#otherkind

Some nonhumans like to explain the origins of their nonhumanity, to put it into the Spiritual Box or the Psychological Box. But for me it's... both?

I believe that I have had many nonhuman past lives. Do I know this objectively through empirical means? Of course not - it's merely a Belief based on gut feelings and noema. But I also believe that not all of those animal species are theriotypes - most of them I have no relevant attachment to.

The ones I do have an attachment to are theriotypes because as I have learned more about myself and evolved as a person over many years, I have discovered the things that "stick" and put time and mental energy into them. This is all mostly subconscious workings deep in my mind, the process of "awakening", researching, having it settle for a while on the back burner, percolating. It's also sometimes feeling like "I want to emphasize this more in my life" because Being Animal brings me joy and fulfillment. Inducing shifts, wearing gear, doing animal behaviors of various sorts, claiming the identity both to myself and to others. I often do not realize this processing is happening, but I am aware of how mental, how "in my brain" it can feel. For me, what makes something a theriotype and not a kardiatype or "just" a past life is a psychological phenomenon.

I'm beginning to think that, strangely enough, my linktypes may originally be past lives as well. When I go to form a link, I decide that I want the linktype to be in a certain category (a bug, a fish, any broad type of animal) and then research different species until one "feels right". Why do some ideas not click at all, even a little bit, while I take to others like a fish to water, needing only a bit of conscious encouragement before it feels like my species? Why did I link a moth when I initially wanted to be a beetle? Why a shark, when I would have preferred to be a bony fish? Why the plain looking spider instead of one of the more colorful ones, just because the appearance "felt like me"? It seems to not have anything to do with whether or not I like the animal, or be motivated by the human appeal of its attributes.

Maybe there's something inherent there beneath the surface, something that says "this is a thing I have been before" or "this is not a thing I have been before". While all of this blurs lines, it does not negate the voluntariness of my otherlink identities - it only means there's a seed already there, able to be consciously cultivated.