God As Otherkin

God As Otherkin

I want to talk to you about how being otherkin, and growing up (distantly) religious, has influenced my understanding of God. If that interests you, then buckle in.

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My family wasn't religious growing up. My parents weren't, neither were my siblings. My grandma however, was. I did the prayers she told me to do before bed, and sat quietly while she read and explained various parables and passages from her text.

To me, religion was a thing that I was told to do. Not a belief that I had.

Eventually, that changed somewhat. I began "making up" my own prayers. Treating God as something to talk to, even if I wasn't getting any answers.

Over time however, that faded. I began to proudly proclaim myself an atheist at first. Then an agnostic.

In terms of conventional beliefs regarding God, I'm still agnostic. I don't believe in any of the Gods outlined by any religions I'm currently aware of.

Yet now that I'm an adult I find myself seeing nature in a very similar way to how I experienced God and religion.

A distant force, vast and on some level incomprehensible. Capable of being spoken to, but not likely to answer you. A thing to which you belong, without ever really understanding what it is.

People talk in reverence about being in the presence of their deity. In a sense, I feel similarly about nature. It isn't a reverence exactly, but a sense of awe and even smallness.

My kintype isn't quite human, nor is it an animal exactly. But it belongs to that world anyway. Made in the image of this complex web that I don't fully understand.

As a werewolf, I see myself as a product of nature. Even though my kind may have never existed in the wild, in a way we did. The myth of the werewolf is in many ways, a fear of the natural world. I am every predator that mankind has ever been afraid of. And yet I am also none of them.

When I'm out there in the wilderness, there's the feeling of connecting to my kintype. But there's also another feeling. The feeling of being surrounded by something ancient, indisputable, and in a way powerful.

That's my God. Not a definable figure, or a thinking being from another world. Instead, a vast force comprising every living and inanimate thing. The organic and inorganic history that shaped my bones.

An invisible shepherd.

It's so sad that there are very few places anyone can go that provide that perfect secret little hideaway somewhere in th woods. Everything is someones property, public parks that are just grass, or housing developments now. I just want to be able to take a short walk from my house to some (not even that deep) woods and find a cool tree and make it my hang out spot and to walk along the naturally forming paths from other people and animals taking time to actually enjoy nature.

fuck w me

wolves playing with ice (on trail camera)

employees should be allowed to steal, actually

actual picture of me