On Identity

People often speak of many otherkin, therian or alterhuman "identities", but I never found that wording as something I could identify with, personally. For me, I have one single identity, as one single person. However, that identity has many facets. All those facets are interconnected parts of a whole. They all relate to and with each other, all share a single crystal lattice. Angel and dragon, goshawk and bear. Even the cyborg.

Another way of wording it, and probably more true for me, is that these are all strands of hyphae in one mycelium. The fruiting bodies are the forms, the "identities". Each fruiting body or mushroom looks slightly different as an individual, but each one is part of one mycelial being that is "Kaziel" (or Gavin to those who know me personally). Each one part of a vast, invisible network underground. The invisible mycelium are the fibers of my soul, and the dark earth in which they are concealed in is my mortal human body. The fruiting bodies manifest in many ways, but through my mortal body's brain, and the organs with which I interact with and experience the world around me. Through this post you are now reading.

Tracking these threads through mythic time, there can be found many intersections between the "draconic" and the "celestial". For example, Katarina Pejovic, in her book on Balkan folk magic, talks of the celestial and stellar nature of the Zmaj, a type of ancestral dragon that manifests as stellar phenomena, meteorites, falling stars, and lightning bolts. Then there are the biblical seraphim, and Satan as the 'great red dragon', plus the many dragon-forms of fallen angels and demons. This isn't even touching the shapeshifting nature of dragons themselves, who can assume forms that range from human and nonhuman animals to inanimate objects (stones, statues) and weather phenomena (mist, clouds, rain).

Put simply, it should moreso be said that I am a dragon-shaped angel, and that the primary other forms I have shapeshifted into and lived as are hawk and bear, as well as a mortal human (as I am currently). It should also be noted that all three mortal animal forms, from human to hawk to bear, have all been associated with dragons in some way. There are the cave bear cult ossuaries fueling dragon myths in Europe, such as the Swiss Drachenloh and the Austrian Drachenhohle. The dragon and the bear are also both are deeply entwined in Arthurian myth.

The bird, especially predatory birds such as hawks and eagles, are themselves strongly tied to the psychological dragon-complex in the evolving human-ape. There are also mythical stories of dragons shapeshifting into birds and birds shapeshifting into dragons, which may or may not be inspired by findings of archaic birds and dinosaurs across time. Even if there is no historical association between the two, modern humankind cannot help but see dragons in these bones, and many dozens of dinosaurs have been named for the dragon since. When 19th Century Bavarians first laid eyes on the Archaeopteryx, they mistook it for an angel, further tying these concepts together.

Twenty years of self-discovery, and the work continues. I have always found it more meaningful to see these as parts of a whole, instead of whole separate parts. Below is a short bibliography; if you are interested in exploring these concepts further, you can do so on my LibraryThing: https://www.librarything.com/profile/kyashan

**BIBLIOGRAPHY**:

Huxley, Francis. (1979). Dragon: Nature of Spirit, Spirit of Nature. Collier Books.

Jones, David E. (2002) An Instinct For Dragons. Routlege.

Ogden, Daniel. (2013). Drakon: Dragon Myth And Serpent Cult In The Greek And Roman Worlds. Oxford University Press.

Ogden, Daniel. (2021). The Dragon In The West: From Myth to Modern Legend. Oxford University Press.

Pejovic. Katarina. (2019). Balkan Folk Magic: Zmaj. Hadean Press.

The Book of Enoch

The Bible (Old and New Testamants