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•In my existence upon this earth, I continually find myself balancing the duality of my biological life, my existence as a Mesoamerican human and my existences as my true, animal selves, the lycodraconic wolf and the ashen black jaguar. Upon this earth, I consider my experiences with being a wolf and jaguar in spirit (and occasionally mind) closest to the experiences encountered by individuals in the otherkind and therian communities, which is the reason why I have been active in said communities for such a long period of time (over a decade). I do not consider myself entirely human upon this earth, though one of the only aspects of my humanity that I wish to embrace is the body's indigenous mesoamerican heritage. I choose to embrace this aspect of my humanity over all other aspects since I know that as a human, honoring one's indigenous roots is incredibly important, to honor the traditional indigenous ways, to pass down the old wisdom, and to keep these rich traditions alive. As an indigenous person upon this earth, I feel it is my responsibility to preserve my indigenous roots and the rich traditional culture that is slowly being revived.
•Who I am as the wolf Naauurraauukk, a mysterious lycanthropic entity dark as the night sky, is a manner of complicated metaphysical concepts, as strange as such a description sounds at first glance. The short, simple version of her (my) story is that she was created from the dark powers of a celestial, non-perceivable draconian (draconic) being, to live separate, mortal lives and gather experiential knowledge for said being. I am a wolf in soul and spirit, created by a draconic being that I commune with, to put things more simply. I consider myself the "other half" of this celestial being, though I do not consider myself divine as a human in any way, shape, or form. I do not doubt that some reading this excerpt, even some of the people that I have come to trust, may find themselves judging myself and my experiences with my wolf side. I have come to understand that being confused or judgmental of my experiences with nonhumanity is just a natural reaction for individuals outside the otherkind and therian communities to have. Though, this is who I am and the details of my experiences, and I am not ashamed of who I am and what I believe in.
•Who I am as the huntress jaguar, who lived in ancient days before the savage events of colonization and died in a raging wildfire long before the establishment of Tenochtitlan and Teotihuacan, is a story and life I have not yet unraveled. As a jaguar, I believe my physical body lived for about seven to eight years before I perished in a wildfire in my elder years. I believe my spirit as a jaguar stayed active long after the body's death however, seeing the rise and fall of many Mesoamerican civilizations before going inactive at an unknown period of time. I know that my jaguar theriotype lingered around the earth as a spirit due to Tezcatlipoca sustaining her spirit for reasons I do not know yet. As a jaguar, I know that I encountered Tezcatlipoca more than a few times, since Tezcatlipoca is the lord of jaguars, though I do not know why he took particular interest in my jaguar life. I still commune with him as a human and honor him through rituals. I have seen both the beautiful sides of Mesoamerican culture and the more frightening sides over the centuries as a jaguar spirit, though many of these memories I had as my jaguar self are ones I cannot recover upon this earth. I only know that I experienced such memories from the intrinsic knowledge that I have. As time goes on and I become more connected with my indigenous culture, I have no doubt that I will understand who my jaguar self truly was and what she experienced during her active existence.
*Throughout the beginning of my adult life, I found it incredibly difficult to feel secure in my nonhumanity and myself as a person due to the severe mental disorders I have suffered from since I was a small child. I cannot fully describe my experiences with nonhumanity and my life story without detailing this long and difficult chapter of my life. I have been through a life of silent despair, encountering thoughts of self-inflicted death and harm nearly every single day ever since I was very young. Throughout the times I have been abused by my immediate family, I fell into delusions and outright refused to truly discover my animality and who I am as a person. I felt that I could not discover myself in the hostile environment I lived in at the time. Suffering from schizoaffective disorder, CPTSD, OCD, and ADHD has made my life difficult beyond imagination. The years where I suffered the most are years I cannot remember without breaking down and crying over the horrific memories. I do not consider those years of the body's life my memories, I refuse to. Now that I am free of the chains of abuse, though, I have allowed myself to finally know myself as a person and know my animal sides.
•It can be difficult at times to connect my humanity to my therianthropy, considering the difficult experiences I have encountered throughout my earthen life, however, one aspect of Mesoamerican tradition that seamlessly connects my humanity and my therianthropy is ceremonial dancing. I am part of the traditional Mexica dance group Kalpulli Ehekatl Papalotzin (Venerated Wind Butterfly Dancers), a group where we engage in the ancient, sacred indigenous traditions practiced in Tenochtitlan and other parts of Mesoamerica. Common ceremonies we practice in the group are seasonal ceremonies, anniversary ceremonies, and danza ceremonies. During these ceremonies, we adhere to sacred Mesoamerican tradition and revere the elements, spirits, and gods within our vicinity, using sacred items such as the heuheutl (ceremonial drum, the heart of the danza, grandfather drum), the popoxcomitl (sacred female lighter used in ceremonies by burning copal, palo santo, and coal), and the atecocolli (conch shell blown to clear the energy around the space) to lighten the atmosphere of the space we are dancing in. Each and every aspect of these traditional ways has sacred meaning and is in reverence to the world around us. When, as a group, we open and close the space before danza, I feel a connection to the wolf and the jaguar that I am, though it is when we are dancing that the most transformative experience happens for my being. During the beginning of experiences dancing with the kalpulli, I was mostly unable to invoke the spirit of the wolf and the jaguar within my being during ceremonies, mainly due to my experiences with my abusive home situation and being unable to overcome my own internalized insecurities about myself as a person. I am naturally a very nervous individual who struggles to express themselves for fear of judgement. In more recent times however, as I have broken away from my abusive home situation and learned not to hide who I am around others, I have been able to invoke the spirit of the wolf more during ceremonies and danza. This is also in thanks to my wolf guardian, my animal teacher who guides my being in the right direction and safeguards my life. This guardian follows my being around in spirit as I carry around his pelt in ceremonies or hold him when I slumber. He watches over my being and guides my being on my continuing path of life. I do my absolute best to honor his sacred spirit and get to know him for who he is. As I have been able to break free more, I have been able to connect with him as well, which has increased my connection with my wolf side, especially in ceremonies and danza.
•In an attempt to describe the powerful experiences I have dancing as the wolf spirit I am and not the human that I am, during danza, when I invoke the spirit of the wolf, I dance with greater vigor and fury than I ever could dancing as just a human. When I dance as the wolf, I am able to carry on dancing even when my human body is exhausted, a testament to the vigor and energy of my wolf side. I dance possessed, like I am not even the human I am living upon this earth, though rather a wolf eager to engage in the energy the ceremony creates and make a good impression on the community she has been accepted by. I feel my spiritual tail, ears, claws, fur, and teeth when I invoke the spirit of the wolf, calling out and "barking" to match the energy in the ceremony creates a sense of immense euphoria pleasing the wolf spirit. Even the action of typing these experiences, remembering them, causes my spectral tail to wag, my spectral ears to perk up, and chills to run down my spine, my human spirit and body excited by the wolf spirit within my being. All good things must come to a close, however. When the ceremony is over and I no longer have the energy to invoke my wolf spirit, a complete sense of exhaustion envelops my human body and spirit, since they do not have the vigor and strength of the wolf spirit. In the therian and otherkind community, this kind of experience would be classified as a phantom shift, when a nonhuman identifying individual feels mentally or spiritually shifted as an animal/nonhuman entity rather than a human. Though my experience with dancing as my wolf self in ceremonies falls under the label, I do not feel that it entirely encompasses the gravity of my experience being a wolf in traditional indigenous ceremonies. What I experience in combination with my indigenous heritage is something more sacred than just a "phantom shift" or "feeling like a wolf", it is my indigenous heritage connecting with the energy of a sacred and powerful animal to honor tradition.
•Even when I am not dancing in the traditional Mexica way, I find that aspects of both my werewolf and jaguar theriotypes appear whenever I attend indigenous ceremonies, listen to traditional indigenous songs or music, and just hang around the people in my kalpulli due to the positive energy I sense in said environments. Being around a community of people I trust and just feeling the positive energy created by the traditional indigenous ceremonies I am a part of invokes the aspects of the wolf spirit within my being.
•Who I am as the wolf Naauurraauukk, a mysterious lycanthropic entity dark as the night sky, is a manner of complicated metaphysical concepts, as strange as such a description sounds at first glance. The short, simple version of her (my) story is that she was created from the dark powers of a celestial, non-perceivable draconian (draconic) being, to live separate, mortal lives and gather experiential knowledge for said being. I am a wolf in soul and spirit, created by a draconic being that I commune with, to put things more simply. I consider myself the "other half" of this celestial being, though I do not consider myself divine as a human in any way, shape, or form. I do not doubt that some reading this excerpt, even some of the people that I have come to trust, may find themselves judging myself and my experiences with my wolf side. I have come to understand that being confused or judgmental of my experiences with nonhumanity is just a natural reaction for individuals outside the otherkind and therian communities to have. Though, this is who I am and the details of my experiences, and I am not ashamed of who I am and what I believe in.
•Who I am as the huntress jaguar, who lived in ancient days before the savage events of colonization and died in a raging wildfire long before the establishment of Tenochtitlan and Teotihuacan, is a story and life I have not yet unraveled. As a jaguar, I believe my physical body lived for about seven to eight years before I perished in a wildfire in my elder years. I believe my spirit as a jaguar stayed active long after the body's death however, seeing the rise and fall of many Mesoamerican civilizations before going inactive at an unknown period of time. I know that my jaguar theriotype lingered around the earth as a spirit due to Tezcatlipoca sustaining her spirit for reasons I do not know yet. As a jaguar, I know that I encountered Tezcatlipoca more than a few times, since Tezcatlipoca is the lord of jaguars, though I do not know why he took particular interest in my jaguar life. I still commune with him as a human and honor him through rituals. I have seen both the beautiful sides of Mesoamerican culture and the more frightening sides over the centuries as a jaguar spirit, though many of these memories I had as my jaguar self are ones I cannot recover upon this earth. I only know that I experienced such memories from the intrinsic knowledge that I have. As time goes on and I become more connected with my indigenous culture, I have no doubt that I will understand who my jaguar self truly was and what she experienced during her active existence.
*Throughout the beginning of my adult life, I found it incredibly difficult to feel secure in my nonhumanity and myself as a person due to the severe mental disorders I have suffered from since I was a small child. I cannot fully describe my experiences with nonhumanity and my life story without detailing this long and difficult chapter of my life. I have been through a life of silent despair, encountering thoughts of self-inflicted death and harm nearly every single day ever since I was very young. Throughout the times I have been abused by my immediate family, I fell into delusions and outright refused to truly discover my animality and who I am as a person. I felt that I could not discover myself in the hostile environment I lived in at the time. Suffering from schizoaffective disorder, CPTSD, OCD, and ADHD has made my life difficult beyond imagination. The years where I suffered the most are years I cannot remember without breaking down and crying over the horrific memories. I do not consider those years of the body's life my memories, I refuse to. Now that I am free of the chains of abuse, though, I have allowed myself to finally know myself as a person and know my animal sides.
•It can be difficult at times to connect my humanity to my therianthropy, considering the difficult experiences I have encountered throughout my earthen life, however, one aspect of Mesoamerican tradition that seamlessly connects my humanity and my therianthropy is ceremonial dancing. I am part of the traditional Mexica dance group Kalpulli Ehekatl Papalotzin (Venerated Wind Butterfly Dancers), a group where we engage in the ancient, sacred indigenous traditions practiced in Tenochtitlan and other parts of Mesoamerica. Common ceremonies we practice in the group are seasonal ceremonies, anniversary ceremonies, and danza ceremonies. During these ceremonies, we adhere to sacred Mesoamerican tradition and revere the elements, spirits, and gods within our vicinity, using sacred items such as the heuheutl (ceremonial drum, the heart of the danza, grandfather drum), the popoxcomitl (sacred female lighter used in ceremonies by burning copal, palo santo, and coal), and the atecocolli (conch shell blown to clear the energy around the space) to lighten the atmosphere of the space we are dancing in. Each and every aspect of these traditional ways has sacred meaning and is in reverence to the world around us. When, as a group, we open and close the space before danza, I feel a connection to the wolf and the jaguar that I am, though it is when we are dancing that the most transformative experience happens for my being. During the beginning of experiences dancing with the kalpulli, I was mostly unable to invoke the spirit of the wolf and the jaguar within my being during ceremonies, mainly due to my experiences with my abusive home situation and being unable to overcome my own internalized insecurities about myself as a person. I am naturally a very nervous individual who struggles to express themselves for fear of judgement. In more recent times however, as I have broken away from my abusive home situation and learned not to hide who I am around others, I have been able to invoke the spirit of the wolf more during ceremonies and danza. This is also in thanks to my wolf guardian, my animal teacher who guides my being in the right direction and safeguards my life. This guardian follows my being around in spirit as I carry around his pelt in ceremonies or hold him when I slumber. He watches over my being and guides my being on my continuing path of life. I do my absolute best to honor his sacred spirit and get to know him for who he is. As I have been able to break free more, I have been able to connect with him as well, which has increased my connection with my wolf side, especially in ceremonies and danza.
•In an attempt to describe the powerful experiences I have dancing as the wolf spirit I am and not the human that I am, during danza, when I invoke the spirit of the wolf, I dance with greater vigor and fury than I ever could dancing as just a human. When I dance as the wolf, I am able to carry on dancing even when my human body is exhausted, a testament to the vigor and energy of my wolf side. I dance possessed, like I am not even the human I am living upon this earth, though rather a wolf eager to engage in the energy the ceremony creates and make a good impression on the community she has been accepted by. I feel my spiritual tail, ears, claws, fur, and teeth when I invoke the spirit of the wolf, calling out and "barking" to match the energy in the ceremony creates a sense of immense euphoria pleasing the wolf spirit. Even the action of typing these experiences, remembering them, causes my spectral tail to wag, my spectral ears to perk up, and chills to run down my spine, my human spirit and body excited by the wolf spirit within my being. All good things must come to a close, however. When the ceremony is over and I no longer have the energy to invoke my wolf spirit, a complete sense of exhaustion envelops my human body and spirit, since they do not have the vigor and strength of the wolf spirit. In the therian and otherkind community, this kind of experience would be classified as a phantom shift, when a nonhuman identifying individual feels mentally or spiritually shifted as an animal/nonhuman entity rather than a human. Though my experience with dancing as my wolf self in ceremonies falls under the label, I do not feel that it entirely encompasses the gravity of my experience being a wolf in traditional indigenous ceremonies. What I experience in combination with my indigenous heritage is something more sacred than just a "phantom shift" or "feeling like a wolf", it is my indigenous heritage connecting with the energy of a sacred and powerful animal to honor tradition.
•Even when I am not dancing in the traditional Mexica way, I find that aspects of both my werewolf and jaguar theriotypes appear whenever I attend indigenous ceremonies, listen to traditional indigenous songs or music, and just hang around the people in my kalpulli due to the positive energy I sense in said environments. Being around a community of people I trust and just feeling the positive energy created by the traditional indigenous ceremonies I am a part of invokes the aspects of the wolf spirit within my being.
