Writing About my Sides
My animal sides are integrated aspects of me and aren't distinct from what is human in me. You must consider that I am an hybrid inside, so technically I should say that I have only one side: me (a combination of cloudypard, raven and human). When I am refering specifically to a side, it's because I can sometimes tell where a trait/behavior comes from inside me, it is mostly guesses about which attitudes wouldn't be here without my animal parts, and it is not the same as how you know you are acting human or wolfish. It is more similar to how a non-therian knows himself, his own traits and their psychological/whatever causes.
Because of this, it's hard for me to explain what is raven or clouded leopard. What they're like. I can try, but it is my own - hybrid - experience about them. No "Truth". Due to my "human layer", some of the things I associate with my sides may sound a bit "humanized", or archetypal.
Clouded leopard is deep. Clouded leopard is grumpy, savage, not social. It doesn't stand being bothered, it doesn't stand people. It wants to be left alone. Clouded leopard looks at the world in a very serious, pessimistic manner, but it can also be cynical. It is arrogance. It is arrogant because it doesn't need the wold, not just because it's a feline (although it may sound stereotypical). It watches things but stays apart. It's a grumpy and lone watcher. But watching things gives you some knowledge. Clouded leopard is not stupid. Clouded leopard, more metaphorically and poetically speaking, is something like deep, tepid water, or wet clay. It's warm, it's alive, it's savage and flexible. It can be smooth and it can be soft. Feel the clay in your hands, pug it to feel it better. It's warm, it's firm, it's like a stocky feline, like a clouded leopard. Put your hands in water, try to catch it. You can't, it passes through your fingers. You can caress water but you can't hold it. Clouded leopard is free, clouded leopard is like a flow that slips through branches and leaves, and scratches the trunks, and walk away from things that irritate or bother it. However, it can, on rare occasion, be interested in something or someone, and become more playful or social about it. Clouded leopard might stand other felines if they interest it, the rest of time it will prefer remaining aloof. Clouded leopard will try to take advantages of things if there is no risk, otherwise it will not move, contrary to my raven side. It can be coward, if we can say so about animals. It doesn't like to make efforts. In the same way as it won't take any risk and won't move if there are, clouded leopard will stay slow unless it has to be swift. It will stay lazy unless it must be effective. And if people try to kick my butt when I'm in lazy-grumpy-clouded-leopard mode, it growls and can badly get mad at them.
Describing what it is to be a raven is extremely difficult. First of all I must say that raven has nothing "gothic", "dark romantic" or just "dark", feathers apart. I am not more fascinated by death and carcasses than you are by fruits or yogurts. That's it: dead corpses are food and it does look tasty for me, it does make my mouth salivating, but nothing more. Secondly, raven is not the same as a feline side, because it's totally different from being a - terrestrial - mammal. There is no possible comparison. There is not this sort of familiar feeling you have towards "animals that have fur". It is something alienated, different, colder but though not stranger (it's still me). You're not a terrestrial mammal, you're not stuck on the floor. Instead of that, you have a wide world of cold wind and air, emptiness and safety, where you can move in all the way you want with easiness and freedom, and from where you can watch everything. You don't feel this warm and comfortable bond towards earth echoing in your heart, going through your body, your limbs, and sinking into the ground. Instead, you feel a bond to the wind, sky and emptiness. It is not the Western views about emptiness, it is not nought, it is not something negative and associated with sorrow, solitude or fear. It is a bond to something wide, very wide, coldly resounding in you and around you, vibrating in the air, and shining from you to the sky. Not in a metaphorical sense, I'm not talking about something spiritual, but about a feeling, a bond; raven is... down to earth.
Raven is an opportunist searching for the most efficient way to get what it wants. Not in a nasty way, but only to grab what people don't need. It is very flexible, adaptable. Raven is more social than clouded leopard. Raven tend to look at people and their actions with interest, like an outsider that can (or decide not to) interact with them, help them, or gain from their actions. Raven is a watcher, and a curious animal. It will always come closer when something or someone interests it. It would firstly look at it cusiously, staying apart, but then it will come near and try to interact with it. It not only looks at things because they may gives me something material, but also because it can learn from them; it is critical, sometimes sarcastic, but always interested in learning. Raven watches and learns, and then spreads it among others when it's useful. Other times raven may be so interested in knowledge, gaining or giving something that it may "miss" something more "human" and emotional in its relationships with others. Metaphorically speaking, raven is like a cold wind; it seems cold because it's foreign, unfamiliar, but you can feel it blowing in a playful manner. It comes from far, it travels a lot, it brings things and spreads them around, it gives and it takes. Raven is the wind through hair, though fur, through feathers, that whispers and makes you more aware of your surrounding, and therefore inspires you about how to use it in the best way to achieve your aims. Raven is strong, yet very subtle; hence the difficulties I have to describe it.
I'm aware of the fact these descriptions can sound sort of vague. I did my best though; I will probably edit them in the future if I think of something to add.
If you're avian or feline, feel free to e-mail me and share your thoughts about your sides. I enjoy having serious therianthropic discussions about this kind of things, and comparisons always are interesting. I enjoy as well learning about therians who have "uncommon" phenotypes.
~Akhila
October 2004