What Seal Tells Me

In my spirituality, I often turn to nature for wisdom gleaned from its patterns and creative forces. And I also look to the rest of the animal world for qualities I admire or look to emulate. Sometimes I adopt animal guides for a period of time. Sometimes they adopt me.

I have walked/swum with seal since I was a young girl. I fell in love with a stuffed, white seal at a zoo. I called my friend Sammi. She's still with me, though her skin is a dingy grey now. I have always loved water. I have always loved swimming in it. And I saw my seal friend as a guide for me as I swam through my dreams at night.

Other animal guides have come and gone, but Sammi has always been there.

Years ago, I attended a workshop designed to get me in touch with my shadow animal. I totally expected to find myself in the skin of a centipede (and I went anyway). I wasn't prepared to find myself transformed into the guise of a familiar friend, slick skin, flippers, and all. Except I was a seal rock climbing, with no water in sight. And it hurt beneath me, sharp edges cutting at my edges. And it hurt, but I kept moving.

I thought about that memory while I was in the hospital, learning how to walk again. I called out to my animal totem and asked it's spirit to walk with me on my journey. It's difficult now. My skin is different. The shape of my legs has altered. Walking still takes thought and effort. I know it'll keep getting better and someday it will feel normal again, but for the moment, I am a floundering a bit out of my element, like a seal out of water. Like a seal trying to clamber over jagged rocks, only my jagged rocks are stairs and bathtub rails.

In my dreams at night, I swim and dance, and remember two feet gliding easily across the earth. And I ask my seal friends to keep me company, so we can learn to walk together.