The Calling of the Sea and a Lost Sealskin

An introduction to a Selkie Story reimagined

An audio recording is included as an invitation to experience the sacredness held within the voice and tradition of oral storytelling. If it resonates, please enjoy at your leisure - maybe curled up with a warm cuppa tea or held within the wild embrace of the magical natural world that surrounds you.

Mo ghrá go léir / All my love,

Erica

I’ve always been a soul who feels most at peace at the ocean’s edge.

And, over the years, I’ve been gifted many opportunities to be held within the wise and wild embrace of the Atlantic.

From Giant’s Causeway
To Galway Bay;
To the shorelines of Castlecove
       - held in the rolling hills of Kerry.

I’ve found her presence
In the stillness of PEI’s inlets;
And her whispers to the heart of me
By the light of Peggy’s Cove.

She calls to me.

The ruffled tulle of her seafoamed hem.

Her treasure troves of storied glass.

And the secrets held in her limpet shells.

Adorned in turquoised tones, no painter truly knows;

For her beauty is only fully found

In the stolen presence of your breath,

Standing in rapture of her.

It’s grief that comes to greet me.

There’s peace in her company.

For something of me feels amidst

The mist of her shrouded mystery.

It’s her salt-soaked shawl,

That tends to my tears.

Perhaps one day, these lost soul parts

May be found amongst her waves.

Found floating in the haunted realms.

Between the lands of where I’m from

And where I currently dwell.

Here.

Here, I am home.

Every inch of my cellular being relaxes. I have endless space in my chest for breath. And gazing out into her vastness, I could surrender into the sacred meeting place of water and stone for hours.

I have a cousin who knows and has regularly witnessed this energetic shift with me. Nearly every time I’ve visited her home in Nova Scotia, we’ve made the drive to Peggy’s Cove.

One time, it was her and I, alongside two of our other cousins, making the long winding trip to my favourite East Coast fishing village. Brightly painted homes and a breath-taking lighthouse attract many tourists to the area.

But for me, it’s always been the sea.

For well over a decade, this particular place among her stones has always felt hallowed to me. [Long before my feet would touch Ireland’s shores.]

When we finally arrived, after the two and half hour drive, one cousin was leaning out the passenger seat with motion sickness, the other was tending to her ten-month-old son, and the Nova-Scotian at heart just giggled to herself as I immediately disappeared from view.

She heard: “Is Erica okay? She took off on her own.”

To which she replied with a smile: “Yup, she’s fine. She does this every time. We’ll find her later. Likely on her own, sitting on the stones.”

And sure enough. That’s exactly where I was.

Gazing out into the wild Atlantic waves.

I feel freedom here

I feel peace here

I feel ease here

At the water’s edge

Sitting on Irish ocean stones

I feel more at the heart of myself,

Here.

Than I do ‘back home’.

The shoreline at Westcove Estate, Co. Kerry. I may not have been with her everyday, but her presence was always felt. And what a comfort it was to know: that she was always there.

When my two week artistic residency came to a close, I knew it wasn’t going to be easy to leave the Kingdom of Kerry. But I hadn’t anticipated the amount of grief I would feel with the thought of leaving Ireland’s shores, once more.

On my final night, while the other artists were at dinner, I quietly made my way down to the shoreline. And for over ninety minutes, I cried.

I wept for what I was conscious to.
I wept for this part of the journey that was coming to an end.
I wept for leaving the ocean’s edge.
I wept for the tension that slowly replaced the ease that had nestled softly in my chest.
I wept for the creeping demands of modernity that threatened to steal my rolling hours of creativity.

And I wept for what resided unconscious from my view.
I wept for what yearned in my spirit.
I wept for the deep-seated remembrance of leaving home that permeated my bones.

As, I sat at the edge of the Atlantic.

I cried and I prayed.
I prayed and I cried.

Please don’t make me go.

And then a vision landed swiftly upon my Otherworldly eye:
If a woman emerged from the sea;
Offering my long lost silk sealskin to me;
I don’t know what my answer would be.

For weeks, seals adorned corners of the estate property that I had come to call home. From the moment I arrived, I could feel a selkie story swimming within my creative ethers. But she needed more time; as the story hadn’t quite breached surface of the shorelines of my mind.

Then in these final moments with rural Ireland, I had a vision of a woman emerging from the waters before me holding my long lost silk sealskin as an offering.

Inviting me to go with her to remember:
The freedom
The peace
The ease
Known to me;
In the rolling wild waters
Where Ireland and the Atlantic meet.

And then tears poured even more.

Because in such a heightened way: I was torn between two worlds.

Between the home of my bones and the life I was building.

And that life, created alongside my beloved, was not here in Ireland.

If a woman emerged from the sea;

Offering my long lost silk seal skin to me;

I don’t know what my answer would be.

For, what would come of

My beloved who has a part of my heart

On the other side of sea?

In Irish folklore, An Mhaighdean Mhara is known as a half-woman, half fish. Selkies are often known as Otherworldy women with the power to shapeshift between their seal and human forms.

Oftentimes, the stories go that a man becomes so enthralled with the beauty of her that he captures a selkie by stealing her sealskin. Only when she is able to retrieve this lost part of herself does she reclaim her Otherworldly essence and her ability to return to her home in the sea.

And sometimes, in the span of the in-between while living on land, the woman gifts the man a family - and the return to her true form then comes with a heartbreaking choice.

Being that she is of two worlds.

I caught a glimpse of my selkie spirit, seated by the sea in Co. Kerry.

Over two weeks ago, I returned to my Ottawa-home; yet, I still find myself whirling in tide pools of diasporic grief.

The rural western coast of Ireland feels like home. But not in the idyllic ‘I-feel-so-at-home’ sense that can come with vacation mode. No.

This feeling of home is a rootedness in my bones. My bones know the land. My spirit knows her waters.

Even though my closest ancestral ties are three and four generations back (to Co.Kerry, in fact), I grieve every time I leave Ireland. As though, I knows what’s coming. A felt sense that I’ve navigated this before. My body braces for impact and my spirit begs not to be pulled away. As the generational imprint cascades through the threads of time.

This time around, the longing to stay in Ireland was strong.

And yet…
I am of two worlds.
The other, is one where my incredible partner and our three feline companions are found.
All of whom I adore.
And I knew were awaiting my return to Canadian shores.

So, I chose to leave Ireland.

And oceans of grief became my beloved companion, once more.
Reminding me of the land, the language, the stories, and the songs that are so preciously a part of me.

With this return to Turtle Island, I come with even more of an embodied understanding of diasporic grief and the resonance of what it means to be a guest on these lands.

Over these past several weeks, I have learnt there are selkie elements to my Irish spirit. And it makes sense, as many times throughout my life I’ve felt out of place. Like I don’t belong. A fish out of water with the sense that what I am seeking rests just beyond the watery veil of the Atlantic - and the haunting grief that comes with the knowing that home is just barely out of reach.

For me, the selkie story that swims within my veins invites me to move beyond the traditional tale. It feels deeply woven within the pulse of De thír mo Mháithreacha, calling me to consider how diasporic grief may be liken to the loss of a vital soul part - one that may possibly reside on distant shores.

So, I find myself posing these questions to the spirit of the stories:

• What if the loss of the sealskin relates to the severed connection from Irish ancestral homelands?

• What if the loss of the sealskin relates to the severed connection to an Gaeilge [the Irish language]?

• And if this could be so, if we’re without our sealskin are we destined to be tethered to a place that will never feel like home?

Being of Irish and French ancestry, I continue to be reverently grateful to the traditional spirits and keepers of the land [past, present, and forth-coming] of the unceded and unsurrendered territory of the Algonquin Anishinabeg People; where I was born and currently reside.

Culture, language, and stories run within the rivers and are held within the stones of landscapes. Buíochas ó chroí, heartfelt thanks, for the opportunity to live, create and share stories alongside you.

Experience the creative process of De thír mo Mháithreacha: Of the Land of My Mothers.

I would love for Weavings of the Wise & Embodied to be an opportunity for us to connect in shared story.

Please feel welcome to contribute or share by leaving a comment below. It would be wonderful to hear from you.

Until we meet in circle again, may grace and ease continue to find you.

Le dea ghuí / With good wishes,

Erica