The Thing That Freaks Me Out, Is I'll Always Be In Doubt

Continued from this entry.

I understand the coolness factor of what TV Tropes would call the Empathy Pet, and in spirituality as well it's a handy way of externalizing some... Animal Stereotypes present in the person.

But... do I accept them as real? I validate the spirituality of Otakukin! I'm an agnostic theist when it comes to the holiness of the Astral and the Out-of-Body-Experience (that is, I disbelieve that astral projection is dreaming, whatever way that view of mechanics swings upon expressing it to my fellow laypeople, spiritual or scientific.)

Here's where I come from. When I was a child, I loved animals. I would imitate stray cats, a pet turtle, and the geese at the farm beside my family's summer house, and the eggs the hens laid. I felt much closer, as a being, to animals than people-- all animals, even lizards and spiders. I couldn't bear to kill cockroaches that hadn't any wings yet, because they were babies.

I still sympathize with them, but I've grown apart. Some exercises that I read in Sonya Fitzpatrick's Cat Talk got me some success with Sibling's cat, and then fizzled out. Maybe Marmalade was giving me the cold shoulder, too, but I think it's more likely that I just don't have the feats appropriate to taking a level in Ranger. And I just didn't really want to, if it wasn't already there.

If an animal guide were real, and not a character perk on an imaginary Dungeons and Dragons character sheet, then it would already be there. But, then, I'm not a clear lens. Just looking from me through me to the not-me outside? Is already filtered. Just thinking is a warp on the lens.

But, Mahadevi suggested I find my animal, and I trusted that he knew what he was talking about. Many frustrating vision quests, at least swayed my leaning, tentatively, towards the serpent.

At the end of 2009, I went on a trip with my family. I said that nothing happened that was paranormal, but that was when, in hindsight, something spiritual did happen. Or, didn't happen, rather.

We explored a museum for the arts and history of indigenous people who lived in the mountains. There, I learned that the snake was a power animal to most tribes of that area, and so I thought (being a descendant, possibly, a little bit,) I could just pick one of those snake-spine imitation-tribal necklaces they were selling at the souvenir store... and... for some reason, well, that kind of made me sad, that I could just pick it up at the souvenir store. I don't have this problem with any other New Age knicknacks, but, I don't know, I just-- boo.

And I was also thinking that a real actual snake died so that tourists like me could buy culture, when that snake was probably just looking for some sun and a plump field mouse and didn't involve itself in spiritual stuff at all. Who are we to make them spiritual? Why do we do that? It just feels like it's wrong.

So, that put a damper on my therian exploration for a long while.

To be concluded...