
Sealskin Soulskin by Clarissa Pinkola Estés
Returning Home: The Selkie Myth and the Call of the True Self
Across the wind-swept coastlines of Scotland, Ireland, and the Faroe Islands, stories have long been told of the selkies – mysterious seal folk who live as seals in the sea but can shed their skins to walk as humans on land. These ancient myths speak to something elemental within us: a longing for belonging, the pain of exile, and the deep ache to return to who we truly are.
The tale of the selkie is not just a cultural relic or maritime legend. It is a soul story. A map. A mirror. Beneath the surface of its enchantment lies a universal theme: that when we are separated from our essence – our “sealskin” – we begin to wither. And only by reclaiming it can we come back to life.
In our modern world, many of us lose touch with that essential self. We adapt. We survive. But often, we do so at the cost of something sacred within. Myths like that of the selkie help us remember. They guide us back through metaphor and feeling, image and intuition. They speak in the language of the deep psyche and offer what logic alone cannot: a pathway home.
The story that follows, Sealskin, Soulskin, is one such tale. As told by Clarissa Pinkola Estés in her groundbreaking book Women Who Run With the Wolves, it invites us to reflect on what we’ve lost, what we long for, and what it takes to return to ourselves.
Sealskin Soulskin
During a time that once was, is now gone forever, and will come back again soon, there is day after day of white sky, white snow… and all the tiny specks in the distance are people or dogs or bear.
Here, nothing thrives for the asking. The winds blow hard, so the people have come to wear their parkas and mamleks, boots, sideways on purpose now. Here, words freeze in the open air, and whole sentences must be broken from the speaker’s lips and thawed at the fire so people can see what has been said.
Here, the people live in the white and abundant hair of old Annuluk – the old grandmother, the old sorceress who is Earth herself.
And it was in this land that there lived a man – a man so lonely that over the years, tears had carved great chasms into his cheeks.
He tried to smile and be happy. He hunted. He trapped. He slept well. But he wished for human company.
Sometimes, out in the shallows in his kayak, when a seal came near, he remembered the old stories: how seals were once human, and the only reminder of that time was their eyes – eyes capable of portraying those looks – those wise, wild, and loving looks.
And sometimes then, he felt such a pang of loneliness that tears coursed down the well-used cracks in his face.
One night, he hunted past dark but found nothing. As the moon rose and the ice floes glistened, he came to a great spotted rock in the sea. There, atop that rock, was movement – of the most graceful kind.
He paddled slow and deep to be closer. There, atop the mighty rock, danced a small group of women – naked as the first day they lay upon their mothers’ bellies.
He was a lonely man, with no human friends but in memory – and he stayed and watched.
The women were like beings made of moon milk. Their skin shimmered with silver dots like those on salmon in spring. Their feet and hands were long and graceful. So beautiful were they that the man sat stunned in his boat, water lapping, carrying him closer and closer.
He could hear the magnificent women laughing… or was it the water laughing at the edge of the rock?
The man was confused, dazzled. Yet somehow, the loneliness that had weighed on his chest like wet hide lifted. And almost without thinking – as though he was meant – he jumped up onto the rock and stole one of the sealskins lying there. He hid behind an outcropping and pushed the skin into his parka.
Soon, one of the women called out in a voice more beautiful than any he’d ever heard – like whales calling at dawn, or newborn wolves tumbling down in the spring, or… something older still.
The women were now putting on their sealskins and, one by one, slipping into the sea, yelping and crying happily.
Except for one.
The tallest of them searched high and low, but her sealskin was nowhere to be found.
The man stepped from the rock. Emboldened – by what, he did not know – he appealed to her:
“Woman… be… my… wife. I am… a lonely… man.”
“I cannot be wife,” she said. “I am of the other – the ones who live temeqvanek, beneath.”
“Be… my… wife,” insisted the man. “In seven summers, I will return your sealskin. You may stay, or you may go.”
The young seal woman looked long into his face with eyes that – save for her true origins – seemed human.
Reluctantly, she said,
“I will go with you. After seven summers, it shall be decided.”
In time, they had a child, a son named Ooruk.
He was lithe and fat, with his mother’s grace. In winter, she told him tales of creatures beneath the sea, while the father carved animals from whitestone.
When she put Ooruk to bed, she pointed to the smoke hole and spoke not of bear or raven, but of whale, seal, and salmon – for those were the creatures she knew.
But as time passed, her flesh began to dry. It flaked, cracked, and her eyelids peeled. Her hair dropped to the ground. Her skin turned naluaq – pale white. Her plumpness withered. She limped. Her eyes dulled. She reached for things, her sight failing.
One night, Ooruk was awakened by shouting. He sat upright in his sleeping skins.
He heard a roar like a bear – that was his father. He heard a crying like silver rung on stone – that was his mother.
“You hid my sealskin seven years ago. Now the eighth winter comes. I want what I am made of returned to me,” she cried.
“And you would leave me if I gave it to you!” the man boomed.
“I do not know what I would do. I only know I must have what I belong to.”
“You would leave me wifeless and the boy motherless. You are bad.”
And with that, the husband tore open the hide flap and disappeared into the night.
The boy loved his mother. He feared losing her and cried himself to sleep.
But the wind called him.
“Ooooruk… Ooooooruuuuk.”
He climbed from bed, parka on upside down, mukluks only halfway. Still he ran, out into the starry night.
“Oooooooruuuuk.”
He reached the cliff overlooking the sea – and there, in the water, was a massive silver seal: enormous head, whiskers drooping, deep yellow eyes.
The boy scrambled down the cliff. He stumbled over a bundle that had rolled from a rock cleft.
It was… his mother’s sealskin.
He hugged it to his face. Her scent was everywhere. Her soul slammed through him like a summer wind.
“Ohhh,” he cried, overcome.
“Ohhh,” again – filled with his mother’s love.
And the old silver seal sank slowly beneath the water.
The boy ran home with the sealskin flying behind him.
His mother swept him and the skin up, her eyes full of gratitude. She pulled the sealskin on.
“Oh, Mother, no!” cried the child.
She scooped him up and stumbled toward the sea.
“Oh, Mother! No! Don’t leave me!”
She wanted to stay. You could see it in her face. But something called her – something older than she, older than he, older than time.
She took the boy’s face in her hands. She breathed her sweet breath into his lungs – once, twice, three times.
Then, with him under her arm, like a precious bundle, she dove into the sea.
Down… and down… and down.
They breathed easily underwater.
They swam deep and strong into the seal cove, where creatures dined, sang, danced, and spoke.
And the great silver seal embraced the boy.
“My grandson,” he said, voice trembling with pride.
“How fare you up there, daughter?” asked the great seal.
“I hurt a human – a man who gave his all to have me. But I cannot return. I would be a prisoner if I do.”
“And the boy?”
“He must go back, Father. It is not yet his time.”
And she wept. Together, they wept.
For seven days and nights, they stayed. Her luster returned. Her hair, her eyes, her body – restored. She swam uncrippled.
But the time came to return the boy.
That night, the silver seal and his daughter swam with Ooruk between them, up to the surface world.
They placed him gently on the stony shore in the moonlight.
“I am always with you,” his mother said. “Touch what I have touched – my firesticks, my ulu, my stone carvings – and I will breathe into your lungs a wind for the singing of your songs.”
They kissed him many times. And with one last look, they swam out to sea and disappeared beneath the waters.
And Ooruk, because it was not yet his time, stayed.
He grew to be a mighty drummer, singer, and storyteller. And people said it was because, as a child, he survived being carried to sea by the great seal spirits.
Now, in the gray mists of morning, he can still sometimes be seen, kayak tethered, kneeling upon a certain rock – speaking to a certain female seal who comes near the shore.
Many have tried to hunt her, but none succeed.
She is known as Tanqigcaq – the Bright One, the Holy One.
And it is said that, though she be a seal, her eyes hold those human looks – those wise, wild, and loving looks.
Journal Prompts for Sealskin Soulskin and Coming Home to Your True Self
Begin with gentle awareness of what’s been lost or silenced.
The Robbing of Spirit
Are there times or places in your life where it feels like your spirit was diminished or dimmed? What would it take to reclaim that spark?
The Stolen Self
What parts of you have been hidden away, stolen, or forgotten along the way? What might it look like to gently begin retrieving them?
Drying Out
When you have stayed away from your true self for too long, what are the signs? In your body? Your heart? Your imagination?
Start tuning in to the quiet voice or pull from within.
The Call of the Deep
Have you ever felt something ancient or wild within you calling you back – perhaps quietly, like a whisper, or suddenly, like a wave? What does that call feel or sound like?
Shedding the Human Coat
What identities or expectations have you taken on that don’t truly belong to you? If you could shed one today, like a coat, which would it be?
Move into contact with the more instinctive and soulful parts of self.
The Inner Child at the Shoreline
Picture a younger version of yourself playing by the sea, wild and free. What are they doing? What do they want to tell you? How might you take their hand today?
The Seal Inside You
If the seal in the story is a symbol of your psyche / soul, what condition is your seal in today? What does it need from you?
Step into integration, healing, and post-traumatic growth
Cycles of Self
Where are you in your own life cycle right now – emerging, resting, grieving, returning? What would it be like to honour this season instead of fighting it?
The Path of Retrieval
If your soul was waiting for you somewhere safe, what would you need to do or let go of to begin walking back toward it?
Returning Home
What does “home” mean to you – not the bricks and walls kind, but the kind that lives inside your body and being? What does it feel like when you are there?
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