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Awakening: When Did I Know I Was Kin?

“When did you awaken? When did you realize you were kin?”

We’ve all got those questions before, and for most of us there isn’t an easy answer.

In fact there are several facets to that question, so it’s better broken down into more specific questions.

When did I start identifying with the term ‘otherkin’?

When did I start identifying as a celestial?

When did I realize that something was “off” about me and how I fit in with this life?

When did I first notice traits/ideas that I would later interpret as otherkin?

All of these answer the first two questions, but they go deeper. The line between human and kin, or asleep or Awake, is blurry, and it’s not a hard separation. It’s not like there is a hard date; Monday I thought I was human, Tuesday I thought I was celestial. It’s a process, and a blurry line. Think of it like any personality trait or division. When did you become an adult? You can’t really point to an exact date (unless you’re using the legal definition of adult, which I think we all know is lacking nuance), you might be able to say “At 27 I was an adult, at 17 I wasn’t an adult” but you can’t say where that change happened. Sure, you can try using a legal definition, but that’s an artificially created hardline, and doesn’t realize say anything.

Sure identifying as otherkin might have some key moments, but they’re part of the process. The day you first heard the term otherkin and realized “There is a word for people like me.” That’s a moment in time you can point to, but that’s not the moment you became otherkin, just when you had a word for your experiences. The first time you think to yourself that maybe this weirdness is because you’re other than human, or that you’re a celestial. The first time you realize in conversation with someone that your experiences are a bit off, or other. The first time you enacted patterns related to who you actually are.

All of these answer “When did you awaken? When did you realize you were kin.” They also answer a lot more and show that there isn’t always a clear delineation. Awakening in a long process. Realizing what you are is a long process. There are touchstones along the way, but they are just points on the map of your journey, not the journey or the destination.

So when did I awaken? When did I realize I was kin?

Depending on how you define it, it could have been when I was four, or seven, or twelve, or seventeen, it could also be always and forever ongoing. I’ve always known I was kin, I just didn’t have the context or language to express it. I’ve always known I was kin, because I’ve always known who I was, I just didn’t always know I was different, how I was different, why I was different, what to call myself, what to call people like me.

Otherkin Mythmatch- Mythic and Literal Identities

Otherkin is definitely one of those communities where if you ask five people a question you’ll get seven answers back. We’re a community that is defined as much by our differences as our similarities. Just because we’re both otherkin doesn’t mean our identities or personalities are remotely similar beyond being “other.” The beliefs and ideas are very personal, and different people might use the same words for different things, some might understand the same thing differently. It can make it a bit confusing sometimes, but I think it’s most obvious when you really ask someone about their identity and what it means.

Ask two dragons what they mean by “dragon” and you’ll probably get different answers. One idea you’ll see pop up with a lot of kin, regardless of type, is that we’re really just using a human code as a short form for what we mean.

What I mean is when someone says “I’m an elf” they probably don’t mean the literal Lord of the Rings elf who walked out of Middle Earth, and they might not even mean literal elflike beings from Celtic or Norse mythology, but what they mean is something with that feel. When an otherkin says they are an angel, to some that is a literal belief that they are a being made in service of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic god, but to others angel is more a description of some type of “heavenly” being, and may not be connected to that god, or any god in particular. So what do they mean? Well, that’s individual, but ask them what does elf or angel mean to them, they will probably give you a list of traits and to that person “elf” is a great shorthand for that list. These are traits you probably think of when you think of Tolkien’s elves, or elves for mythology. It could be the physical traits of being tall and lithe, the ears and the hair, maybe it’s a sense of connection to nature in a different way, maybe it’s an abstract feeling of magic or a sense of a culture. It’s hard to say, but somewhere in “elf”, there are enough points that matchup, that using the term “elf” as an identity inspires the right ideas, if in a vague sense.

Dragon could be a physical sensation, wings that aren’t there but still unfurl behind you when running or in the wind. It could be senses and memories of flying as a mighty beast. It could be a sense of predator impulses like on a hunt. It’s hard to say, but again, if someone says they’re a dragon, chances are the image in your head is probably closer to them than for any other easy one-word identity, that’s why it works.

It isn’t to say we aren’t, we weren’t, literally something else, just that the words we use, elf, dragon, naga, demon, wolf, insect, stone-wing, phoenix, shadow, these words might not be literally what we are, but they are the closest analog we have in human mythology. It might match perfectly, it might have areas that just don’t fit. But they’re often the best words we have. This isn’t to deny literal identities either, sometimes when someone says something like an angel, they don’t mean a being that has some resemblance to an angel, they literally mean angel as they appear in myth.

So whether or not you’re otherkin or just talking to one, trying to understand them, instead of just asking “what” someone is and leaving it at a simple one word answer, ask them what does it mean to be this thing, why do they think that’s what they are, what does the word mean. Reality doesn’t always fit into neat little boxes, our identities rarely do. Don’t mistake the names for a solid identity, the map with the territory.

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