Shapeshifting?

[denalifox]

Hello, everyone!

I've been interested recently in shapeshifting. I feel like tonight, or sometime soon, would be a good time to try it, but I don't know where to begin. I understand I have to get into a meditative state, and I'm confident I can do this, but where do I go from here?

Any input is helpful. Also, has anyone had any successful shapeshifting experiences? How did you go about it? Is there anything you can suggest to a beginner?

Thanks,
denalifox

[Zai]

By shapeshifting, do you mean "in your head", as in a kind of pathworking exercise, or do you mean something where you might feel like you've actually "turned into the animal"?

[MonSno_LeeDra]

.. I've been interested recently in shapeshifting. I feel like tonight, or sometime soon, would be a good time to try it, but I don't know where to begin. I understand I have to get into a meditative state, and I'm confident I can do this, but where do I go from here?..

Sorry but you have not revealed sufficient information to answer truthfully. Shapeshifting may be any of these or combinations of them.

1. One may do a mental shape shift. You try to become the creature in your mind and upon your mental landscape. Try to imagine its moves, its relationship to the world about it. How it responds to things, etc.

2. One may do a physical shapeshift in the sense that you act like the creature. Walk on all fours as if you were a dog, wolf, bear, lion, etc. Consume food and water as it would. To litteraly bark at the moon or howl at it. To growl, to "ape" it in every way that one can imagine or act out.

3. One may do a physical shapeshift in the sense of becoming a skinwalker. To be a skinwalker is to make an ensamble from the creatures body. To wear its fur as a cloak. To have its claws, teeth and other parts worn on the body as a necklace or actual padded gloves and boots. In essence to act like the wolf in sheep's clothing and try to become it.

Note: This should not be confussed with the notion of SkinWalker as found among the Navajo or other Native American Nations.

4. One may shapeshift in dreamtime or shapeshift into the form of thier power animal in journey work. To become the various creature's to understand their medicine and become one with them. Many times in Shamanic journey work this is a common occurence. Many times the affect / effect lingering into the waking hours as your body retains a sense of another form.

Meditative states may or may not be necessary. Some uses mind altering drugs to acheive the necessary state to shapeshift. Other use meditative states to relax and allow themselves to projec their astral or spiritual essence and shapeshift with thier guides or spirit animals. Some simply fast and do ritual cleansings to prepare the mind and body for the rituals of walking with thier totems (totems in the sense of clan or family heralds not personal).

Other's use sensory deprivation methods to induce the experience. Some use sweat lodge type rituals to induce the state of mind and awareness to shapeshift. Some use fasting as a means of inducing a hypnotic type state to free the mind to shapeshift.

Most times it depends upon what pathwalk one is one. How they have been trained. What design and purpose their guides have for them and how they go about teaching them, ie dreamtime and journey work.

Like I said to little information to actually say one way or the other. Yet I will say its not like you find in the various so called books that teach you how to do it.

[denalifox]

I'm looking more for a pathwork exercise, I suppose. I'm looking to delve deeper into animal guides, mainly, and I think shapeshifting can help me. If it cannot, I guess I need to look somewhere else. My main goal in shapeshifting is to open more of the fox's observation, gentleness, and persistence, as I feel that all of these traits will help me at this point in my life.

[MonSno_LeeDra]

I'm looking more for a pathwork exercise, I suppose. I'm looking to delve deeper into animal guides, mainly, and I think shapeshifting can help me. If it cannot, I guess I need to look somewhere else. My main goal in shapeshifting is to open more of the fox's observation, gentleness, and persistence, as I feel that all of these traits will help me at this point in my life.

Truthfully I'd say you need to look into Fox medicine more before worrying about trying to shapeshift. Fox is not gentleness, its like any other preditor in that capacity. It's not a top of the pyramid preditor so persistence is its route to survival. Yet that persistence is coupled to attitude and persception, it knows when to fight, when to flee and when to hide.

Fox is semi-family oriented in that it will protect its litter. Yet it is not family oriented as say the Wolf and the pack it runs with. So in that capacity it is a chance hunter and a loner many times. It is preceived as cunning but that trait is not apparent when it is being run to ground.

To shapeshift one must know what it is they are shifting to. That means the good with the bad, its strengths and weaknesses.

[denalifox]

Alright, thanks for the help. Fox medicine does seem more like what I should be looking into. I'm glad to be a part of this community, where I can have people help me to actually learn. Thanks for the help guys!

Blessings,
denalifox

[Faelon_Moon_Hawk]

Hello, everyone!

I've been interested recently in shapeshifting. I feel like tonight, or sometime soon, would be a good time to try it, but I don't know where to begin. I understand I have to get into a meditative state, and I'm confident I can do this, but where do I go from here?

Any input is helpful. Also, has anyone had any successful shapeshifting experiences? How did you go about it? Is there anything you can suggest to a beginner?

Thanks,
denalifox

May i suggest a book by Ted Andrews called Animal Speak. He touches upon shapeshifting, as well as it being a great general reference on different qualities various animals posses, and some suggestions on finding & working with totem animal(s).

[MonSno_LeeDra]

May i suggest a book by Ted Andrews called Animal Speak. He touches upon shapeshifting, as well as it being a great general reference on different qualities various animals posses, and some suggestions on finding & working with totem animal(s).

All I'll say is it's a pretty descent resource but not a great end source. Most of it's acclaim comming from the New Age community. It seldom gets such praise and accolades from the more traditional aboriginal peoples. I have yet to see a Native American elder give it much praise, nor have I seen any other aboriginal group praise it highly.

Plastic Shaman tend to espouse its merits as do the new age slant of animal medicine and totems.

To my perspective it's something that one might use to gain alternative perspectives of what a creature means but it is not the end all of what it actually means to the people that live with it or around it.

I do have to admit though it is a better resource than the Animal Magick book written by D. J. Conway.

[Sesen]

Watch animal planet with your good buddy mescaline

[FiresSong]

I do have to admit though it is a better resource than the Animal Magick book written by D. J. Conway.

Egads. What's next, a book on Shamanism by SRW?

[rawrTigress]

Animal Speak by Ted Andrews has some great meditations and exorcises. I think they are in alignment with what you are talking about.

[Socinus]

The closest I've ever come to that was basically temporarily shutting down forebrain thought and trying to run purely off of instinct. You do get a more animal feel and the world does take on a new look when you do it. It's incredibly difficult because you have to maintain enough focus to suppress the higher thought but not enough that you're actually concentrating and you need to be able to yank yourself back to full function if necessary.

I stopped because there was no real good place to do it at and I was somewhat nervous about the possibility of crossing that threshold and just not coming back.