One Man's Sealing...

The other day I was cleaning my apartment (Yes. Though a rare occurrence, it does occasionally happen) and I discovered a little box that had gotten buried from when I first moved in here. It was literally buried treasure because when I opened it I found a number of things, special beads and pendants of mine that I hadn't seen for years, including the one pictured above.

This particular pendant, a gift from one of my globe-trotting little sisters, is a hand-carved scrimshaw pictograph on a piece of ancient walrus ivory, in the figure of a seal. Synchronistically there just happened to be a small plastic seal alongside it.

Anyway, this struck me as extremely significant, especially as I was getting ready to take part in another Ocean Healing Drumming Ceremony in acouple evenings. Normally I would have turned to one of my Animal Spirit Guides books to reference what seal might signify, but for some reason those didn't even enter my mind. For some reason I was drawn straight to my Druid Animal Oracle deck, a relatively new deck for me that I've barely begun to explore, but I got a distinct Celtic taste with the pendant rather than the Native American flavor that the Medicine Cards have (which is interesting seeing as the carving is done by an Eskimo on ivory from Siberia).

Upon looking it up in the guide book for the deck, this is what I read:

SEAL

RON

Love, Longing, Dilemma

This card calls to you from the seal-people of the sea. The Dan nan Ron --the song of the seals-- upsets and frightens many who hear it. Its mournful and human sound stirs the heart of the listener to the core. It is a call from the sea, from the Unconscious, from the depths. It calls to us from the waters of our birth, from our beginnings on earth, from our brothers and sisters in the animal realm who are closer to us than we dare imagine. We fear this call, because we feel we may be drowned, overwhelmed by our feelings. But do not let your intellect imprison your heart, as the human imprisons his selchie spouse -- the magical seal. Opening yourself to the promptings of the Unconscious, of the Feminine, of your dreams and longings will bring transformation, healing and love into your life.

This card suggests that you may have come to a time in your life when you are faced with a dilemma. Each way you turn could invoke risk and potential loss, and yet you know you must make a choice. The seal speaks of the longing of the heart, of true love, of a sense of humanity and goodness. In the end, these should be the determining factors in your choice. Although the seal may represent loneliness and separation, as the selchie imprisoned on dry land, remember that the time will come when she will be released and will act as a guide and companion through the watery realm of the emotions and the Otherworld.

Not that these kind of things should surprise me anymore, but this was exactly where I was at the time. Still am actually, although beginning to feel myself moving out of it.

For around a week now I have been feeling really heavy, and anxious and depressed, and one night I was talking to a friend about it and she introduced an idea that hadn't occurred to me. I realized I was grieving the Gulf Coast oil spill. "A call from the sea." I have been so focused on remaining hopeful, knowing there was a higher purpose to this mess, and trying to be a light to all the others that are grieving, that I forgot to allow myself to grieve. As I said, I have taken part in two Ocean Healing ceremonies, drumming on the beach in the sand around a fire into the night singing to the Earth Mother -- Both times being greeted by an eagle flying overhead. The first time I was sharing my energy of light and hope. And I still feel this way, that there are miracles a foot, that many more people are waking up, and that more people than ever are doing as we were in the ceremony -- working with the Earth and her Nature Spirits and Devas to restore harmony.

And I have watched this faith pay off in at least one instance where 'suddenly' Kevin Costner has, for years, been pouring his own money ($20 million) into a technology that filters oil from water, leaving the water coming out of the spout clean enough to drink. I think I heard that BP has ordered 30 some of these machines.

This is the way miracles work. Just the day before I heard about this, the whole scenario did not exist - at least in my world. It was not even a possibility. Yet, by keeping hope alive, trusting in the best and the highest good, tendrils of light reach out, backward and forward in time, creating a situation that demonstrates that same hope and faith. The past is as malleable as the future, and I have experienced enough of these miracles to know that each point in time has its own past, that may or may not correspond with the past of the moment before it.

Still it is necessary to grieve, for it is a horrible thing that happened, which has brought much destruction and death. And as my friend pointed out to me, with my connection to the animal kingdom, there is no way this whole situation could not be affecting me. And now, here is Seal calling from the seas, asking me to join in the mournful song. I recognize the fear of being overwhelmed and drowned by these feelings. Doubts and fears I thought were long gone where surfacing again and I did fear that I would be lost, that all the growth and progress I have made would be snuffed out.

So the second drumming ceremony was a bit more solemn for me. I didn't cry, which kind of surprised me, but I did feel myself releasing a lot of grief. I wore my seal pendant around my neck and thanked him for his help in plumbing the depths with me, guiding me through the dark waters and back to the surface again.

Another way that Seal seemed significant is that I couldn't think of a better power animal for someone on the shamanic path, particularly of Irish descent with the mythology of the selkies (or selchies as the book above spelled it). Selkies were faery beings who, while in the water were seals, but when they came ashore they shed their seal skin (which they then hid from sight because without it they couldn't return to the sea) and were seen (usually) as beautiful women. Many are the stories of some fisherman happening upon a selkie, stealing her seal skin, and forcing her to marry him. Even after falling in love and having children with the man, the call of the sea is so strong that, on the eventual and inevitable discovery of her skin once more, she returns home to the sea without looking back.

I don't have words to explain how fitting that feels to me, or how much that resonates -- constantly between the worlds; Living in one and longing for the other, trying to balance them both. Sounds pretty shamanic to me! And besides the selkies, seals are considered magickal on their own, largely because of their ability to disappear beneath the waves with hardly a ripple (incidentally a fact that adds to the argument that Nessy is a member of the seal family). They also are a reminder of playfulness, confidence and grace in their element, and good humor about their clumsiness outside of it.

I am grateful to Seal for swimming into my life because I see how much I have to learn from him. His timing is impeccable and I am ready to swim. My fate is sealed! ;)

Book excerpt from The Druid Animal Oracle copyright Philip and Stephanie Carr-Gomm