Being Comfortable in Your Own Skin
Messages from the Selkie
Welcome to this edition of Liminal Walker Musings!
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Dear ones,
If you are a new subscriber, a special WELCOME! I have been wanting to write a post on selkies for some time, but I kept opting for something else. Before starting this time, I pulled an oracle card for guidance, it was about the selkie. Clearly pointing the direction to take. So…Enjoy and love to you all!
Being Comfortable in One’s Own Skin
One of my biggest challenges in this lifetime is feeling comfortable in my own skin. I am a sensitive. I always have been. As a young child, what I needed from my parents was information about how to be with this highly attuned nervous system. They never understood this, instead from a young age they attempted to shame it out of me. The message being that feeling deeply is wrong. Yet, how does one control or change one’s natural constitution? It was as if my parents stole my skin. How I coped was by appeasing them, pushing away my inherent nature. Consequently, this left an empty space inside, a sense of feeling defective and undeserving of love. I dealt with this by filling it up with food. I have written about this in a prior post, The Wounded Healer
This coping mechanism served me as a child. In later years it was an addiction that I spent several years healing from. But I did find my skin! And from that point it has been a lifetime exploration on learning how to be comfortable in it. To know that my sensitivity is a gift not a curse.
About ten years ago I started exploring the old myths and read the book, If Women Rose Rooted, by
. This is where I first discovered the story of the selkie. Since then, I have heard many other versions, all of them speak deeply to my own experience.Selkies are shape shifters, mystical beings that are both seals and women. Found in old tales from the Celtic/Scottish tradition, selkies when cloaked are seals that swim the depths of the seas. Under the mask of night, they rise out of the waters upon misty shores. Shedding their sealskin temporarily so they can dance as women under the light of the moon.
Here is my version of…
The Selkie Wife
The selkies came ashore one night. Sisters of the heart celebrating life, dancing together. A young man not too far away caught a glimpse of moving forms along the shoreline and approached for a closer look. Hiding behind a rock for concealment and a better view, he became mesmerized by what he saw.
There on the beach, naked women were joyfully dancing. Undulating bodies, like the waves of ocean moving as a whole. When their dance concluded each woman one by one went to a nearby rock to retrieve their sealskin and return to the waters. The man crept very quietly to the other side of that rock and stole one of the skins that were still left there. Soon all that remained upon that rock was a woman looking out to sea with incredible longing and grief.
After tucking the sealskin away, the man came out from behind his hiding place and spoke to the woman. Without being able to return to the sea, she was convinced to follow this man to his home. Over time she eventually became his wife, had children, and made a family. But something deep was terribly missing.
After several years one of her children came to her carrying something they had found. It was her sealskin. Even though she felt resigned to this life, she truly had grown to love the man and her children. But still, this whole time she was never comfortable in her skin, yearning to return to her true form and to the briny sea. Later, before her husband returned from work, she kissed each one of her children and told them how much she loved them. Taking her sealskin, she made her way to the coastal water’s edge. Placing it upon her shoulders she became a seal once again and entered familiar waters.
Thoughts
Selkies are liminal creatures. Shape shifting between seal and human. Forms that were never meant to be a choice between one or the other, but a spectrum to experience.
In our current society and culture, there is a deepening polarization of beliefs and opinions. An aggressive pressure to choose a side. While under the surface there is a homogenization and commodification of our lives going on. Both these modalities are taking our true skin away from us.
We are all diverse, unique beings. Not in a special, hierarchical way. But as an interconnected wholeness where our differences make us stronger together. A collaboration where each person offers their essential gifts.
In December I had a selkie dream that magnified this…
My Selkie Dream
I am a selkie, living and swimming within a large expanse of water. Not a typical selkie, as known in Celtic lore, I am more chimera-like, part human and part seal. One day while gliding in these waters I had a memory...
There was a time I could swim openly, unimpeded by obstacles. My community of women seals traveled freely, whether on our own or together. Over time though, these strange obstructions started appearing. Metal like columns secured to the floor of this body of water. Cylinder like but also angular with sharp edges. Above the surface, atop each of these hindrances was a stack of stones. Like meditation symbols denoting balance and harmony, except these were a deception. A lure, with the intention of ensnaring its victim. I witnessed one of my own cornered by men in boats, corralling her into the pylon. She hit her head, bled out and died.
An awful and sad memory. Now, I was being pursued by these same men. Attempting to contain me, force me into their gravestone of death. What they did not know was that I had been studying and accustoming myself to these pillars of demise and learned how to avoid them. I was able to escape. But I wondered how much longer I would be able to swim freely in these waters I so dearly loved... Then I woke up.
What I Came Away With…
When I consider our world right now, I feel this tug of war going on in my body, a patriarchal force trying to take my skin away from me again. It feels like I am going to burst from all this wrenching and wrestling.
And the selkie’s message continually draws me into this dance with nature and love. My animal body feeling the pull of the untamed wild. A deep knowing that I am inherently connected with life and the natural world. The Divine Feminine as the ocean. A freedom alongside an unfathomable mystery. A yearning to live from this true essence, being comfortable in my own skin. And the heart, love as the connecting force within and as it all. Human, animal and mythical.
Questions for you…
Are you comfortable in your own skin?
Has someone or something ever taken your skin from you?
Where you able to get it back? How did you find it again?
Would love to know your thoughts and feelings. Let’s have a conversation…
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Oh, Julie, thank you so much for sharing your selkie dream! It makes me think, too, about the oceans within us...the bodies of water contained in our own human-shaped skin. And the pillars that formed (in your dream) are rigid structures that keep us locked in a single form, when really, our oceans are meant to be ever shifting. There's so much here to ponder! The story of the selkie is so heartbreaking. In some ways, it echoes life itself. We learn to love these limited experiences while there's always that tugging feeling that our true belonging is elsewhere. I loved this post so much! Thank you!
I loved reading this. It reminded me of one of my rather visceral suspicions: we're very much like dolphins, diving in and out of eternal, infinite oceans, our smooth skin constantly flaking and peeling as new skin cells replace old cells. We never stop transforming ourselves.