16 Comments

Thanks for reposting this. I have a kid going through the trauma of puberty right now. I’m trying to hold them so gently and just make space for them to figure it all out - and maybe what they need to do selkie-like to feel safe in their skin.

Also this: “I want to use the gothic power of our women writer ancestors. I want to haunt these white male politicians and legal theorists asses out of the chairs of history and minority rule and burn this ideology to the ground. It has no place for the country and society that we so long to live in.” I’ve been doing regular banishing rituals for a few specific pastors in our community who insist on being unmitigated asshats. I will join you at that bonfire!!🔥

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o i love that so much! ❤️‍🔥

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Fascinating read! Thank you for re-posting!

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Thanks so much for reading! 💜🙏

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“I want to use the gothic power of our women writer ancestors. I want to haunt these white male politicians and legal theorists asses out of the chairs of history and minority rule and burn this ideology to the ground. It has no place for the country and society that we so long to live in.”

OKAY!!!! 🔥🔥🔥🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥

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😂 But hell yeah! ✊🔥 Thanks so much for reading! 💜

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I am guessing you are familiar with the film, “The Secret of Roan Innish”? It is a 1994 film based on the 1957 novel, “Secret of the Ron Mor Skerry” by Rosalie K. Fry. Thank you for re-posting this… it is a very good essay to read…

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sean! i so love that movie! it’s so beautiful. yes. 💜

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I loved this. I am so glad I read it today, so long after you wrote it but just when I needed it. Have you seen Song of the Sea? It's about a selkie. A children's movie, I guess. But it feels grown up.

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So beautiful. My kids love it too.

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aw thanks so much! I LOVE that movie--so so beautiful. I love selkie myths--something about them that is so alluring and real and poignant about being a woman in a patriarchal world...or anyone feeling like they are slightly out of place in the world around them, being called elsewhere. Thanks so much for reading!

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"I was thinking about what it did to women’s psyche, of the trauma of seeing other women be accused and executed for healing, for wisdom, for miscarriage, for side-eye, for anger, for being visible when she should not be—most often when she is poor, old, and a widow." - This resonates deep within me. I have felt a close connection to the Witch or old crone archetype because even if burning at stake has become obsolete, the witch trials have never ended. Like the abortion law you were talking about, women all around the world are still facing equivalent violation of human rights. Check this out :

"Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) considers the forced sex in marriages as a crime only when the wife is below age 15. Thus, marital rape is not a criminal offense under the IPC. "

Marital rape is still legal in India.

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Women all around the world--yes! It's so humbling how easy it is to write from the narrow perspective of this country when it is happening all over in myriad different layers of oppression. In Alaska, the legislature only last month rescinded a law that allowed child marriages. Unbelievable.

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Unbelievable indeed!

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I know I'm supposed to be about nonviolence and all that, but I would love to see Alito's head on a pole outside someone's stockade. I mean, if we are going to get medieval, let's get medieval.

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ha! no kidding.

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