Ahh, the good old Forest metaphor...
For those of you who are new here, we tend to refer to us living in the forest at times.
Years ago, I'm not sure how true the story is, but a disbeliever in NB people (Androgynes we were referred to as) said we are make believe or as rare as Unicorns.
That led to us being in a forest, the Unicorn Forest... Supposedly between the cities of male and female.
Where this was, is a forum that has pretty much a 'plan' for TS people, and we are pretty much just an annoyance to the core people there.
Over time, we came to just call it the Forest and made a lot of talk about the various paths and such.
There is a place here where we talked about it for some time.
There are a lot of ways of seeing our lives, and it's still pretty hard to describe our experiences without a lot of background information.
I think the Forest metaphors are a nice way of describing those things in a way that most of us understand, especially once you get used to the Forest as an idea.
What was once just a forest between two cities evolved in ways that everyone who contributed to the idea made it grow into so much more.
I did make comments a lot of times in reference to it, and expanded on the idea to have the Forest around the 'binary' cities.
It just makes a lot more sense to me than to have the idea that we are just along some path that is a part of that plan between the two cities.
We each visualize it in our own ways, but we also understand what we are each talking about to a very large extent.
The whole Forest metaphor has faded to an extent, those of us from the old forum that we escaped from still use it in passing at times.
But I wonder if you 'newbies' know about the significance and the powerful imagery that it is when we talk about it.
Think about this some,.. go and look around for the Forest threads and read through them when you get the chance.
It's more than just a way of expressing who we are, it's a unique and powerful message that we can all still use and understand.
From the beginnings of when I first read about this Unicorn Forest to the last two years that this forum has been running, the metaphor is strong.
What made me happy today? Just seeing EchelonHunt's reference to it once again.
For me, one of the oldtimers around here, it makes me happy to talk a little about it and to pass it along to those of you who are new here.
The forest is indeed everywhere and there are paths that go everywhere, and they all lead us to each other in one way or another.
Yeah, just hearing about the Forest metaphor again, makes me happy.