The cold airstream greets me on this twisting headland, catching my breath and tantalizing the strands of my hair who have escaped the clutch of my red woolen hat.
My hair is longer now than it has been for years. It’s wilder too and has more grey running through it, complementing the wrinkles etched on my face that form a map of my life, right here in plain sight. I tug the wet wool down over my eyebrows, pulling my coat in tighter as my cheeks flush against the salty stinging kisses of the rain.
I follow the thin worn sheep track woven around this limestone headland until I stand at the top of the cove that rests beneath these towering crags. Here the waves crash against stoic cliff faces before diving into dark caves in this endless game of chase where no one seems to tire. Gathered in the nooks are colonies of ebony Cormorants, holding out their wings like black veils before diving into the sea, piercing the surface and resurfacing with dinner caught in their bills. I watch them come to rest in the rhythmic swell of the currents, lifting their heads upwards in a Prayer of gratitude to the Sky Gods before swallowing their catch.
I hear the other dwellers of this place long before I see them; the soulful lament of the Grey Seal Colony who live at the base of these rocks. Their wild choir echoes around this landscape in a haunting symphony, caught in pebbles and reflected off the undulating Seas, joined by the ebb of the tide playing a percussion against a shoreline made of shale and sand.
At first, I only notice one or two of these big, strange bodies, but as my eyes adjust to their small movements, a new picture emerges. In amongst the shining cream and grey stones, Seals slowly come into focus. I spot two at first, and as my eyes wander, the whole pod becomes apparent.
My breath catches in my chest; sprawled in a raucous cacophony below me are at least a hundred beautiful beings.
Nestled into the sanctuary of the cliffs, furthest away from the sea is the Maternity Ward. Here, heavily pregnant mothers loll, looking uncomfortably full as they wait to give birth and amongst them struts a Clean-up Crew of white Gulls ready to feast on the bloody buffet. As I wander my gaze down the beach I come to infant seals in the Nursery, fat and soft, brimming with rich milk fresh from their Mama’s teats. And the closer I get to the edge, where the sea rushes up to the shoreline I am greeted by the bellowing teenagers, frolicking in their slender black velveteen bodies, jostling, diving care-free in the waves as the Elders doze.
As I cast my glance further towards the mouth of the cove I notice the camouflaged heads of five seals, bobbing relentlessly on the swell of the ocean, standing as lookouts across the wide opening; reminding me of the immortal line from Lord of the Rings when Gandalf Says ‘You shall not pass’.
And as the word ‘ Sanctuary’ rises to kiss my lips, it is greeted with a long outbreath from deep inside my body.
Sitting here amongst this wildness the old stories of Selkies and their Sealskins wash into my thoughts and gather in my throat.
There are many versions of this tale but the one most well-known to me is one about Selkies spoken from Scottish lands. It’s a tale about the magical shapeshifting Selkies who can move seamlessly between Seal and Human form; some say at a Full Moon, others say at will, some say every seven years, but what they all agree on is if their Sealskins are ever taken, they will be stranded on shore, longing for the sea, until their skin is found.
The Scottish Myth begins with the Selkies dancing under a full moon, with their Seal skins folded at their feet. Unbeknown to them they are being watched by a mortal man, who falls in love with one of the Selkie women. He hides her Seal skin, forcing her to be his wife and live on the Shore. Even though she becomes a Mother, she still longs for the Wilds of the Sea and finds her life an unhappy one. But one day she finds her stolen sealskin, she hugs her child and she returns to the Sea, unable to stay away.
There are so many interpretations of this story, from the tales told around the fire of women reclaiming their Wild Feminine Power and stepping in to their true lives, to a sexualised tale where a man captures a woman and holds her against her will, transforming her to fit with his own agency, whilst stealing a vital part of her magic, lost forever, or until she finds the power within her to reclaim it.
As the story goes, we all have a Seal Skin just waiting to be reclaimed, because only then will we know our wild Women origins.
In truth this tale has haunted me for a long time because it was not a ‘ man’ who stole my Sealskin, I was just never sure I had one in the first place. And so the unanswered question that has always lurked in my mind is ‘if I didn’t have a Seal Skin was I even a Woman’
I was born into a body that does not fit into the heteronormative view of what is ‘natural’. One where I cannot fit into the textbook definitions of woman and so find a strange comfort in the exile of ‘ Other’. If you look at me you would not think of me as anything other than ‘ Woman’ . My chromosomes are 46 XX & my birth certificate says female. When I take my clothes off and let my eyes trace the contours of my naked shape my curves are in all the right places, my hips are wide, my breasts are ample, and I have hair where it should be. I have grown from a girl into a ‘ Woman’. I am a Daughter, a Sister, a Granddaughter , Auntie and Mother.
“ if you aren’t in your body, someone else is.
The systems of this world have everything to gain from your disembodiment.
Stay near to yourself.
Remember your body.”
~ Cole Arthur Riley ~
But when I hold myself up against all I have been taught about ‘ Woman’ I just cannot fit. And I still wonder what defines ‘ Woman’. Is it chromosomes or body parts, or organs or all three and what happens if you don’t have all the sex characteristics of the female biology – are you still a ‘Woman’?
There have been many times where I have tried to shoehorn myself into the box labelled ‘Woman' but rather than some sense of belonging I am just met with this aching disconnect from the soil beneath my feet and the microbiome in my gut.
Is ‘Woman’ defined by birthing human life’ or by how much love I can hold in my hands, or is ‘Woman’ something else entirely that cannot be named or tamed.
When I ask the wisdom of my soft animal body about ‘ Woman’ she meets me with a low guttural growl, echoing with the relationality woven within me; of the tales my ancestors, and not just those of blood and bone, but also stardust and stone; of forgotten conversation in a place behind my knee cap with secrets of a scar from a Skiing trip in the alps ; whispers from a Pine forest in a nook in my armpit ; a dance with Rose as she kisses my Soul; a story from the cave in my intestines where sweet orange lives; the song in my heart about how my children shapeshifted me into bear;
She doesn’t know ‘Woman’, she just knows she is a land spouting ecosystems and stories woven with magical keys to portal places where I can redefine the boundaries of love and find new ways to belong.
“you are only free when you realise you belong no place -
you belong every place -
no place at all.
The price is high.
The reward is great. "
~ Maya Angelou~
When I let her be her own version of wild she becomes the key to days like this, where my feral one with chicory sticks in her hair and nettle stings up her legs is riding roughshod alongside me. Where we are perched on edge places, drunk on mystery, as the wild seas make endless love with the shorelines and the swell of the waves carve their desires into the stoic rock faces.
Here the wind weaves around me like a breath held for too long. A grounded-ness seeps up through my feet. A wild arm wraps around my shoulders, beckoning me into becoming as the boundaries between us blur and fade.
I am growing into the mythic edges of my body, stretching myself past the places of my consciousness held captive by the human construct of who and what I should be.
I am caressing the unfurling edges of unexplored terrain and here I am nothing and everything; the moss on the rocks, a dark feather on a Cormorants wing, the shape of a wave as it rolls over the Sea.
I am the Seal lament.
I push my toes into the soft golden sand and unzip my human skin, letting it puddle at my feet, whilst my fingers caress the softness of my Seal hidden underneath. My touch lingers on my body as the salty scent of the sea gathers in the corners of my lips. My hand slowly traces the velvet textures across my fur, pausing at the storylines of scars that sing tales of my wild ways. My eyes rest on places where my coat fades from black to shades of grey hugging my sides before meeting the nebula of soft white held on the underside of my belly.
Here on the water edge as the breath of anticipation pulsates over me, I pause.
The waves race to greet me, lapping at the shore as I slowly slip into the wash. My body is filled with the ecstasy of every touch as the white waves take me into the rapture of a deep intimate embrace, like we are lost lovers reunited.
And slowly my body surges in the sensuality of these shadowy waters, savouring the warming sunbeams and forests made of seaweed as though I have been starved of life for far too long.
And held somewhere between the currents and the swell of the water there is a whisper that says ‘ Welcome home Wild One’
Art work & photograph by Louise Amador
Photograph - Angel Bay, Little Orme