Shapeshifting

I keep coming across stories in English folklore of shapeshifting women. A witches ability to take on a form of an animal to serve a purpose. The idea of a witches familiar is a common one, the idea that a woman can form a bond with an animal that she feeds and nurtures rings true. The power coming from within the domestic setting. Shapeshifting takes on a new power and energy, to take on the form of something else not just have a close relationship. I wonder if it refers to the way that across her life a woman has to biologically shape shift, let alone the many different roles she might take on as mother, wife, sister, daughter, friend, colleague. That said, a witch harnesses the power of change that’s innate in all of us, is able to see what is around her and make use of it. The women that dwell on the outskirts of society, on the edge of the village in story telling and history are quite often labelled witch. If they are living in the liminal space does this mean their form is liminal too? If you never quite get to know someones face and identity, only glimpses, maybe they can flit between worlds and form. Woman shapeshifting into hares, cats, deers, swans and crows, using the hedgerows as a spiritual in-between to allow transformation and safety fill folklore and imagination. Animals that allow freedom to move as one pleases, going unnoticed, able to observe, animals become the symbol of power and the female identity.

Shapeshifting

Moving, one form to another

Fluid

Transitory

Power to choose

Becoming and undoing

Seeing beyond

Seeing through

See through,

Unseen, unknown, hide. Let be.

Movement in a liminal space.

Moons gravity holds form, reminds you of where you’ve been.

Changing guides the way to the true form.