A common question asked in the therian community is "Why are most therians predators?" Well, I think it has several factors. One is human nature. Humans admire that which is fast, strong, sleek, beautiful, and above all intelligent. Wolves definetely fall into that category, along with big cats, bears, and many other predators. However, there are other factors.

I believe that our connection to animal spirits is somehow "native", that our geneology and our geography strongly affects this. My reasoning behind this is that there needs to be some kind of tie - some bond to the lands that sustain us spiritually and the animals sustained there. The farther the separation between spiritual origins, the harder it is to establish a spiritual connection. That's not to say I don't believe it can happen otherwise - some people have very strong longings or connections with countries they've never seen. In those cases, I generally consider there is a possibility for the transmigration of souls between places - maybe they had a past life in that country, or a very distant ancestor. But for the most part I think we will have the closest connection to the animals from the lands we draw ancestry from, or the lands we currently inhabit.

In the last couple of years, we've seen a lot more people coming out and saying, "Yeah, I'm an X therian!", X being just about anything you can think of. I think some of the peer pressure is wearing off about the concept of finding yourself out, and that people are really beginning to look closely at themselves. Also, there is now a body of work online (like these pages), that people can read, and they're learning they don't all have to be "werewolves".

It's also been asked "Why are there so few herbivorous weres - you know, like horses, antelope, deer, cows, etc.?"

When I first started meeting other people like myself, I wasn't convinced that there were any. However, I have met a lot more of these folks now; horse and deer being most "common", but there are also boars, raccoons, skunks, badgers, cows, buffalo, and more.. These animals, too, have long been respected by Man for their different skills and behaviors.

I don't believe that dragons, gryphons, or other "mythical" creatures are weres. I believe that they are instead Otherkin. If you have dragons in you, I'll say you're Otherkin, not a therian - same for gryphons and unicorns and demons and angels and kitsunes and hellhounds and more! After all - these creatures aren't physical living animals, and may never have been. How can they be an animal-side if they're not animals? They have received wide acceptance as therians, however, so I am very much in the minority in my beliefs.

I'm sort of up in the air on my feelings about extinct species, like dire wolves, sabercats, dinosaurs, etc. I know some therians with these sides, whom I trust in both their spiritual leanings, their reliability, and their analytical skills. And then there's a lot of "raptor-therians" out there who don't seem much better than role-players regurgitating what they've seen on other people's sites. However, like dragons etc., they have recieved wider acceptance than I give them, so I reserve my judgement most of the time, and go by the individuals I know.

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The Nature of Shifting