Why am I setting up a site dedicated to werewolves?
Blogging about werewolves sounds like a hobby for someone who’s a big fan of the mythic beasts, but I can’t say I’ve ever personally been a werewolf fanatic.
To be honest, I’m actually afraid of dogs and big hairy dog-like creatures in general. Bears, wolves … all of those animals. I don’t seek out horror and fantasy films or books featuring werewolves in prominent roles. It’s just not my bag.
Truth is, I gravitate more towards vampires and vampire stories. So why am I working on Rugaru.com instead of my other monster-ish site: BramStroker.com? Why flesh out this site instead of any of a hundred and one other domains I own?
It’s actually a bit of an accident. I was trying to set up a different website (a site about hormones: don’t ask/long story), and it was taking longer than anticipated so I decided to set the wheels in motion on this one while waiting for that one. And … this Rugaru.com got done first. {{shrug}}
But there’s more to it than that.
Part of what drew me in the other day to carve out my own territory online for studying werewolves is because I don’t already have a strong attachment to any specific werewolf stories or depictions or the creature in general. It is a curiosity adventure for my imagination, and an opportunity for learning. Without any grand expectations or preconceived notions.
Rugaru.com is an opportunity for escape and discovery.
Here’s the other thing, though. Something … odd. Something somewhat inexplicable:
Like I said, I was actually working on a site about hormones the other day when I wound up working here on werewolves instead. I was very focused on the hormone site: the power of testosterone, for example, and ways it can make people out of control in ways that less-T-influenced people have never experienced and can’t even fucking comprehend. The advantages and disadvantages of different balances (and imbalances) of hormones for how we walk through life and experience the world. How incredibly minute tweaking of our hormones can be life-altering, and how many of those tweaks and variations seem way far out of our control, or are not even on our radar as possibilities, or are not even viewed as options when we are so consumed by the drive to conform to standards of behavior, sex and gender.
We are torn between our animal and human selves, afraid of what lurks beneath our homo sapien skins, always trying to control our true nature or dual natures. Ashamed we might out ourselves, or trying to shame others for exhibiting traits that don’t fit into the prescribed or preferred human, sex or gender boxes. WHAT COULD BE A FANTASTIC METAPHOR FOR ALL OF THAT?!? COULD IT BE WEREWOLVES?!? You might even say the coincidence was more supernaturally fated than a mere accident.
Within a couple of hours I lost track of the hormone site and started building Rugaru.com instead. Thinking of all the things I am fascinated by that are even cornerstones of my spiritual values (transformation, and my opposition to the ludicrous deanimalization human society seems to insist upon, insisting we are “better” than animals when we are in fact ANIMALS, and that’s ESSENTIAL to embrace from both a practical and spiritual perspective) and favorite spiritual stories (transmogrification), along with a feeling or sense of SHAME I’ve been struggling with and investigating more closely to try and let go of some of the suffering that goes with it. And man … that’s what I see in most werewolf depictions: SHAME. Fear of the transformation. Fear of the beast within. It’s a very Catholic and Puritanical problem.
So anyway. I’m excited to use this site as a place to funnel creative energy around these concepts and use it as an excuse to watch and re-watch and read more supernatural movies and shows and stories and thoughts. And an excuse to write fun fiction!