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Friday, May 12, 2006 11:41
It's a complicated business if you're not part of it I was at the PF Conference last week and there was a sign up for the APT. I'd largely forgotten about them, as there was a bit of an issue over a contract disagreement with two of the founder members last year — about which I was largely unimpressed as my fulfilling that contract means I can't go back to the New Forest and I've always wanted to do the Gridiron.For the record, if you get me in to do a job, on a ticket, and then something comes up and I agree to deal with that too because I enjoy that sort of thing and it's what I do, please don't think my Old Man isn't going to charge you for it. That's like getting an electrician who really loves his work to rewire your mains circuit, and then expecting him to fix the fusebox while he's at it just because doing that sort of thing makes him happy. You get me in as a consultant, you expect my House to treat you as a client. It's that simple. If you've got a problem with that, take it up with my Old Man. Don't come over all petulant and expect me to say "Sorry, my mistake, have that one gratis." It just doesn't work like that. The poor grace with which that all played out sort of put me off the idea, and I'm with Groucho Marx on clubs anyway. But there I was, so I thought I'd take a look at the website. Then I thought I'd take a look at the magazine. In there I found an article by Jez, suggesting (in that half tongue in cheek way Lokeans have when referring to their god) that Loki is the best candidate for the Germanic Triple Goddess. She does have a point. Rather hilariously. In this article, Jez describes Loki as a shapeshifter par excellence, and with usual Familial patriotism (if that's an applicable concept) my first thought was: "Sure. But he's not as good as my Old Man." This got me back to the perennial problem of the different sorts of shifters and the four main men in my life. Óðinn is a different sort of shifter from Loki. Raven is a different sort of shifter from Coyote. Let's see if you can guess why I put them in that order — remember, children, Gods are People too, and by extension Gods are Family too. Uncle Coyote is all that is no good about man or woman, according to my rather harsh long-time tutor Scathach, who has not much time for him at all. I'm a pure sympathic metamorph. I'm Raven sort of shifter, not a Coyote sort of shifter. Neither of these is the sort of shifting performed by the vast majority — i.e. the outward changes of form, the donning of masks. Nor are they the shifting of those with limited options: the isomeric or allomorphic shifters like Dragon, Horse, and the old familiar werewolf. Coyote shifting is empathic metamorphism, to use a complicated label and make it sound posh. Coyote's greed is for sex. Coyote craves belonging. He is the outsider who wants to be part of the group and whose desires lead him to try all sorts of things to be accepted, and yet finally he will fail and his emotions will turn, and he will go too far in his retaliation. Only those who love him for what he is rather than despite what he is will ever find it in their hearts to accept him, and even they are forced, at times, to co-operate in his punishment when his behaviour becomes extreme. Coyote feels. He has emotion. He desires to be of the People and he feels for the people and as one of the people. Coyote shifting is immersive. Either he changes his skin and does the equivalent of a drag queen putting on costume, or he goes the whole hog and becomes. Becoming is risky. Becoming means turning into something else and when one becomes something else one stops being what one was. Coyote shifting can damage the identity. In Coyote's case that's fine. He's a bit like Aeon Flux. He might die but he'll just come back for the next story. His mortal children, being mortal, don't have that advantage. Raven is a sympathic metamorph. He experiences but does not participate. This is a really difficult concept to get your head around if you are capable of empathy at all - and most people are. He contains everything within him and when he shifts he certainly turns into something else — he's a true shifter, not a skinshaper — but his identity remains. Everything that could be is there inside him anyway. He isn't of the people, he made the people. He is the Chosen of Vahiyinin, there in the Beginning. He is the essence of the Great Void, which is as much of a misnomer as the National Cycle Network (for true Void one must look to AllFather Wyrm). Raven could spend millenia in the form of a jackrabbit and still shake himself down at the end, preen his feathers into place and not suffer for it. Coyote would be struggling for months not to munch grass and chew his own droppings, if he managed to shake himself out of it in the first place and not get distracted by the rampant shagging. This is why my Old Man will always kick Loki's ass when it comes to shifting. Because Loki is of the Coyote strain. He either skinshapes or he becomes. He invests in the change in order to achieve. And a shifter who becomes lacks the effortless dynamism of one who does not. The more things change, the more they stay the same? True of Raven. Coyote is better at being the one thing than Raven is. He's less flighty. More dogged. Even the metaphors speak for themselves. Underneath the apparent mercurial changes, Coyote's strange attractor is constant and fairly obvious. His shifts are all geared to similar purpose. Raven is different. He cannot stay still. His shifting is not so much a means to an end - it's not a tool to use but what he is. He cannot be trapped in a becoming because that would be to fundamentally change his nature, his purpose. His form is that of a shifter. Even the tales of how Raven came to look the way he is involve a tale of fundamental change. Raven shifts because that's what he is. Coyote shifts because that's what he does. Coyote is the tennis ball swinging around a pole: never quite the same path, an ever-changing pattern around an apparent centre. Raven is the skipload of bouncy balls tipped out in the street. Take your pick: all paths are there already. Their children follow through with this, no matter whether they be god or mortal. And that, boys and girls, is how come Loki can become a mare and give birth to a horse that is a horse, but Raven would become a mare and give birth to a horse that was another shifter. Aye. OK. Unless he decided not to. Never tell your Old Man he can't do something when your Old Man's Raven. He gets quite miffed. (2) comments links to this post
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