yowl

Before and since Halloween I have been pondering why is it people like to dress as other animals and how this could be significant in the context of the mesh and strange strangers. Upon first thought, I found it simply odd and funny that humans experience what I like to call "species envy"--that at the other end of the spectrum from a superior stance that many hold in relation to our fellow creatures is this subtler whine of a few who long to "do as the animals do." I wondered and doubted that there were any other animals who experienced this phenomenon, the desire to be the other ("and fly away"). While there may not be (but perhaps could be) another animal with such a wish, there are some that engage in imitation of others, such as moths with eye spots on their wings, or the lyre bird, that imitates the sounds of other birds and animals, going even as far as imitating the ominous sound of a chainsaw cutting down nearby trees. But when we find these characteristics and behaviors in animals, it is for a purpose of survival or communication. When we masquerade as animals, what is the underlying purpose, and what is it that we are consciously or subconsciously communicating? There is the more apparent element of primitive sexual appeal (ain't she a fox?), or, somewhat like rituals of cannibalism, dressing as an animal may evoke its power and transfer it to the costumed person ("Bear Power" was a privilege of few Zuni priests). But may imitating animals also be a manifestation of an underlying sense of loss in our perceived divorce from the Animal Kingdom? Is it a symptom of the separation we feel from the mesh?