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Dragons and Faeries and Elves, Oh My!

The fascinating world of the Otherkin

When I was first introduced to the Otherkin community a few years ago, I admit that I was skeptical. I myself hold some extraordinary beliefs, so I try to be accepting of the diverse beliefs of others. However, there are some traditions which push the limits even for me. At the time, the notion of Otherkin seemed a little too far-fetched to accept without an entire salt lick, never mind a single grain.

Otherkin, as I was informed, are individuals who believe that they are somehow “other” than human. While they walk around in human bodies, that is not the nature of their souls. Some Otherkin believe in a genealogical difference that separates them from ordinary people while the vast majority take a reincarnational stance that hinges upon the different lives – and bodies – they have held in the past.

Otherkin are not to be confused with extraterrestrials. There are certain portions of the New Age movement which accept that “greys” and “Nordic type” aliens have visited Earth in the past and continue to visit in the present. Within this ufological worldview, many people accept that these aliens have either helped to genetically engineer humanity or have interbred with humans outright. These beliefs are typically explained within a scientific, or a pseudo-scientific paradigm.

Otherkin, on the other hand, approach the explanation of their nature from a distinctly magickal perspective. Rather than identifying with aliens and extraterrestrials, Otherkin identify themselves with creatures of magick and myth. As inherently magickal beings, the vast majority of Otherkin are also Pagan, as this religion, with its acceptance of magick, best accommodates their worldview.

Races and Diversity

The word “Otherkin” is really a blanket term which encompasses a vastly diverse collection of individuals. To even call the Otherkin a community sometimes seems a bit of a stretch, because frequently those who identify themselves as Otherkin have very little in common with one another beyond their inherent otherness. Among the various types of ‘kin I have met and interacted with, there have been elves and faeries, dragons, dryads, cat-kin, wolf-kin, and some ‘kin that have defied definition entirely.

Each different type of ‘kin typically has their own subculture and often their own worldview. Frequently, there are many sub-groups within a general type, such as the elves, which include Listari and Elenari, to name but a few. Some Otherkin remember entire histories of their previous races. Others just feel their difference like a nagging itch on their soul.

Limits of Language

Almost across the board, the ‘kin will acknowledge that the words they use to describe themselves are limited and often misleading. To say that one is a dragon is really to acknowledge that the qualities attributed to a mythological dragon come closest to embodying how that ‘kin feels inside, while many differences remain. To put it another way, an Otherkin dragon has about as much in common with Tolkien’s Smog as a psi-vamp has with Lestat.

For those trying to understand why someone who obviously has two legs, two arms, and no wings or tail would describe themselves as a dragon, try approaching the concept in terms of an archetype or totem animal. Many Pagans have a particular god or goddess that they relate to strongly, and part of that relation usually includes having traits in common with those traditionally attributed to the deity. Totems, likewise, serve to express aspects those who follow them embody also in themselves. For the Otherkin, the archetype is just more immediate and personal and serves as an integral expression of their soul.

Despite how it may at first sound, an Otherkin dragon does not believe that they are a real, literal dragon in this body now. However, like a transgendered person, they feel somewhat cheated by their current form. There is an overwhelming sense that at one time he or she did indeed possess this longed-for form, and that body-memory is so real that it makes them uncomfortable in their current form.

Reality vs. Delusion

If all of this sounds like utter madness, don’t worry. Even the Otherkin admit that their beliefs are far-fetched. A lot about this community would have been really hard for me to swallow had it not been for the ‘kins’ own acute awareness of how crazy they can sound, especially to outsiders. Almost all statements made by the Otherkin are prefaced with disclaimers like “I know this is going to sound strange, but …” or, “I have no way of proving this, but I believe I’m a …”

Most Otherkin also submit their beliefs and experiences to a rigorous amount of personal skepticism. They are very aware that there is a fine line between a belief in the fantastic and succumbing to fantasy. Articles on various Otherkin sites, as well as numerous presentations at Otherkin gathers address this issue, and most community leaders offer tips to help inexperienced ‘kin separate reality from delusion.

Like all groups, they have their share of clearly delusional people, wannabees, and hangers-on, but over the years I have met a number of very articulate, intelligent, and credible people who also just happen to be Otherkin. These have included a youth counselor who was also an elf, an angel who worked on the New York police force, and a dragon who worked as a system administrator. The angel, appropriately enough, worked valiantly throughout September 11 and its aftermath.

Not Quite Human

Being Otherkin is not easy. Nor is it really a choice. While an Otherkin’s nature is often accompanied with a predilection for magick and spirituality, “Otherkin” is neither a religion nor a spiritual path. It is simply a state of being.

Being Otherkin means never quite feeling comfortable in your own skin and never quite feeling like you belong in the reality around you. Imagine being born into a foreign world yet remembering all the rules of behavior that you had learned in your previous existence. Furthermore, imagine knowing at the core of your very soul that you were once something very different from what you are now, but being unable to really prove this to others – or even to yourself. That is the essence of Otherkin.

The legitimate Otherkin that I have met did not have an easy childhood or young adulthood. What they were was always there, but they did not always have an adequate explanation for it or even a word they could put to it. Many strove to repress their sense of something different about themselves and their reality, and quite a few reluctantly accepted their natures only after all other possibilities had been exhausted.

Even once acceptance has been achieved, their lives are not easy, especially because an awareness of magick and energy is a fundamental part of their being. In today’s distinctly non-spiritual culture, this can make it very difficult to blend, let alone relate with “normal” people.

Many ‘kin seek solace in Paganism, but that hardly means they are any better accepted or even understood. While many Pagans deal with magickal beings in their workings, this is typically in a spiritual context alone. I know a lot of Pagans who leave offerings in the garden for the faerie-spirits, but how many can accept that a faerie might be born in a human body and is in fact riding the subway in the seat next to them?

Seeing is Believing

I’ll be honest. When I first started working with this fringe aspect of the Pagan community, I didn’t really believe in Otherkin. I accepted their beliefs as they were presented to me, and I accepted that these beliefs were sincerely held by the people who explained them. I was able to rationalize the whole schema to myself in terms of archetypes and totems, and this is how I approached the whole subculture. But even though I reluctantly accepted that these people believed these things, I would never have admitted to another Pagan that I was traveling six hours to attend a weekend of lectures and seminars where most if not all of the speakers believed themselves to be elves, dragons, or fey.

Then I attended the event. What I felt and saw there, more than anything else, made a believer out of me.

Once you have seen them, and have known what you are looking at, there is no arguing that Otherkin wear their otherness outside as well as within. While a number of Otherkin sport fashions influenced by various subcultures, from punk to Goth to SCAdian, this “other” feel has nothing to do with their chosen style of clothes. If you lined the Otherkin up side by side with a group of mundanes, and everyone was wearing Abercrombie & Fitch, you would still be able to spot the ‘kin.

Aside from the ineffable sense of otherness that always clings to them – and I can attest that this goes down to the level of their very energy – most Otherkin have distinctive physical quirks that present the most eloquent argument for their not-quite-human nature.

The elves might not look like Legolas, but in general they are all tall individuals, with thin, long limbs. They’re frequently blond and have distinctive aquiline features. Some even have subtle yet noticeable points to their ears. Cat-kin exude feline sensuality and grace, and faeries are small, fine-boned people, with delicate features that can only be described as fey. After a short time among the Otherkin at the convention, I could pretty much identify the main types by sight, because their characteristics are that marked, even across the boundaries of gender, ethnicity and race.

Strange Reality

It’s very easy to play it safe like I did and respect the ‘kin’s right to believe while quietly assuring yourself that those beliefs are utter poppycock. It’s even easy to accept that someone who just so happens to strongly resemble an elf from myth is very likely, once he gets into magick and mysticism, to adopt an elven archetype. Yet it’s a little unnerving to consider that there really might be more to the ‘kin than all that. At this point, I personally have to acknowledge that there are things about them that I cannot explain, and there are certainly things I have both seen and experienced which I cannot rationalize away.

If you’re still finding all these notions of humans running around with non-human souls a bit hard to fathom, consider this: if you believe in a soul, you probably believe that the soul is immortal. However, if you just take a few moments to look around this world, you know that cities and cultures and even races of beings are not. In time, all physical things fade and die. Even this world, as long-lived as it may be when viewed from our scope of things, is finite and it will ultimately become a burnt-out cinder, consumed by the sun.

So where do all the souls go when there are no bodies to incarnate within? What will become of those spirits born into humanity when humanity is a distant dream?

Given that the soul is immortal, that time is infinite, and worlds are not, it only follows that each of us has been many different things. In a sense, perhaps we are all Otherkin, as we have undoubtedly lived as something else before, however remote this might be in our memory. The only thing that distinguishes them from us is the immediacy of the recollection. The foreign past still clings palpably to them, and they recall a form not quite as prosaic as the mortal flesh we all now wear.

There are so many things in this vast Universe that cannot be known, who is to say that somewhere, in some half-remembered reality, beings like dragons didn’t own the skies? And what a wonder if they walk among us now, remembering an existence many people cannot even conceive.

Balancing Fingers and Pinions

Imbalance.

For me, it looks like this:

I stood in the central community building of my university, a tall airy structure of glass and concrete, open all the way to its ceiling several stories up. Classes had let out, and swarms of students poured in from connecting hallways and outer doors, passing through, stopping for conversation, yelling across the floor. A cacophony of noise and movement and people.

Something in my brain shut off, or turned on; but either way the chaos around me drowned out all conscious thought and words. My skin prickled with the realization of feathers beneath it, the roof of my mouth seemed to hollow and harden into a beak, tongue turned stubby and inflexible, lips motionless. I found myself hunching, wide-eyed, arm-wings held just apart from my sides, fingers splaying spasmodically.

A panic flooded my head. Noise / danger / loud / out! Despite the wideness and height of the building, I felt claustrophobic. Suffocating. I grasped blindly for conscious thought, words, humanity, but my pulse raced and my beak gaped. Overwhelmed.

Out out out out out out out

I shook from the effort of keeping control, walked faster than was seemly but I didn’t run and I didn’t shove anyone in my haste to get outside.

Fly flee escape fly

I pushed through the double doors and into the open air, blue above me, breeze in my feathers/hair, concrete below. There were people here too, and cars, but nothing for the noise to echo off of, and far more space. I drew in deep breaths of air, my heart rate slowing, my mind stilling. I focused on fingers, hands, words, the boundaries of my skin.

That was six years ago, and I still remember it so vividly.

I didn’t have this problem for the first couple years after consciously identifying as avian. It wasn’t until I started suppressing it, trying to deny parts of it, that I began experiencing intrusive shifts and increasing difficulty with control.

When something affects you, ignoring it or denying it doesn’t make it go away. If anything, it just affects you more adversely because you’re not being mindful of it and not taking steps to manage it. I don’t know what really causes the experiences I identify as “bird”, but trying to suppress those experiences or rationalize them away has more ill effects than not.

So I suppose the first step to balance, for me, was accepting that yes, I am avian in some way; and yes, it impacts my life.

I found some effective short-term tricks for controlling my shifting. The main one is shifting towards “human”. If birdness becomes sharply prominent in an environment where I can’t afford to indulge it, like at work, I focus on words, sentences, speaking; I focus on fingers, manual dexterity, things impossible with wings or claws; I focus on where my physical skin begins and ends, reminding myself that I am here and now and human. I imagine pulling my feathers in, pushing bird-mind down beneath the surface.

But this is a temporary solution, resorting to hard control and suppression. When that’s all I do, birdness comes clawing/flapping up more often, more harshly, harder to suppress each time – until it gets to be as difficult to control as in the above description. Fortunately, there are longer-term solutions.

I mentioned acceptance. That’s the first step. Then: striving for balance. For me, that means finding safe times and places to immerse myself in bird-thoughts, bird-awareness, feathers and beak. That might mean taking a walk in a park, or standing on a balcony and feeling the wind, or even – weirdly – dancing, at a club or around a fire (depending on your preference – I like goth clubs for this, myself; I don’t get bothered, everyone dances in their own space, and I can lose myself in music and movement, fly inside my mind while my body goes through the motions of it all).

Finding ways to express my birdness also helps. This doesn’t mean wearing birds on t-shirts or jewelry – no, what I mean is engaging in activities that are soothing or comfortable to rough-legged buzzard. Hiking at the intersection of cliffs and prairie, buzzard’s preferred habitat. Scavenging, in my own way; whereas hawk might go for roadkill meat, I scavenge the other leavings of deceased animals: bones, game-bird feathers, and the like. Perching in high places where I can get a good view of the ground below. Drinking in the wind.

When I express my birdness regularly, in places and times of my choosing, I manage to find a better balance between human fingers and avian pinions. After a while, I stop needing to consciously make time to be “bird”, because the divide between human-mind and bird-mind blurs to nearly nothing, until I am at a stable constant state of bird-and-human-at-once, aware of both.

It took a while to get there. There were three years between the birdpanic experience detailed above and the following journal post, in 2008. This is what balance feels like, for me:

I have been comfortably, constantly aware of my birdness these past few months. There have been very few shifts; it’s been an ever-present thing instead. Not just frazzled pin-plucked feathers during times of anxiety or stress, I’ve not just experienced birdness in skittering frightened flapping-panic, but in contentment as well. This is rare, and it’s wonderful, and I’m really liking the constant sense of feathers.

Not prickling and itching under my skin like I sometimes perceive the feathers, but just there, everywhere, fluffing with cold or pleasure or happiness, standing on end with threat or irritability, slicking back in fear or worry or miserableness.

I have felt more fully bird than I ever have, and it is day to day and ever-present. My feet are bird feet, long and clenching-opening-curling; my mouth is also a beak, hollow palate, nibbling-tasting-testing everything (pens, necklaces, the edge of my shirt collar or sleeves); I am aware of movement and my own movements and the strangeness of my eyes.

It hasn’t felt unusual at all, though. It took me a few months to realize how constant my awareness of my birdness has become, because it feels so natural.

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.