The Selkie: Longing & Belonging
Among the many shapeshifting figures of Celtic and Northern European folklore, the Selkie occupies a particularly liminal space - half seal, half woman, she moves fluidly between sea and shore, wildness and domesticity, freedom and containment. In Orkney and Shetland traditions, the Selkie is said to shed her seal skin to walk on land, only to have it stolen or hidden by a man who wishes to claim her. This act of possession binds her to a life not of her choosing, yet the pull of the ocean, her original home, is insurmountable.
Clarissa Pinkola Estés, in Women Who Run With the Wolves, frames this myth as a deeply archetypal narrative of exile and return:
“Everyone becomes snagged by land commitments. Yet the old one out in the sea calls everyone. Everyone must return.”
The Selkie’s journey, then, is a mythic representation of individuation. Her stolen skin is not merely a pelt but the embodiment of her authentic self - her instinct, freedom, and essential belonging. The myth resonates with Jungian concepts of the “wild self,” a part of the psyche often suppressed or denied in service of social roles and expectations. The tension between domestication and wildness in this narrative is not only a story of captivity but also a profound metaphor for psychological estrangement and the reclamation of one’s identity.
In my painting inspired by this myth, I sought to capture this liminality and longing. The work reflects a meditation on belonging that transcends geography or culture. It asks viewers to consider: What are the “skins” we have been separated from? Where do we hear the call of the sea in our own lives?
The Selkie’s narrative also echoes broader mythological patterns of exile and return found in cultures worldwide, from Inanna’s descent to the underworld in Sumerian myth to the Irish tale of Tír na nÓg. Each of these stories invites us into a cyclical understanding of transformation, one in which descent, loss, and estrangement are necessary precursors to renewal.
In this context, the Selkie myth functions not only as folklore but also as a mirror of the human condition. It asks us to interrogate the ways in which modern life, with its “land commitments,” can estrange us from instinct and belonging. The image of the Selkie reclaiming her skin becomes a symbolic act of psychic restoration, a return to what Estés calls “the wildish nature.”
For me, this work is both personal and cultural. It is an inquiry into how myth can illuminate interior landscapes, and how painting can function as a ritual object. A painting as a visual portal into archetypal truth. The Selkie’s story is not simply a narrative of escape but a testament to the essentiality of return: to ourselves, to nature, and to the ancestral wisdom embedded in myth.
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