Seal Skin & Authenticity

Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes says, "Within every woman there is a wild and natural creature, a powerful force, filled with good instincts, passionate creativity, and ageless knowing. Her name is Wild Woman, but she is an endangered species.”

Many people find themselves at the altar of plant medicines because they feel some sense of alienation with this wild self. They might already be aware of the disconnection from their soulful essence, and are ready to journey into the realm of initiation to reignite it. They may be seeking relief from the symptoms of such disconnection:  dry, fatigued, frail, depressed, lacking, muzzled, yearning, without meaning, shamed, stuck, powerless, blocked, inert, self conscious, asleep. Ultimately, they have lost the sense of feeling whole in their skin, and are being called to return to their wild nature.

Across the world, for all of time, tales have been told of those that have been disconnected from their wild self, and their journey to reclaim it. They tell us about where we come from, what we are made of, and how we must all have the courage to reconnect to our true wild self. They carry wisdom and soul medicine. They inform and empower us to undertake our own journey of rewilding. Some such stories are of creatures with mysterious human kinship…

Tracing my own lineage back to the cold countries of the northern seas, a story emerges from there that has stayed with me. There are many retellings from many different places with many different endings. 

One version goes something like this: 

Once upon a time, under a full moon, a seal-woman of the deep came up onto a great rock and slipped out of her pelt, to dance on two legs. She was seen by a lonely fisherman, her beauty and wild nature captivated him. Totally mesmerized, he stole her pelt and buried it among the stones before appealing to her, begging her to be his wife. He promised her that in 7 years he would return her pelt, and she could then stay or go, whatever she wished. 

Reluctantly, she agreed. 

In time they had a child, and she cared for her small family, while longing always for the sea. 

As time went on, she began to dry out. Her skin became cracked and her voluptuous curves began to wither. Her eyes became dull and dark, and she stopped singing the song of the waves. 

Years passed.

7 years. 

One night, the child is awakened by the shouting of his father. 

He heard the steely cry of his mother. 

“You hid my sealskin seven long years ago, and now the eighth winter comes. I want what I am made from returned to me.” 

“You would leave me if I gave it to you!” boomed her husband. “You would leave me wifeless and the boy motherless. You are bad.” 

And he stormed away from the house.

The next day, the little boy, who loved his mother very much, was drawn to the sea. 

He scrambled down the cliff side and stumbled over something buried among the stones. He opened the bundle and realized it belonged to his mother. He could smell her though it, sense her within it. The boy ran the sealskin all the way home into his mothers waiting arms, and she scooped up the two things she loved most. 

She ran with them both back down to the sea. 

She took the boy's face in her hands and once, twice, three times, breathed her breath into his lungs. Slipping on the sealskin, she tucked her boy under her arm and dove into the icy depths. 

Seal woman and child breathed easily under water, and they swam deep and strong until they entered the underwater cove of seals where the woman's family long waited her return.

In time, she regained her luster, her sight was restored, and her plumpness returned. She sang again. 

Now, in the mist of grey mornings following the full moon, sometimes a woman can be seen, dancing on a great rock, while a young seal pup swims and jumps joyfully around her. 

Selkies are shapeshifters. Part woman. Part wild. Perhaps you too, are a shapeshifter, and maybe your pelt has been lost or stolen. Usually, it slips out of sight, just like in the story, when we are in the beautiful pursuit of freedom. Living your fullest, wildest expression of your authentic nature, when someone or something shut you down, stole your skin. We may unknowingly give it up by striving for belonging among those lonely hearts, who can only love the version of us they can contain — not the vast, true, tidal self. 

We all begin with pelts in tact - light, wild, and free. Losing the pelt is an issue of losing connection with the soul. Oh, love, there are so many ways to lose your wild essence in a tamed world. It is so easy to have your soul skin stolen in these modern times that demand productivity over creativity, conformity over purpose, perfection over vulnerability, and presentation over expression. 

We can lose the soulskin by abiding in these domesticated narratives. By becoming too involved with ego, trying to be perfect, coveting ambition, imagining oneself to be better or less than another, to imagine ourselves to be an unending source for others. You might hold onto stories of “being good” or being “too much” or believe that the dream in your heart is not yours to pursue, and other illusions. 

It is not by accident that the pristine wilderness of our planet disappears as the understanding of our own inner wild nature fades. We may remember the ocean-mother inside us, the untamed guide, the ancestral echo that calls to us. And if we listen, we may again feel called to reenter the deep waters, dense forests, rocky mountains, and lush landscapes of our true home. We may grow ready to plunge into the depths of soul remembrance, and journey back into alignment with our true self, casting a ripple across the collective.  

In fairytales, folktales, and myth, children often play a vital role. Perhaps, more truly, it is about the inner child: the wild, untamed self who is still free. It is this younger self who hears the sea’s call clearest, who knows where the soul was hidden. The story reminds us that it is the child within us, the one who danced without reason and followed joy like a tide, who remembers and is able to recover what was lost. This old tale carries a wisdom once known and still true: that to reclaim the soul is to turn inward, to the innocent, sacred, younger self, who knows the way back to the sea.

Sacred Medicines are technologies for this remembrance. Born from the wild earth herself, they transport us to the threshold between worlds where our rigid belief systems, perceptions, identifications, and ideologies can soften. We enter into liminal space and time, slip into our sealskin, and swim in the waters of consciousness to remember what we have forgotten. 

This remembering is revolutionary. 

How are we to reenter the wild depths of our oceanic home, even when, especially when, the surface seas of the world churn with division? 

Wild Ones, this is exactly the time when it is most necessary that we do. 

We must retain an exquisitely clear consciousness about the value of the wild self. We must keep our pelts close, guarding over our sovereign spirit. 

We must turn to the child within and call for them. 

We must heed this calling. Retrieve what was buried, and return - fiercely, fully, and free, to the deep waters of our own becoming. 

We must resist the spell of forgetting.