THE DESIRE TO SHAPESHIFT
My two sons and I often ask each the question, of all the superhero powers, which power would we like to possess? Them—superhuman strength, telekinesis, super speed, weather control. Me—shapeshifting.
Astrologically, my affinity for shapeshifting aligns with the presence of Wood and Fire in my birth chart according to Chinese astrology. The Wood phase signifies renewal and expansion, while Fire embodies dynamism and maximalism. These elements naturally resonate with the concept of transformation, providing insight into my attraction to the power of shapeshifting. My custodial animals, Horse and Snake, also feel at home with the concept of morphing. Horse is attracted to the boundless, blurring lines and dismantling fences; Snake more interested in the process of changing form, as shedding skin is what she naturally does. But is it limited to astrological analysis? Can there be more than this reason?
In my psychic communication with plants, the theme of shapeshifting continues. Plants, many of them flowers, which by very nature, go through one shapeshifting process after another, invite me to delve into the layers of identity and the desire to be seen and valued. In this way, shapeshifting as a desire, was shown to me as potentially racially-rooted. Could shapeshifting help 'neutralize' my ethnicity and make me more white in the name of safety, where who I am does not need to also include the "as an Asian woman" where it has nothing to do with it? Could shapeshifting help avoid the pervasive gaze that subjects me to being lumped with others who look like me, or unfair comparisons that pit us each one against the other. When schools where my children attend tell me things are so much better now, and I am thinking, same book, different jacket? And then when I point it out the obvious, would the ability to shapeshift change the label "a difficult parent" to "concerned parent"? Would shapeshifting protect me from feeling like I am going crazy? Would possessing the ability to shapeshift take away over-analysis, sleepless nights, flashbacks of similar themes from my own childhood? Indigenous, Black, and Racialized Folks, am I the only one who does not really see the "so much better now"? For all my past devotions to whiteness, it has not changed my skin colour, and thankfully so, as it's not my heritage that I wish to distance from, but the vulnerability and exhaustion. Would shapeshifting extend the shelf life of race discussions from a few years to as long as it takes, much like how white feminism has not reached its expiry date, yet?
The attraction to shapeshifting highlights how my experiences and consciousness is entangled with paradoxes: I want to be seen, I don't want to be seen. Though at the very root (pun intended), the plant spirits I work often with, Mugwort and Rose, share this about myself: astounding the deep desire to shapeshift reveals less so about my desire to be someone else and far more about being myself, and to enjoy being me. In this way, shapeshifting not only shows what yearns to die, but what hopes to revive. For me, this means that shapeshifting is also a deeply sensual, creative, and fun-filled intuitive process that frees and affirms. To mirror the renewal of colours of Spring, or the lush earth tones of late Summer. I shapeshift in my clothing, how I style my home, even what I spotlight in Homing Coven with my coven-mates. Shapeshifting activates the imagination to inspire what my reality, our reality, hopes to and can be. Shapeshifting is permission to exist, unconditionally, and to exist in multiplicity.
One final point I’d like to make about shapeshifting is that in science, it’s a creative adaptive mechanism, where “‘success’ of a species is measured not by rank in a hierarchy but my continuity of a lineage over time and by the effusive flowering of more and different solutions ot the question of how to live” (Robin Wall Kimmerer). In this way, shapeshifting as both genetic and esoteric functions, is about sustainability, expression of a being (or species), and ancestral magick.
If you're desiring to play with, to explore, to resource, shapeshifting will be present in June 17th's and July 15th's Magick of Tea sessions (each session approached differenty). In-person at O5 Tea and live-stream spots available (and Homing Coven mates, your live-stream spot is free!). Recordings available to all ticket holders.