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Meditation has become a part of who I am and an important tool I use to understand myself and the world around me. I took a course that is loosely based on Zen Buddhist tradition, so this doesn’t make me an expert in the field or anything. Meditation is something that we can all use, but I think there are some aspects that for a dragon take a slightly different turn, or that a dragon has some extra space to explore. Though through the course and my daily exercise I’ve come across the following thoughts that I would like to share with you.
So a long time back I purchased a meditation class recording to help me learn meditation. Even before getting this class I had an interest in it, and even used it to help do some past-life regression. At the time I figured I didn’t know much about it or if I was doing it “right”. I figure I would record my thoughts and findings through the course here.
The first few classes were the history of meditation and some of the expectations you could expect from the course. Nothing to earth shattering there. The first major meditation that the course talks about though is a breathing exercise. “Just focus on the breath,” sort of meditation. I might come back to this meditation in the future, as its sort of a foundation, but there are other things I want to explore.
The meditation I want to look at and consider is the “Body Scan” meditation as it was called in the class. The process is get to your meditation stance, get comfortable, and then draw your attention to various parts of the body. The guided meditation in the class when from the top of the head down to the feet, but any method works. There are guided meditations similar to this for otherkin available on the internet. One such example can be found here.
Both of these types of meditation are similar in that they are trying to focus on a body. One is present, the other is not. I see both having an important part to play in how we experience ourselves. We should try to experience who we are, but not to such an extent that it causes our physical body or life to suffer. There should be a balance to how we approach ourselves.
A meditation focusing around phantom limbs, or a past life body, can help with many possible things. Careful study of the limbs may lead to a better understanding of the past’s body, shape, size, and all manner of other things. I myself have had some marginal success with this, and was able to really have a feel for what I probably looked like in the past as a dragon. Its not a guarantee of course, as the first time I tried a meditation like this I found nothing at all.
This sort of meditation could help with a few different things. I have met a few dragonkin in the past, and a couple even today, that yearn for the days when they had their wings. While this cannot give them wings again, it may be momentarily comforting to focus on them for a time. Same idea for any other part of the body that doesn’t equate to the human anatomy.
This meditation could also help step away from humanity for a short time. I know there have been times in the past where I didn’t want to associate with the human race at all anymore, and again I have met others that wanted this as well. This meditation could bring a quiet space for a short time “away” from the worries of the human world.
At the same time, the human body scan is important as well. Being dragonkin, in my opinion, should not be ultimately how to get away from being human or escape from human society. Instead it should give us lessons on how to be better beings today, and how to better interact with all of those around us. Centering back on our own body can help ground us back in reality should the past become overwhelming. Scanning our body with meditation gives awareness into who we are now. Our past and present both make up who we ultimately are, and that balance is how we ultimately become our best selves I believe.
Either way, I believe this sort of meditation is good. I am still a relative novice in meditation, but I can feel that there is a difference after a couple months of practice. I believe both of these meditations, the Body Scan and the Phantom Limb meditations, will have a place in my meditation rotation going forward.
Either way, I believe this sort of meditation is good. I am still a relative novice in meditation, but I can feel that there is a difference after a couple months of practice. I believe both of these meditations, the Body Scan and the Phantom Limb meditations, will have a place in my meditation rotation going forward.
In my meditation class, one of the key basic concepts that has been repeated several times is awareness and how that awareness is focused. I know that in my case, much of the day is spent being aware, but focus on being aware isn’t always present. For instance, while I am trying to make dinner for the evening my mind is on that task but how I am present and focused for it is different than when I meditate. In most cases the sort of present and awareness that I have for cooking is much less than I would do for meditation. The class offers that most of us spend much of our time in a sort of awake but not fully aware state.
I’ll admit that I have yet to master this sort of awake and aware state, I am definitely not in that space all the time. I don’t know yet if its a state we can be in all the time, or if its a good thing to be in such a state all the time. I can definitely say though that the state of being aware and attentive is definitely a good thing and helps with so much in life. Keeping in that state though seems to be challenging.
Though, what I have been pondering though, is how this relates to draconity. In some ways, being aware and being a dragon here and now have some parallels. None of us dragonkin would be around if we weren’t aware of ourselves in some regard. Knowing about our state requires some level of awareness. I think there is even more than that though. In order to explore who and what we are takes being attentively aware as well. Without focusing and being aware on who and what we are, how could we ever explore or understand ourselves?
Though what to focus on may be different for each of us. I’ve met a number of dragonkin, and each one different in their own way. Each one I think would have to approach being aware slightly differently. I have met dragons with or are guardians around another being, though I have not met many personally. There are the dragonkin that are early awakeners, the sort that have essentially always known they were a dragon from a very early age. Then there are the dragonkin like myself, who had an awakening later in life. The last two have a bit of a grey line between them, of course. Additionally, I’m far from an otherkin expert, so there may be other types of kin out there I am not aware of. If that’s you, let me know, I love learning new things.
So for the guardian dragons, there are usually two or more beings at play. The first is the “host,” which may be an otherkin or just a human. Either way though, the others are dragons that interact with the host in some way. The interaction between these is where the awareness becomes important. For the host to work with or communicate with the other beings, the host must be aware of what the others are trying to say or do. The greater the focus, awareness, and attentiveness, the more the group has a chance to communicate and grow around each other.
The early awakened know from an early age they are dragonkin. This seems to pose unique challenges for this group, usually at first on how to share and handle the experiences they are remembering at a young age. Parents or friends seem to rarely handle children that experience this sort of awakening well. Being aware can help this sort in the most diverse ways. Being exposed to memories from another life so early can sometimes be missing context and being attentive over the years can help bring insight into the memories. Being aware of who and how others react to mention of the memories can lead to knowing who to talk to about these experiences.
Otherkin like myself have an awakening experience later in life, usually triggered by some event or experience. In my specific case, what started it for me was this event, but other sorts of triggers do occur. Some are more abrupt, others take a long time to completely manifest. Either way though, awakenings like these rarely have all the memories appear all at once, and many are mingled with other experiences. Awareness and focus can help sort out past memories from mental clutter or imagination.
No matter how one identifies as otherkin though, there are benefits from being aware of what’s going on in one’s mind. Those benefits are not just related to being otherkin or memories, just being aware has countless other applications and benefits.
The mindfulness practice places a fair amount of emphasis on the kinds of thinking that we do. When I’ve thought about it, this makes a lot of sense. The sensation that is reading these words right now, your consciousness, is the most precious thing there is. Without it, there is nothing, with it there is everything. That sensation of you is how the universe works, or at least a part of it. Because of that, doesn’t it make sense to spend a little practice making sure that this precious thing is well taken care of and tended to?
In a quick few words, the mindfulness practice seems to encourage tending to the thoughts that flow through the mind. That place in the mind where the sensations of the outside world meet the sensations of your inner thoughts is where a fair amount of good or bad can arise. If you allow unwholesome thoughts to thrive in your mind, your inner world and the world around you will suffer. Though if you allow wholesome thoughts to grow within your mind then both your mind and the universe around you will benefit from this.
This is great, but then another interesting idea strikes us, what does this have to do with being a dragon, or any otherkin? On top of the unwholesome thoughts we have to be aware of that we encounter ever day, there are some of us that have angles of thoughts that come from beyond our being here. Memories from a past beyond the human can trigger thoughts just as any other memory or experience in this life. Those otherkin thoughts and memories can also be wholesome or unwholesome. As such we must be careful how we handle the thoughts from our other side.
Anger, sadness, want, all of these and more can come from past memories. Allowing them to fill your mind in our current lives will only take something that happened in the past and allow that unwholesome thing to push forward into our current lives today. Some of these things from before hurt even to this day, but that doesn’t mean that the beings of today should suffer for the wrongs of a life that none of them have ever been a part of. Don’t compound the suffering you face and others face from your experiences as an otherkin.
At the other wing though, there is an interesting opportunity that we all share as otherkin. We may have access to wholesome thoughts and memories that are beyond what most others experience. This means that by cultivating our experiences in a wholesome manner and allowing those ideas to grow, we can help the world here grow into a better place. Not only just grow into a better place, but even grow in ways that most others will never expect. Perhaps even great new understandings of the world are possible only through our unique view of the universe.
Of course, not every otherkin has a library of memories to have all these sorts of experiences. This doesn’t mean that the lesson here doesn’t apply. There are wholesome and unwholesome thoughts within our communities. These should be attended to as well. Carefully consider what sort of thoughts you want being the very window of you to the universe and the universe back into you. Would you want the community that you see now a mirror of your mind? It is certainly something to think about.
In the previous article I explored the idea of wholesome thoughts. After the review of some friends, there were some thoughts that they brought back to me that I think are worth exploring and expanding upon. Meditation that I have studied so far places a great deal of interest in our thoughts. We, human or dragon, are not made of only thoughts, there are instincts and feelings that should be explored as well as thoughts.
I sometimes have a difficult time sorting out my emotions. This challenge has been with me for so many years of my life that I essentially consider it the norm at this point. Unless the situation has swung my feelings heavily in a specific direction, my emotional state is neutral enough that it sinks below a sort of grey state. This isn’t how things are for everyone of course, perhaps you are far more in touch with your emotions than I am.
Either way though, mindfulness teaches us to look and observe what is going on inwardly. This can apply to emotions just as much as thoughts, and can help us untangle the subtle and extreme emotions that we encounter in our lives. In my case it can help me find emotions that lie beneath the surface of my “normal” emotion. In others cases it can untangle mixtures of emotions, or the reason an emotion is manifesting. Mindfulness can even help us trace back to why we have the emotion, and if that emotion is a wholesome thing, or an unwholesome thing.
Instincts can follow a similar pattern, and some of dragonkin feel instincts from when they had wings significantly strongly. Using the same practice of mindfulness can help dive into these instincts and find where they are coming from, why they might be present, and why the manifest. Some of these instincts, like our feelings and thoughts, may also be wholesome or unwholesome. Trying to find where these are coming from and how they apply to our lives is just as important as doing this with our thoughts.
Thoughts, feelings, and instincts, these are all experiences in the mind that can all be wholesome or unwholesome. Ultimately, we want to steer ourselves in a direction that will do us, and those around us, some good. Even the unwholesome experience though can be used as a tool for good, especially when we recognize what they are. We can learn why something is unwholesome and find a better way to do something, or understand why we feel or reacted a certain way. Don’t shy away from the unwholesome, but treat it with care so that you can grow from it. Embrace the wholesome so that it can enrich your life and make you a better being.
So explore your inner dragon in all your inner richness. There may be some amazing things yet to discover as you dive within yourself. Being mindful is just one way to really explore draconity, or life in general. There are other ways too, beyond just mindfulness and meditation. The important thing is identifying what is a wholesome thing and what is not, then deciding what to do with either one.
I have found that mindfulness has definitely helped find various aspects of myself, including a better understanding of my draconic past and how it applies today. Mindfulness as I have learned it, is based on a Buddhist approach towards mindfulness. This style included an interesting lesson on the nature of insight. An insight, as far as I understand it, is something that you come to know and understand all at once, not something you can learn or read in a book. An insight is when something just suddenly comes to you, fully formed and understood. There’s a bit of irony that I’m writing about this, at least from that sort of perspective. Though I am going to try anyway for a while.
So in the lessons that I learned, there were three major insights that help a person better fulfill their lives. Those three insights are: The concept of suffering, The concept that things are always changing, and the concept of things (even ourselves) are not a thing that exist. I’ll be honest, I’m still working on that last one, as I don’t fully grasp it. Though this article isn’t about these central ideas, I want to look at some insights that dragons can have.
We have several other kinds of insights, maybe some of them are less “epic” as the three from mindfulness, but they are important to us. I don’t have a definitive list, but who we are, our past, our purpose, our connection to dragons, how we integrate our dragon life and our current life, and even closure to transition into our current life could all be consider insights. Ideas that in some ways we can’t just think our way through, and require a sort of sudden clarity to help us completely understand these things.
So in my case, I can say that the memories that I have experienced are definitely insights. I had to quiet the thoughts and feelings in my head to allow the quiet subtle sensation of memories to slide into my mind. Most of them do not push aside the thoughts that I have through the day. There doesn’t seem to be any thinking into a memory either, though after the insight some thinking can unwrap layers of understanding about the memory.
I have not found a way to target an insight, though I haven’t heard that it’s impossible. Insights appear to me to be about preparing the space for them to appear, and being patient for them to arrive. All our experiences, thoughts, and emotions can help create the environment that’s needed though. It’s interesting though how it all seems to interact, one then the other but not so much at the same time.
This article may have to change in the future as my experience with insights changes and grows over time. Who knows, life has surprises everywhere with this sort of thing.
We are all very different from one another. Some of us remember what things were like when we had wings. I personally don’t remember much of those times, but pieces appear once in a great while for me. Even if you don’t remember, but do remember the wings, there is an important thing that would impact going back or having some of the past back. Things change.
Transience is the concept that things change, big things to small things all change. Sometimes the nature of the change is huge, sometimes so subtle that we don’t even notice it. Life is built upon the subtle styles of change, chemical processes in our bodies make it possible for us to live, and large changes like the changes in the sun give us light to fuel our world. Society is built upon change as well, thank goodness too because otherwise I would be trying to paint this on a cave wall somewhere.
Changes like that are obvious though, the real question is how does that concept apply to us? So, it is my opinion that if we had the chance to go back and visit a place and time from our memory it almost certainly would not be the way we remembered it. I am certain the mountains and ocean coast I wrote about in my memories have changed since I was there, especially since I have no context as to when I was there at all. A landscape can change at a moment’s notice, who knows what a million years might have done to a mountain or coastline.
Even if I got my wings, right this instant, I am sure it wouldn’t be like how I remembered. Either there would be differences in how I would have to fly here, or maybe I only remember how the wings were while I was a young dragon and not while I was an older one. For all I know, the composition of the air and gravity here would have made it possible there and not here.
So is there a lesson here? I suspect so, though I am pretty sure its different for each one of us. The lesson that I’ve learned over time, is that the old ways and that old world are just that, and they are not my current way and current world. Its not a bad thing to know the old world and that past, but I shouldn’t try and completely live within it. Things change, and I should learn to live with the current changes. Things change, and I should learn to expect that how things are today will not last into some time in the future. Accepting this helps the changes, and accepting this helps with the desire for how things were when I had wings. Who knows, changes in the long distant future beyond my life here might give me another chance at having a new pair of wings. A different pair of wings might not be too bad at all.
Of course, there’s always the change that I can bring to the world as well. Maybe my experiences give me just the right mind set to help change something in my community, or where I work. Change doesn’t always have to be accepted, sometimes we are the ones who bring change to the world. Though when looking at change through this lens, its important to be honest and true to yourself. Change for the wrong reasons, rarely turns out well. Change for the right reasons, is worth every ounce of effort.
Suffering is a topic that is a challenge. I will be honest with you, it’s hard for me to write about. There are so many different ways to interpret this, and I definitely do not feel like an expert in the field either. At the same time, I can imagine how this could be a challenge for the reader as well. I could inadvertently step onto something that you deal with as you read this and really make your day harder. As a general rule, I try not to make other people’s day harder. Still, suffering is something that is worth looking into some because it is a part of everyone’s experience in life to some extent.
Suffering comes in all sorts of different shapes and types. It shows up in the weirdest times and the oddest reasons. I couldn’t hope to create a list of course. Additionally, the otherkin community has grown in ways that I cannot speak to the subject as an expert, so instead I’ll look at specific types of suffering that I have experienced. Maybe some of these will be familiar to you, or perhaps I have missed a few.
When I first awakened and for years after that, I wanted to know more about who I was. The wanting to know more about who I was came from the sensation that I had holes in my identity. Where did I come from, what did I do in the past, and what was I like in the past were all questions I wondered about when I first started this journey. I was someone that I thought I knew everything about, but suddenly I was someone who had surprises hidden from themselves. Worst of all, I couldn’t just remember like I could about things in my childhood.
This made me feel like I was incomplete and so wasn’t worthy to be around in the various societies of dragons, otherkin, and other groups as well. This concept was a flaw in my thinking. My past, regardless of how much I remember or not, does not make me any more or less a dragon than any other. Each of us remember things differently from one another and that’s fine. The past can tell us more about who we are now, but the past does not completely define who we are today. Any amount of knowing the past, all of it or nothing, is sufficient to be the best being that we are today.
Re-experiencing my first memory was an incredible experience. Thrilling, emboldening, and incredible, it felt like something had opened up within me. Then the next day I wondered “was that real?” When I awoke, I was already going through a period of questioning my religion and other aspects of my life. To me it felt natural to also turn over discoveries of who I was more and ask myself hard questions, like was this all imagination? I’ve met other dragons through the years that have asked themselves and me the same question, “Was my past real?” and “was your past real?” This is not always an easy answer.
From my experience, my memories are real. I carefully try to review any sort of memory that I might have had and really ask myself where it came from, or if there are discrepancies in what I am remembering. The few that survive my review, I am pretty certain that they are a memory from times past. This is part of being honest with yourself, which is a common theme through my website. Without being honest with yourself though, the nagging shadow of self-deception will always be present. Because each of us are human physically today, any that are alterhuman will have to deal with this in their own way. This may show up as this nagging doubt that may follow some of us day over day.
I can remember a few places when I had my wings. Nothing in great detail, like much of my memories, but enough that I can say the spaces mostly remind me of the south west region of the United States. When I lived in that region, I felt the most at home as far as a geographical place, than I have in any other place so far in my life here.
I have known some other dragonkin though, where this tie to home is significantly stronger than just a general like. A number of us dearly miss the places we used to live. This sort of homesickness can be made even sharper by the fact that we know we cannot return to those places or those times. Either time or space, probably both, keep us far away from our past homes where we feel strong connection.
There is a dissonance that can occur when one remembers a life that wasn’t human and looks in the mirror and see a human. There have been moments where, even to this day, I look in the mirror and am a little surprised that there is a human on the other side.
While I have ever only felt brief moments of body dysphoria, I have known a few other dragonkin that have serious distaste for the body they now inhabit. Much like homesickness, a sort of body missing sickness can overtake us and make looking in the mirror or seeing our hands a painful experience. In some ways this sort of desire for what was can be even more impactful for some than homesickness.
Phantom limb is an interesting experience that I have from occasion to occasion. I’ve met a dragon that told me they feel their old body nearly every moment of the day, others barely register that is there. The sensation of the phantom limb, or limbs, can actually help trigger the body dysphoria in the section above as well, which can double up on the pain from there. Though I have met some dragons that have a different sort of suffering with phantom limb.
In some circumstances, the sensation of their wing or tail being in the same physical space as some other object can be uncomfortable. In some cases even painful. In my case I don’t have the sensation strong enough that this is ever the case. Though the dragon’s body was never considered in human architecture or devices, so things like rooms, or cars, can be uncomfortable, claustrophobic, or even jarring to certain individuals.
I awoke during my early high school years. Watching the community today, there are others in the broader alterhuman community that go through awakening much earlier than I did. Awakening does not happen in a vacuum. An awakening can be a wildly shifting experience that can alter how one sees themselves, which in some cases is difficult for family and friends to grasp and understand. This can also depend on if the person in question even comes forward to tell others about the changes, like how I approached things for a significant portion of my life.
This sort of suffering can take two different forms depending on how things are handled, and I’ve personally experienced both forms. The form I am least familiar with is attacks aimed at you. I have more on this (Future me should link to the article about this event). The abuse certainly weighed on me for weeks after the event. The other is keeping yourself hidden and secret from others, which I have done for years and still do to this day. It makes interaction with others much easier but created a sort of internal maze within my mind on how to handle different people. Either type of suffering is painful though.
In my specific case, my world view has been a shifting space for most of my life. From my perspective it will be difficult to see just how much my awakening shifted my world view. Though I do know that my awakening and the knowledge I have gained from it has changed my world view. I have met other dragons whose world view changed from the shift of awakening and learning about their past, who they were and some of the reasons for why they are the way they are.
Trying to juggle and wrestle with these sorts of new ideas can be incredibly hard. These are not the sharp sort of pains that can occur from some of the other types of suffering. Dealing with a world view change is usually a slow sort of suffering. In a way its almost like blending the otherkin sort of suffering with the types all peoples face.
Then our memories can haunt us as well. We lived in different places at different times. Some of us had to do things that would be considered barbaric, amoral, or downright evil in the past. I myself have been spared so far from this specific flavor of suffering, but I know of others that have not been so fortunate.
This sort of suffering has the fewest context in this current life, and can make this type the most difficult to bear from what I have seen. While I am no therapist or psychologist, I suspect that memories from our past can lead to mental challenges we face here in the present. Things done in a lifetime away can bring guilt, shame, anger, and a mess of other things from beyond our time and place here.
That is the ultimate question here on this article, and ultimately not a question that I am qualified to answer. I know all this suffering and thoughts on all of these are just begging for an answer. Ultimately though, suffering is something that is incredibly personal, even if the flavor is essentially the same. What I have found as answers personally for my suffering does not mean that it would answer any other dragon’s suffering, or any other being at all for that matter.
I believe that spending time to explore the suffering, and really understand it, can help you be honest with why you suffer with that idea. In my case much of my suffering came from either not being honest with myself, or not going out and learning more about the world that I find myself in. This sort of approach does not always make all the suffering go away. There are days that I still hurt from the pieces of who I was and my past.
At the same time though, I would still suffer through everything that I have been through if I was given the choice to do it all again or live a different life without the knowledge. Accepting the suffering that I have gone through in the past has allowed me to learn a volume of important life lessons. Exploring the pieces that have caused me to suffer has allowed me to understand life in a way I didn’t believe would be possible years back. Through suffering I have met others who suffer right alongside me, which in turn has allowed me to meet incredible friends to share the experiences of life.
Nature of Dragonkin is a complicated one. As such, I don’t know all the ways that it manifests. There are ones like me that had a past life as a dragon. There are those that are harboring a dragon soul around them. Others have a sort of instinctual draw towards a dragon. I cannot list all the ways we can be connected to draconity, that’s a subject I suspect others have done far better than I ever could.
So with all these different ways that we connect to draconity, what unites us in being dragonkin? One thing is the combination of having some form of connection to dragons and us being a human. Each of us relate to the human side differently. Some of us accept the human side of our experience with open happy wings. I have known others that are dearly at odds with their humanity. I myself have been across the spectrum of accepting and rejecting humanity.
The interesting part here is the duality of being. We are two halves of a whole. This balance to create a whole is going to be different for each one of us. Because of how all of our lives are different, and with how different our connections are, there is no one size fits all dragons advice for what the balance is.
That balance is something each one of us has to find on our own. To find that balance, you have to listen to it, to each or all sides. There are needs and desires for each piece of ourselves, and those needs are whispered or shouted to our inner ear. Try to hear what is being said and felt. Then try to learn the why these things are being said or felt. That knowledge then leads you towards where the balance ultimately is.
In my specific experience, having lived a life sometime in the past as a dragon, the nature of self to me has some interesting points. It helps me accept and be at peace with the fact that I am human at the moment. I’ll admit that I have a preference towards the dragon body, but not so much that I cannot stand what I am today. Additionally, it also helps me recognize the sort of progression between the dragon life then into the human life now. What I learned and experienced back then with the wings won’t necessarily translate into something useful or helpful today and I am alright with that fact.
Where I am headed with these thoughts about myself is the nature of change that has occurred in my existence. I started as something (a dragon) and have steadily progressed into something else (a human). As I have experienced life as a human, aspects of being a dragon have influenced my life as a human. This makes me some sort of mixture between the two, and helps to explain how the term “Otherkin” applies to me. This also outlines some qualities on the idea of what “self” ultimately is for me, a collection of experiences across lives.
Self for others in the alterhuman broad category probably includes a somewhat similar point of view. The experiences of their broader perception is what creates the self, not just the human. The interesting thing, is that this doesn’t include only alterhumans, and actually can be seen in humans with past life experiences. From what I have read from various accounts of past life experiences, it seems pretty clear that the past life can influence the present life but doesn’t have to, and that the individual is a collective whole of all these experiences. We’re all travelers in this wider experience of the world.
Selves change from moment to moment, life to life, there are many things that are common across all these points in time and there are things that change between them as well. So a self, despite where it comes from or what type of creature it might even be, is something that grows and changes over time. Though, I do not know how that sort of change ultimately impacts us in the grandest scale of experience between lives and such.
I can definitely say that the nature of Self is unique to us all as well as an evolving part to who we are. The concept of self is an important part in the understanding of the universe and the perception of everything, but that is better left to a much larger series of articles and explorations. As such, I suppose the best thought I can close us with here, is that the self is the prism through which the light of reality is both split into and brought into focus.