Shapeshifting

"In all of us there is a lawless side like a wild beast that peers out during sleep." - Jim Steinman.

As afternoon turns to dusk, and the September air goes from balmy to chill, I shed my clothes and return to the earthy embrace of a pine and hemlock forest.

Unfettered by artificial chains, I stalk the forest like a wolf. I sprint across unkempt trails like a deer. I dance with the stars. I undo myself.

Shapeshifting is associated with werewolves, but has a deeper significance and power. It's not only about connecting to the wild beast within. It is about connecting to "nothing" and "everything." It is a return to Chaos.

In that chill September night, I become the Horned God spiraling back to the Goddess--back to the Garden. I am the Garden; there is no seperation. Only when I am fettered by the constraints of the adult human mind--seemingly secure in its razor logic and knowledge, definitions and divisions--am I cast out of Eden. Only then do I spiral away from the Unknown God, the Goddess, the Horned God.

Trapped within "I," I suffer, for I remove myself from the Garden. As long as I live I am removed, trapped within the Temple of perception from which I interpret the world without. But when shapeshifting, I lose myself to the Wild without. I become the child again, running naked without shame or sin. Maybe not in the Garden, but a part of it, for my Temple resides there. And I can choose which windows to look out!

I return on a damp September morning to the adult human world, where I must mask myself and hold back the Garden within.