Expanding My Concept of Self: A Story of Seal, Elephant, and Unicorn
Updated: Jun 5, 2025
I’ve found that I resonate with certain kindred spirits from the animal kingdom and beyond. Direct experience and knowing of this allowed me to widen my concept of self beyond being human.
I believe it was around 2014 that seal hunting was in the news with pictures showing bleeding seals on the snow and hunters with spears advancing on the animals. I don’t usually consume news media, but this story somehow made its way to me and it absolutely broke my heart.
I was panic stricken upon just a few seconds of viewing the pictures and my heart ached oh so badly. It felt like I was being persecuted personally. My heart cried out for my fellow kindred souls. To me, seals embody innocence, curiosity and playfulness. Qualities that I recognize within myself too. To kill such creatures seems especially atrocious.
The trauma was so bad, I tried to force down the pain and not think about it. Some time after, I was standing next to a woman, a stranger on the street, and she must have sensed it in my aura, because she said to me out of the blue, how sad it was about the seals. I got extremely flustered and irritated that she brought it up as the pain buried in the depths of my heart surfaced and overwhelmed me.
This hurt my heart just as much as if I had been attacked. As I sensed deeper into my heart, I could feel the piercing damage that was done, as well as a loving presence that arose within to meet this moment of challenge and it soothed and uplifted me. Over time, it would heal.
I have had a similar experience with elephants. My family and I went to African Lion Safari in Ontario, Canada where we got the chance to interact with many elephants. I rode one and watched them frolic in the water and walk down the pathway in a line, trunk in tail. The most memorable moment was when I was eye to eye with an elephant. It walked by an enclosure where we got the chance to pet it. As I looked into its eye, its gaze reached to the depth of my soul. I felt seen. I was left there standing with full body tingles and a feeling of expansiveness. I got the sense that the elephant was a wise old soul. I have since regarded elephants highly.
More than once during my 20s, I was made aware of the brutality of ivory harvesting. The hunters would drive by and gun down the elephants or simply hack off the ivory. It made me sad and my heart ached. I felt so strongly about it that I volunteered for a nonprofit which sought to stop such trafficking.
During the early stages of my spiritual awakening, as I began to explore all things spiritual, I came upon a workshop to connect with angels, fairies, and unicorns. The fact that a grown adult was making money talking about fairies and unicorns blew my mind at the time.
A unicorn is pure and innocent in essence. In addition to identifying with that description personally, I’ve always had an affinity for birch trees. I heard that unicorns love to hang out around birch trees and that they are attracted to them.
I learned from personal experience that one can embody and express the things that are usually associated with unicorns. For example, I met a girl I tutored once and she had the unique scent of bubble gum. I am averse to and dislike chemical fragrances, and so I really think this was her actual scent and not the smell of shampoo or body wash. It could also have been the psychic sense of smelling (clairolfaction/clairalience) at play. The fragrance was so unexpected and absolutely delightful to the soul. It made me feel privileged to be in her presence and certainly made me regard her differently. I believe she is a unicorn and one of the newer waves of the New Children. Perhaps it takes one to see one.
Comments