If you could be any animal, what kind would you choose? For as long as I can remember, my answer has been: a bird. Imagine living half your life in the air, wind beneath your wings, soaring over trees, mountains, oceans. It's an ancient human dream – after all, as any artist knows, if you want to make a creature magical, just give it wings.
You can learn a lot from people's animal dreams, although when I asked my husband, Steve Paulson, what animal form he'd choose, I was taken aback by his reply: a jaguar. I married a guy whose would-be alter ego is a stealthy jungle resident whose idea of a good time is killing and dismembering….birds? Hmm. Opposites attract, I guess.
There's something deeply human about longing to be another animal. Every culture on earth has stories about creatures that can transform themselves, crossing species and shifting shape. Men who sprout fur and claws or grow antlers. Bird women. Swan maidens. They're some of our oldest myths and legends. Proof, perhaps, that in our collective unconscious we recognize and honor our kinship with other species. A sign, maybe, that our lives are empty without them.
That's what we're thinking about this week, as we listen back to our episode on shapeshifting. I hope you have as much fun listening as we did making it!