feline resources along with that, but when it comes down to it, the species accounts are only as in depth as what information has been gathered and chosen to be put in them, it doesn\u2019t tell me just how diverse individuals can be in their mannerisms, thoughts, et cetera, and they usually, for the small cats, don\u2019t go much even into the general behaviors, as also many of the small cats can share very similar behaviors. Added to that, not all of those species behaviors are actively manifesting in me during this life, or during times in which I\u2019ve noted them, and being able to realize that they are attributed to my feline side and not something else. A similar concept is applied to my canine side, because I just haven\u2019t found enough information beyond visuals to answer my species specifics for me on the pack-oriented canines. If I really wanted to, I could have just sat down during my introspection during those days I was wanting to make some kind of \u201cbreakthrough\u201d or get just a little further on narrowing down the specifics of the visuals, and just said \u201cI think I\u2019m like that\u201d or \u201cI like that so that\u2019s what I \u2018look\u2019 like\u201d, things like that. I sat there and thought \u201cI wish I could just at least, for today, figure out which ear type\/structure is right for my feline side\u201d and simply come up with nothing that day, and the next, and so forth, it wasn\u2019t anything I could just dictate when I wanted it to happen, or jump to any conclusion I pleased, I had to leave myself open to possibilities, be honest with myself, and let time play itself out to try to find even little answers like \u201cmy feline ear structure\u201d, for example. Safe to say, it\u2019s not so easy of a road, for me personally, as if I could just see a visual image of myself in my mind and just *know* that\u2019s what I look like, think about it for sometime to be sure, and be confident in it for the most part. Instead, I\u2019m taking it piece by piece, and until I find some other way that I feel works for me, I\u2019m sticking with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My theriotypes<\/u>:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my original introduction, I mentioned that I had some confusion about Crow (my totem) and had wondered for a few months if I had a fourth theriotype that was a crow, yet came to the decision that it was from the resulting strong bond with my life totem, instead. However, the thought that I *may* have an avian-type has continued to enter my mind, time and time again, although I still at this time don\u2019t claim or consider myself to have a fourth\/avian theriotype. Yet, it\u2019s still something I shall continue to look into until I get a better sense of confirmation, whether it\u2019s a therioside or not, and if it is one, it would be quite awhile longer after that point before I would find out the species. For now, though, I\u2019m focusing on figuring out the three theriosides I feel more confidently that I do have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cat<\/u><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As excerpted from an entry of mine in May: \u201cI’ve been thinking a little about my cat type and am trying to do research here and there on the different cat species, from a combination of resources.  As I’ve stated before, I believe it to be a “smaller\/lesser” cat, which is in size, although the maximum size of what I’m looking into is still unclear, and though I don’t think it’s puma, I’m keeping it open as a possibility at this point (I think any leaning toward puma may have to do with my draw toward similar markings to it–caracals and African golden cats also exhibit somewhat similar markings; however, I still don’t know if those are the correct markings for my feline side).  It’s hard to find information (thus far for me) that really divides up which cats are considered “small cats” and which not because one place may say one thing and another place something else.  Yet, nevertheless, I’m much more interested in going off of actual size, not the classification for the casual terms of ‘small’ and ‘big\/large’.  Anyway, the ones I seem to, for whatever reasons (I have a list of reasons, but a lot also deals with things I haven’t been able to put into words yet), be thinking of the most likely possibilities as: caracal, African golden cat (most likely the eastern subspecies which has little to no spots), jungle cat, lynx (more likely the Spanish lynx or the Eurasian lynx), African\/Asian wildcat, and ocelot (for some reason, this one seems a bit out of place with the others to me, and I actually consider it the least likely of these “more likely” possibilities).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOf course, it’s obvious I’ve been considering caracal since early last year, and to be honest, it’s the one I’d prefer it to be.  However, I’ve never let this be about preferences, and therefore I’ve never claimed to have a caracal theriotype, only stated at times that it is a possibility that I’m looking into.  Kind of interesting though, I have a strong draw toward cat ear tufts, yet also toward full length cat tails (I love that feature of the cats who can have the full length tails, although the really long ones seem kind of strange to me), and caracals have more of a “half tail”, yet very prominent ear tufts, and I seem to have a preference for the ear tufts over the full length tail, which I find interesting, yet kind of strange for me (I didn’t really expect it).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHowever, African wildcat has stepped up as even more of possibility lately, particularly after I finally noticed a little detail about them that I seemed to have missed before–their little ear tufts.  So this leaves me with some strong ponderings about African wildcat as my theriotype, and not just because of the ear tufts, it’s multiple things.  One big thing pertains to my portrait of Bast–I do recall that I intentionally wanted her to look like an African wildcat, considering they are the ancestors of domestic cats, yet I don’t recall having any references for them, and if I did use some from the net, they weren’t very clear ones, so I mainly went off of the fact that I’ve heard some of them (though I thought *all* of them did) had tabby markings, so I looked for consistencies in tabby markings of domestic cats, and of course, like I seem to do so much, added in the ear tufts without realizing whether they actually have ear tufts or not (it was, what I thought to be, my own personal touch that I’ve done for so long).  Well, after over two years I’ve *never* gotten sick of looking at that picture, which is by far strange for me considering I look at it at least once a day, and even with the flaws in it, I still continue to find a sense of deep, personal draw toward it, and honestly, if it wasn’t for my damn skin condition, I’d love to do a tweaked version of it in the future to fix the flaws and get a tattoo of it (but, of course, that won’t likely happen).  I’ve never felt such a connection with any drawing\/piece of art before, mine or otherwise, so I’ve always wondered about that.  So, now I’m left with things to consider for this: draw\/connection with Bast-African wildcat portrait, ear tufts, lives in Africa (which I’ve continued to think is the most likely ‘home’ of my cat theriotype, although some parts of Asia might fit as well; still not a definite thing), full length tail, pointed ears, small cat that’s under threat from other predators, among some other things I can’t think of right now.  Yet, even after that, it still doesn’t conclude it for me, because I have a lot more to figure out and confirm.  For all I know, my draw toward the African wildcat could actually be *from* Bast (or a similar, unnamed deity) and how I perceive her to appear in some forms, or from some other source, therefore it doesn’t necessarily apply to my therianthropy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I haven\u2019t delved much deeper into figuring out the specific species of Cat since that time, I\u2019ve mainly focused on my therianthropy as a whole, how I experience it, and also trying to figure out more about Canid and Horse, mainly. I still, however, think that African\/Asian wildcat (or even a domestic cat of some type) and caracal are the most likely possibilities, but I have a lot more to look into and discover about my cat side and what species it actually is. To add, another excerpt from that same entry was this: \u201cone other thing I’m looking into is for feline species that measure about 28-32″ long from nose to base of tail (so excluding the tail).  Reason being because last year, just before I got back together with my ex, I kept getting visuals of myself as my ‘cat self’ while with him (in the visualizations), and I saw myself, technically, as a black leopard-like cat–I don’t consider the black leopard part viable because I think it was more of a ‘default’, so to speak, idea that came from the fact I had recently at that time re-read Yasmine Galenorn’s “Totem Magic” in which her feline totem is a black panther (though I typically thought of it as a leopard).  However, one visual “shot” I do remember clearly of those visualizations is when I was my ‘cat self’ laying across my bed (laying on my feet), next to my ex, and a few months ago I considered that it may be a possible reference to the general size of my cat type, which after measuring the width of my bed, is about 28-32″ (the cat’s body didn’t stretch completely from one side to the other)–but again, as always, it’s only something to look into, but I have already gotten a list of feline species that fall in that range.\u201d And though caracals fit in that measurement, I haven\u2019t made any further progress in that particular area regarding the measurements, and it\u2019s far from a guaranteed piece of \u201cevidence\u201d to my theriotype, but at the least, it\u2019s something I\u2019ve considered and am still leaving myself open to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Canid<\/u><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the one that\u2019s remained a large mystery for me in certain major ways. I\u2019m currently in a reevaluation of what makes my canine side a canine, as opposed to something else, because even though I may have gathered enough evidence from within myself to verify that for myself, it appears I\u2019ve, for the most part, forgotten it and I\u2019m trying to re-gather it. Yet, nevertheless, my mind also continues to work on narrowing down the species under the assumption that it really is canine, and thus far, I\u2019ve made much headway in that area compared to when I made my first introduction on the Awereness Forums. I have bounced around back and forth regarding my canid side for over a year now and I honestly, at this point, can\u2019t sit here and say it\u2019s this or that particular canine species because I haven\u2019t yet reached that point of knowledge and understanding of it. When I came to the conscious realization of my therianthropy, Canid was what I thought to be a wolf, and so I carried that title without ever confirming it with my own self, that is until early this year (January, I think) when I realized that I don\u2019t feel comfortable stating that as a therioside, an integral part of me, at this point and that I have to look further and deeper into myself before I\u2019m going to figure out if I really was right with wolf or not, and if I was right, then for me to figure out what I meant by \u201cwolf\u201d. Therefore, I finally allowed myself the opportunity to make some significant progress in knowing what my canid side is, after I cleared away the idea of \u201cwolf\u201d (of which, up to that point, I viewed the idea of \u201cwolf\u201d as a grey wolf, particularly North American timber and artic wolf types). I stopped limiting my view, and thus opened up my mind to alternative possibilities. Maybe I am some type of wolf, but I\u2019m not (from what I\u2019ve discovered) what I thought of when I thought of \u201cwolf\u201d, which maybe some of the reasoning behind my struggle with it last year without making progress about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus far, I\u2019ve narrowed down Canid to mainly four species\u2014red wolf, grey wolf (lesser known subspecies or Eurasian), dhole, or Ethiopian (Abyssinian) wolf. What led me to those were a combination of things, but most particularly the strong pack orientation and the red coloration. A rust-red coloration is what I\u2019ve found to be consistent in what \u201cfeels right\u201d when I look through pictures of various canine species, and that the red is quite prominent, with little to no grey (such as the \u201cgrizzled grey\u201d), and possibly some white (I\u2019m not sure, yet don\u2019t particularly think, that the majority of the body is a solid red, such as some subspecies of dholes\u2014although some of them have prominent white along with red coloration). There are various other physical aspects that I have to figure out which one is \u201cright\u201d, such as I have with the coloration, but considering I seem to lack the ability to \u2018force\u2019 that knowledge into my consciousness, I\u2019m letting it play out as it may and see where it takes me as I piece the information together along the way and once I feel I\u2019ve gathered enough on the \u2018visual aspects\u2019. And, I must add that I\u2019m also looking into the idea of it being a breed\/cross-breed of domestic dog, but giving the vast variation among dog breeds and mixes, I am likely going to have to figure out much more about the visual and non-visual aspects as also to rule out those four species I listed above, in order to discover if my canid-type is a domestic dog. Also, giving the open-minded kind of person I am about all this, I\u2019ll probably continue to be apt to looking into other possibilities I haven\u2019t considered yet or aren\u2019t considering at this time (and that goes for my other theriosides, as well), but I\u2019m looking for my own confirmation on the types and I realize that confirmation will never be a definite 100%, and I don\u2019t intend it to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Horse<\/u><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have come to realize that I know the most about my horse side (including and excluding \u201cvisual specifics\u201d) when it comes to my theriosides, and some possible reasoning for that could be because it is more instinctual than Cat or Canid, more \u2018simplistic\u2019 in a sense, and thus aspects of it translate into my conscious mind and into words better and easier than most aspects for Cat and Canid. However, it has still taken me a long time to know and understand as much about Horse as I do, and there\u2019s still more for me to learn and put into words. Further and deeper thoughts on Horse can be found in my \u201cMidnight Sand\u201d essay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My discoveries have brought me to believe that Horse is a buckskin (sand color with black \u2018points\u2019), with possibly a black dorsal stripe. There are further \u2018body specifics\u2019 I\u2019m working to refine, but I don\u2019t have much focus on them beyond what I\u2019ve found it to be of a medium build. I came across this discovery unexpectedly a short time after I stopped visiting Werelist and the Awereness Forums, even though I hadn\u2019t been actively thinking much about narrowing down the visuals\/image specifics of my horse-type, I had been more focused on Cat and Canid for those. Yet, the \u2018feeling\u2019 and understanding hit me, and I went to search through photos of horses of varying patterns and colors, with none of them feeling \u2018right\u2019, but when I looked at buckskin photos I felt that resonation (and I\u2019ve recalled having a strange \u2018draw\u2019, not aesthetically that I can tell, numerous times over the past few years to them), however it was strangely specific for the tone of color and not just any buckskin fit and I kept getting the draw and resonation with a particular tone (the more sandy color, not reddish, and not very pale\/ivory)\u2014I could point it out easier than explain it. Of course, I won\u2019t yet say this discovery as being a definite, but I\u2019ve found it to fit and resonate thus far. This realization though hasn\u2019t changed my perspective of my horse side and any further introspection I have done since finding its colors and more that I continue to do. It hasn\u2019t caused me to just up and drop my searching regarding Horse, it hasn\u2019t caused me to visualize myself as a buckskin horse (because as I mentioned, I don\u2019t \u201cvisualize\u201d myself as my theriosides in a detailed way; just general, and more left to understanding), as it also hasn\u2019t caused me to have some newly-formed obsession of some sort with buckskins\u2014I\u2019m not more different just because I discovered an aspect (albeit, a \u2018visual\u2019 one) about my horse side, instead I happen to have another addition to my overall knowledge of that part of myself; it shouldn\u2019t really make some huge, profound change, or some such thing, although most particularly because it wasn\u2019t a discovery that was as difficult to find (as compared to Cat and Canid, which I\u2019ve been slowly working to narrow them down from their entire genuses; Horse only needed to be narrowed down to color, pattern, and body type).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Awereness Forums Re-introduction (2006) Early this year, I became somewhat sickened by my ways of going about the introductions on the Awereness Forums in a \u2018mechanized\u2019 manner, whether I was doing a \u201cgood job\u201d with them or not, and I eventually realized that I didn\u2019t feel comfortable anymore replying to<\/p>\n

Continue readingAwereness Forums Re-introduction (2006)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,10,1],"tags":[31,19,33,18,20,8],"class_list":["post-116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essays","category-essays-therian","category-uncategorized","tag-canid","tag-cat","tag-discovery","tag-essay","tag-horse","tag-therianthropy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonne.sonverrid.org\/sanctuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonne.sonverrid.org\/sanctuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonne.sonverrid.org\/sanctuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonne.sonverrid.org\/sanctuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonne.sonverrid.org\/sanctuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/sonne.sonverrid.org\/sanctuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":474,"href":"https:\/\/sonne.sonverrid.org\/sanctuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116\/revisions\/474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonne.sonverrid.org\/sanctuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonne.sonverrid.org\/sanctuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonne.sonverrid.org\/sanctuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}