I have to admit that one of the things that interested me greatly when I first came across the vampire and otherkin community was the subject of awakenings. Awakening is known to all of us as one of the most difficult, confusing trials that we will withstand and unfortunately, all too often we must go through this alone and without answers as to what is happening to us. It is that time in our lives that our body and mind tell us that we are not only different but we are extremely different to a point of this difference becoming a splinter in our minds. I understand all too well how this can be a frustrating thing because of the inability to put a finger on exactly what it is that we may be experiencing that is really so different then the rest of humanity at large. But none the less there is something there and it needles away at us, beckoning us to search…but for what we know not. Granted each person’s experience with awakening is different but we all know that there are also many similarities.
There are a million and one articles and posts out there that describe the physical aspects of awakening so I will keep that portion of this article to a minimum. I can only speak on the physicals of a vampiric awakening being as it has been many lifetimes since I have experienced the physicalities of awakening as any other form of otherkin. Though I do still carry certain traits of other types of kin (fae, celestial, wolf, cat), vampire is that which reigns supreme in my soul today. So because of this I can only speak of what my own personal experience was with physical awakening. Please bare with me, I will keep this part as brief as possible.
Personally I didn’t have very many physical symptoms of awakening. To the best of my knowledge the most I can pinpoint as regards the time period is just after my high school graduation during the summer of my 18th year. There are many reasons it is difficult for me to really say “this right here is the day I awakened” but for the most part it is because it was so subtle for me. Firstly, I began getting headaches and migraines when I had previously never had a migraine in my life. It became difficult for me to remain awake and coherent during the day, especially the mornings. I know that for some this is a normal part of being a teenager but up to this point I was most definitely a morning person. But no longer was this the case. At night, my energy level would spike and I would become almost manic in my need to exert myself. My eyes became more sensitive to light and more accustomed to the dark. And finally there is the biggest physical symptom I had…my appetite became difficult to control. I hungered and craved for something that I could not place and nothing would satisfy me, therefore causing the yo-yo effect of weight gain and loss. That is pretty much it as far as the physical aspects of my own awakening. However, the mental and emotion aspects….ahhh, now this is a very different matter my friends.
You see when it comes to awakening it is the common opinion of most that there are different stages. There is the physical awakening stage and this is usually the first stage. It is the one that is mostly spoken of when people mention something like “I awakened two weeks ago”. Though the validity of being able to pinpoint a specific day has always escaped my understanding, it doesn’t change the fact that almost everyone seems to know when it was they went through this stage. Then there is the emotional/mental awakening, also known as Becoming. This is the second stage. And finally there is the third stage, that of spiritual awakening, commonly referred to as Ascension.
The second and third stages are the ones that are most often neglected when it comes to information and personal experience being relayed to others. What is it like for everyone else? Is it also something that we all have certain similarities in? Do all kin go through this feeling of “self absorption” or “selfishness” for months on end? Am I really normal, or at least as normal as I can be considering I have a more human then human soul?? What does all this mean? And then there is the biggest question of all…Why????
We all have these questions and many more my friends. And it is the search for answers to these questions that seem to be the single defining aspect that otherkin of all types have in common. We band together in both the online and offline world in our attempts to quench this curiosity of ours and bring some semblance of peace and balance to our existence here on this plane. It seems to me that this is both our greatest strength and our greatest weakness. It is our weakness because it is the root of our feelings of being cut off and adrift in this world, alone. However, it is our strength because it drives us toward one another, to be reunited with lost loves, to create the unbreakable bonds of eternal friendship, to continue our paths of self discovery. As so many other things in life, it is a two sided coin, yin and yang.
So what does it mean exactly to Become? Well, once again I can only speak from my own experiences. Though my physical awakening occurred many years ago, Becoming was something that took much longer to come to fruition for me. I spent more then a decade dealing with the issues of ignorance as to what was “wrong” with me. I went through depression and upheaval in my emotions for a long time. I took risks that were foolhardy and yet, thankfully, I came out the other side with nothing more then bad memories. When I quite literally stumbled across the vampire community it was at a time that I was finally ready to accept that there is much more to the world around us then that which is presented to us by the narrow confines of society’s views. I can honestly say that if I had read many of the things that I have learned of more recently, in an earlier part of my life, I would have turned a blind eye to them. I would have made any excuse I could to explain away why these things were silly fantasies and nothing more. But as it would just so happen, I came across such things when the time was ripe for it. I still had the feelings of incredulity at the fact that people would claim such things were real, but something kept me reading. You see, there were similarities that I just plain couldn’t ignore. There were actually other people in this world that had been going through the same things I had!! And my thoughts that I was one day meant to shine, meant to be so much more then I currently was became more then just a fleeting fantasy.
And so I read and read and read and read. I devoured anything I could find on the subject. The more information I found, the hungrier I became for knowledge. The questions drove me to find answers and in turn with every answer that was found it gave birth to ten more questions. But at last I was learning! The world opened up to me at last. It was both an excited and yet frightening time for me and this is something that is common for us when we Become. Even though we experience excitement at the knowledge that we are finally getting somewhere in our search for understanding, we also often experience fear, shame, guilt or any combination of such due to the fact that what we are learning is challenging those belief structures that we have long accepted as simple fact. Our religious views may become obsolete in a sense and because of the nature of religious philosophy, this can definitely cause emotional upheaval. Some of us are raised with a more open minded view of the world and this can be extremely helpful in Becoming. But for those of us that come from more narrow minded, closed off, judgmental backgrounds…oh how we have changed!!
It is this change in our acceptance of societal norms as gospel truth that causes much of the emotional aspects of Becoming. We are taught that it is wrong to spend so much time within our own minds, that we must devote our attentions to our families and friends rather then ourselves. This is true but only to an extent. We, by nature, are both the most introverted and extroverted of people. We experience our environment on a level that most will never even fathom. To us, the world is richer, filled with more to experience in any given situation then others could possibly imagine. Thus, this brings out our extroversion…we react to the environment that reacts to us. However, we are constantly processing these things. We weigh and measure everything that our senses tell us, everything that we feel (and boy, do we feel), and everything that we are told becomes subject to this mental process. We search others words for truth or lies, we examine every little nuance and unceasingly, unrelentingly dissect them. Therein lays our introversion. We over think everything. We analyze and pick apart and reassemble. And then we wonder to ourselves why it is that we get to wrapped up in our own thoughts that sometimes we forget to speak aloud to others when they ask us a question. Once again it is the yin and the yang…introversion and extroversion. For me, finding balance in these things is the final aspect of Becoming whereas the seeking out of all this knowledge and information is the meat and potatoes of it. So when you get to this point, you may begin to ask yourself…now what?
This brings us to the matter of Ascension, the spiritual awakening. For some, Ascension and Becoming go hand in hand. For others, they experience first one and then the other. For myself, I am one of those that have the two blending together a bit, making it difficult for me to really separate the two. So I define it this way, if Becoming is about learning then Ascension is about putting that knowledge to use and acknowledging, discovering and generally getting to know our higher selves. Ascension is something that I suspect many continue to experience during the entirety of their remaining years, or at least this is what I expect will be the case for me. Spiritual enlightenment is a dynamic and fluid thing. It evolves and grows and with it so do we. Ascension is for me the most magical stage. That which allows us to truly be what we were meant to be. It is our time to shine. It is the most individual and solitary of the stages also. For each persons path leads to one’s own personal ends.
However, because of the ties and bonds that were created along the way, we never again need to feel alone or cut off. We have our Family in those that we have shared lifetime after lifetime with and they will help us along the way should we lose our footing and veer off our intended path. And though Ascension is a very personal and individualistic thing, it is those around us that help to make it possible for they serve as our anchors in balance and our conscience in realistic ideals. As for myself, this is where I am at today. I have the individual path that I walk but I am no longer alone on it for I have my Family at my side to share in my triumphs and losses. Together we can accomplish…everything. And so can you.
There are a million and one articles and posts out there that describe the physical aspects of awakening so I will keep that portion of this article to a minimum. I can only speak on the physicals of a vampiric awakening being as it has been many lifetimes since I have experienced the physicalities of awakening as any other form of otherkin. Though I do still carry certain traits of other types of kin (fae, celestial, wolf, cat), vampire is that which reigns supreme in my soul today. So because of this I can only speak of what my own personal experience was with physical awakening. Please bare with me, I will keep this part as brief as possible.
Personally I didn’t have very many physical symptoms of awakening. To the best of my knowledge the most I can pinpoint as regards the time period is just after my high school graduation during the summer of my 18th year. There are many reasons it is difficult for me to really say “this right here is the day I awakened” but for the most part it is because it was so subtle for me. Firstly, I began getting headaches and migraines when I had previously never had a migraine in my life. It became difficult for me to remain awake and coherent during the day, especially the mornings. I know that for some this is a normal part of being a teenager but up to this point I was most definitely a morning person. But no longer was this the case. At night, my energy level would spike and I would become almost manic in my need to exert myself. My eyes became more sensitive to light and more accustomed to the dark. And finally there is the biggest physical symptom I had…my appetite became difficult to control. I hungered and craved for something that I could not place and nothing would satisfy me, therefore causing the yo-yo effect of weight gain and loss. That is pretty much it as far as the physical aspects of my own awakening. However, the mental and emotion aspects….ahhh, now this is a very different matter my friends.
You see when it comes to awakening it is the common opinion of most that there are different stages. There is the physical awakening stage and this is usually the first stage. It is the one that is mostly spoken of when people mention something like “I awakened two weeks ago”. Though the validity of being able to pinpoint a specific day has always escaped my understanding, it doesn’t change the fact that almost everyone seems to know when it was they went through this stage. Then there is the emotional/mental awakening, also known as Becoming. This is the second stage. And finally there is the third stage, that of spiritual awakening, commonly referred to as Ascension.
The second and third stages are the ones that are most often neglected when it comes to information and personal experience being relayed to others. What is it like for everyone else? Is it also something that we all have certain similarities in? Do all kin go through this feeling of “self absorption” or “selfishness” for months on end? Am I really normal, or at least as normal as I can be considering I have a more human then human soul?? What does all this mean? And then there is the biggest question of all…Why????
We all have these questions and many more my friends. And it is the search for answers to these questions that seem to be the single defining aspect that otherkin of all types have in common. We band together in both the online and offline world in our attempts to quench this curiosity of ours and bring some semblance of peace and balance to our existence here on this plane. It seems to me that this is both our greatest strength and our greatest weakness. It is our weakness because it is the root of our feelings of being cut off and adrift in this world, alone. However, it is our strength because it drives us toward one another, to be reunited with lost loves, to create the unbreakable bonds of eternal friendship, to continue our paths of self discovery. As so many other things in life, it is a two sided coin, yin and yang.
So what does it mean exactly to Become? Well, once again I can only speak from my own experiences. Though my physical awakening occurred many years ago, Becoming was something that took much longer to come to fruition for me. I spent more then a decade dealing with the issues of ignorance as to what was “wrong” with me. I went through depression and upheaval in my emotions for a long time. I took risks that were foolhardy and yet, thankfully, I came out the other side with nothing more then bad memories. When I quite literally stumbled across the vampire community it was at a time that I was finally ready to accept that there is much more to the world around us then that which is presented to us by the narrow confines of society’s views. I can honestly say that if I had read many of the things that I have learned of more recently, in an earlier part of my life, I would have turned a blind eye to them. I would have made any excuse I could to explain away why these things were silly fantasies and nothing more. But as it would just so happen, I came across such things when the time was ripe for it. I still had the feelings of incredulity at the fact that people would claim such things were real, but something kept me reading. You see, there were similarities that I just plain couldn’t ignore. There were actually other people in this world that had been going through the same things I had!! And my thoughts that I was one day meant to shine, meant to be so much more then I currently was became more then just a fleeting fantasy.
And so I read and read and read and read. I devoured anything I could find on the subject. The more information I found, the hungrier I became for knowledge. The questions drove me to find answers and in turn with every answer that was found it gave birth to ten more questions. But at last I was learning! The world opened up to me at last. It was both an excited and yet frightening time for me and this is something that is common for us when we Become. Even though we experience excitement at the knowledge that we are finally getting somewhere in our search for understanding, we also often experience fear, shame, guilt or any combination of such due to the fact that what we are learning is challenging those belief structures that we have long accepted as simple fact. Our religious views may become obsolete in a sense and because of the nature of religious philosophy, this can definitely cause emotional upheaval. Some of us are raised with a more open minded view of the world and this can be extremely helpful in Becoming. But for those of us that come from more narrow minded, closed off, judgmental backgrounds…oh how we have changed!!
It is this change in our acceptance of societal norms as gospel truth that causes much of the emotional aspects of Becoming. We are taught that it is wrong to spend so much time within our own minds, that we must devote our attentions to our families and friends rather then ourselves. This is true but only to an extent. We, by nature, are both the most introverted and extroverted of people. We experience our environment on a level that most will never even fathom. To us, the world is richer, filled with more to experience in any given situation then others could possibly imagine. Thus, this brings out our extroversion…we react to the environment that reacts to us. However, we are constantly processing these things. We weigh and measure everything that our senses tell us, everything that we feel (and boy, do we feel), and everything that we are told becomes subject to this mental process. We search others words for truth or lies, we examine every little nuance and unceasingly, unrelentingly dissect them. Therein lays our introversion. We over think everything. We analyze and pick apart and reassemble. And then we wonder to ourselves why it is that we get to wrapped up in our own thoughts that sometimes we forget to speak aloud to others when they ask us a question. Once again it is the yin and the yang…introversion and extroversion. For me, finding balance in these things is the final aspect of Becoming whereas the seeking out of all this knowledge and information is the meat and potatoes of it. So when you get to this point, you may begin to ask yourself…now what?
This brings us to the matter of Ascension, the spiritual awakening. For some, Ascension and Becoming go hand in hand. For others, they experience first one and then the other. For myself, I am one of those that have the two blending together a bit, making it difficult for me to really separate the two. So I define it this way, if Becoming is about learning then Ascension is about putting that knowledge to use and acknowledging, discovering and generally getting to know our higher selves. Ascension is something that I suspect many continue to experience during the entirety of their remaining years, or at least this is what I expect will be the case for me. Spiritual enlightenment is a dynamic and fluid thing. It evolves and grows and with it so do we. Ascension is for me the most magical stage. That which allows us to truly be what we were meant to be. It is our time to shine. It is the most individual and solitary of the stages also. For each persons path leads to one’s own personal ends.
However, because of the ties and bonds that were created along the way, we never again need to feel alone or cut off. We have our Family in those that we have shared lifetime after lifetime with and they will help us along the way should we lose our footing and veer off our intended path. And though Ascension is a very personal and individualistic thing, it is those around us that help to make it possible for they serve as our anchors in balance and our conscience in realistic ideals. As for myself, this is where I am at today. I have the individual path that I walk but I am no longer alone on it for I have my Family at my side to share in my triumphs and losses. Together we can accomplish…everything. And so can you.
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