Shape Shifting ... Re-loaded

[Aries]

How does your Totem "choose" you? Is it based off your personality and life? Or do they choose you? Does anyone know?
-Aries

[moontingle]

Hi,
I'm back from the frozen north. Man! I rode on a dogsled up the Mackenzie River. If you check your atlas - I think it's the biggest river in Canada up in the Northwest Territories. Almost froze my face off, though.
 I learned from my aunt we are capable of so much [], based on what her Dene (a certain nation of Aboriginal people) can do regarding shape-shifting. Of course, it does take a strong mind, and spirit help, she says.
 She told me a story: a hundred years back, the Dene would meet periodically to celebrate some great thing, and they would dance the Tea Dance. Picture a huge central fire lighting up the night sky, and drummers chanting, people dancing around the fire with the beat. After three or four days of this, the energy is really heightened, because the medicine people urge everyone to dance and pray, and think good thoughts as they dance.  
 Usually on the fourth day, the people with powers would start a game. They would perform magical feats and try to outdo each other. One man might change into a hawk and fly across the river, and in his human body, he would call to the others from the other side of the water. A woman might change into an elk and trumpet her song. So, it seems they were easily able to shift bodies and the people could see them.
  Power songs seem to figure heavily in the Dene world of magic. My aunt's grandmother used to travel large distances across the mountains while she sang her medicine song. If you saw her, it would look like she was skiing above the snow, moving fast.
  It seems every living thing has a sacred song except human beings.
Interesting, eh?
  I'd love to hear comments from the shape-shifters (and wannabe's) out there.

Moontingle