It feels like being bigger than I am, and having phantom wings, talons, a beak, feathery tail and so on. So yes, I do have phantom feathers. Mine are downy in texture, and golden. As for fire…to an extent. I can manipulate fire to an extent, I suppose, but mostly I just have very bright and warm energy. I guess that makes sense, since phoenix of myth are essentially solar deities. 

Now, that you have a feel for what my soul is like, back to some more practical shifter types of things. 

These past two years, while starting this new life after the ‘death’ of my last love, I’ve been doing a lot of meditation and drawing in of Dragon Energies to help guide me in my new transformation and my new life, since they are wonderful for transformation magic and healing, along with protection.

I now have two Dragons that I consider helpful protectors and friends in the astral plane. I also am a good friend with a Fae and have been really establishing real friendships with people who truly understand my pagan/mystical side and encourage my exploration of that. I’ve become really into really finding who and what this ‘me’ really is inside after all these years, instead of just looking into relationships and things outward from me that are supposed to ‘make a good life’. These have been the two years of actually exploring me, and my friends have been awesome with that.

Through this exploration with my closest friend, I started to wonder if I was perhaps a dragon or a Fae. I have close connections to both of them and Nature. But, again, these felt very close and similar but not quite right. Something was off still ... and then out of no where it hit me.

Phoenix.

And it all made sense. All of it. From the very beginning with the wings, the claws ... though realizing they are not claws like with paws, they are talons! They grip things and help me perch on chairs and counters (which is something I have always done, too, and didn’t realize the connection to that.) I thought tucking my feet up under me when I sat was a Fae-ish thing to do, but it’s also what birds do.

Dragons and Phoenixes are said to get along well as friends. When I did a meditation to try to astral shift into my true form (when I didn’t know what it was) I fell asleep, and woke up hours later throwing off my covers and running to the bathroom, because I was burning up so badly I was going to puke.

The feeling of glory and freedom and how good it feels when I stretch out my arms and feel the wind, connect with the sky, and feel those phantom sensations of wings and talons. The fire inside of me that burns and burns like a vivid literal energy of flame.

My passion, my transformations, my rebirthing every time I die.

Since I was a child, I’ve had this feeling that there was something different about me from other people, that there was always this deep power and drive of something inside me, and it wasn’t just a drive to pursue things. It wasn’t like that. It was like this bursting fire in my soul that wanted to burst out to the cosmos and to scream and rip into things or hold them with this overpowering pure sensation. To be honest, I was truly afraid of this feeling, and was terrified of what would I would see if I ever let it out, because with this ‘drive’ of power, I felt what I thought were claws at that time breaking through my fingers and this energy was so burning and wild, I buried it deep down in hopes that it wouldn’t immerge and no one would see.

But as a kid and a teen sometimes things would slip. 

While driving I would sometimes slip into a trance (not safe I know) where I would feel my human chest open up, and just this massive euphoria of burning energy would just extend out beyond my body. It felt like I had wings and for a while as teen a contemplated if I were really an angel that had been cast down from heaven for something I did. I was raised Catholic, so this was the first place my thoughts went.

I wanted to help people and even tried to with this extension of my energy and I found that it did work, but it also completely would drain me. People would take advantage of my energy and would start to use me. So, I stopped doing that as often, and became far more selective.

I realized that this worked for both good and bad things towards others, and after a scare where I might have actually made someone sick, I decided that it was not right to interfere in other people’s lives and that everyone has their own path to take. I don’t make those decisions.

Anyway... back on topic.

In my early 20′s I got very interested in lycanthropy as I was definitely feeling a pull toward this idea of there being another side to my soul or being. At the time, I was only really aware of the most common, which were werewolves, and all of that lore and tradition. I dove into it, and even thought for a bit that maybe that’s what I was, a wolf spirit in a human body. It matched the claws and tearing sensations I would get and this spirit in me definitely felt like a predator. My mind would shift into an almost scary darted focus of hunting sensation that coupled with the feeling of these long extended claws made me wonder - wolf?

But something about that also didn’t feel right. It was ‘off’. I love wolves, but it just wasn’t really me.