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Ann Moir-Bussy is a regular columnist for Holistic Bliss Magazine, where she shares insightful perspectives on conscious living, transformation, and the deeper wisdom of the human journey.

You can explore all of Ann’s published columns directly on the Holistic Bliss Magazine website. Each article is crafted to inspire, guide, and invite reflection as you walk your own path of growth and self-discovery.

Some of Ann’s most recent blogs:

Embodied Soul or a tattered cloak upon a Stick?

In our last column we recounted the story of the Selkies and the need for each of us to reclaim our Seal Skin – our SOUL.  The Selkie had to not only take back her Sealskin – she also had to get back to the depths of the ocean and let her soul be nourished again and feel the connection between her soul and her body.

The following poem written many years ago by the poet William Yeats describes what can happen to men and women if their soul connection is lost:

An aged man is but a paltry thing

A tattered cloak upon a stick, unless

Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing

For every tatter in its mortal dress.

Have you ever thought what it would be like to become a “tattered cloak upon a stick”, waking up with rigid spine and symbolically stuck in being older and not living freely? So many people are afraid of growing older and are left with the stereotypes and societal denigration or discounting of old people and their statements of what they can or cannot do. It need not be, for the poet continues “Unless soul clap its hands and sing”. What does it mean to clap one’s hands and sing? It’s telling us that our body MUST become connected with the SOUL – we need to become an an embodied soul.

So many women have been separated from their soul – either by choice or by being coerced to give themselves to work or to others as the tale of the Selkie warned. Like the Selkie, we must reclaim our soul and only then can we grow into being the CRONE – the one who crowns her wisdom.

Being a CRONE – crowning one’s wisdom is not an age – rather it is a process that goes on throughout our life, and especially as we physically grow older. It is where everything is finally connected, where we become “she who is one in herself” – it is a movement to wholeness.

An old Indian woman once said, “Can you imagine reaching the age of 70 and realised you had not lived your own life – you’ve pleased others, you’ve done what you thought was wanted by those around you, you’ve conformed to what others have told you that you should do, or ought to do or be, or you have to be like this or have that – but you have not become YOU and you did not make your own choices.

To be an embodied soul we must tear down the fences that society or others have built around us and we must choose to BE. Live your own being – BE YOURSELF.

How do we find our own pattern? Find our own imagery?  We need to surrender to what is essential in our life – an energy that is stronger than our ego. Surrender to our spirit and soul. And the many old myths and stories remind us that to do this we often need to take some time away or apart form the busyness of our lives.

A beautiful Aboriginal elder, Miriam Rose Ungunmerr, calls this Dadirri: The quiet stillness inside us. “Dadirri is inner, deep listening and quiet, still awareness. Dadirri recognises the deep spring that is inside us. We call on it and it calls to us. This is the gift that Australia is thirsting for. It is something like what you call ‘contemplation’.

(Check out more of her message hers: Deep listening (dadirri) – Creative Spirits, retrieved from https://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/education/deep-listening-dadirri)

To be one in herself is to embrace the Virgin – the Beingness in us. The Virgin orients us to wholeness. She is the woman who has worked on her feelings, she knows her values, and she has the courage to live them. To reclaim her soul, she has to work out what is her and what is not her. And this is the root of the CRONE who no longer lives by others’ shoulds and expectations.

Another aspect of this is that we stop trying to control our life – we embrace our body and our feelings and surrender to the spirit within – it is a marriage of the masculine and the feminine. It is deep listening to both body and soul.

Marion Wookman, Jungian analyst says, “Crone is that energy that comes to that place where there is no investment in power – she will tell you the truth and release you from the illusions that cripple you”.

Coming home to yourself – Reclaiming your Soul

“The doors to the world of the wild Self are few but precious. If you have a deep scar, that is a door, if you have an old, old story, that is a door. If you love the sky and the water so much you almost cannot bear it, that is a door. If you yearn for a deeper life, a full life, a sane life, that is a door.”

Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Have you ever realised how easy it is for parts of ourselves to get lost, to lose the path to our inner peace, our true self? The “to do “list seems to never end, and endless responsibilities and noise take over without us even realising it has happened until we become aware of how tire we are and that we have given away too much of ourselves.

What does it mean to come back home and find the capacity to sense, to see, and to know what’s best for us? How can we recover the deep inner wisdom and intuition that reminds us how important it is to become intimate with one’s soul again.

The Selkie Myth

There is a beautiful northern European myth that illustrates for us what happens if we ignore the yearning and longing of the soul.  The Selkie was a mythological creature from Celtic and Norse folklore that was known for its ability to transform between seal and human form. They had a deep-sea connection and could remove their seal skin to walk on land as a human and then put it on again to return to the sea.

In this story the Selkie was dancing on the rocks with her friends. She didn’t choose to remain on land but was tricked into it in a cruel way when a fisherman offered her love and safety after stealing her skin. She compromises her freedom to marry him for a limited time.

She is consumed by the expectations and responsibilities he puts on her, gives birth to a son and is caught in their net of demands as they depend on her for their comfort and perhaps identity. Slowly she becomes a shadow of herself and as her skin dries out and she becomes parched for the sea, she can barely survive. Exhausted and pale in a world that is not hers, she knows it is time to claim what belonged to her – her sealskin – and return home.

Come home to yourself

Have you ever seen the selkie within you, are you dried out, is your heart aching for something more?  

What are you truly longing for?

How long have you been postponing something that is very important to you? What is the price your soul is paying as you continue to give away too much of yourself?

Like the Selkie we can lose our skin so easily, forget our soul or have it stolen from us or we unknowingly sacrifice it. We offer time, our resources or our creative energy in the service of others, only to discover that we have lost something vital and essential to our being.

As we recognise it, we will experience a sense of loss and a sense of feeling whole again. As in many of the stories we share, there is a coexistence.

Reclaim your Soul

To reclaim that sacred space within we need to leave this frazzled world we have taken on and dive back into the deep waters that give us life. Just like the selkie we need to put our skin on again – and as many women from ancient times did, find a place of solitude. This doesn’t necessarily mean being alone – rather, all one, wholly one. Marion Woodman tells women that this is “being one in herself”, – not pulled every this way and that.

We must take the time to assess if we on our proper course in both spirit and soul. When we hear the call to come home to ourselves, we must heed it, or risk drying up and losing our creative powers. Read again Clarissa Pinkola Estes words at the beginning of this article – and note there are many doors to the journey of our reclaiming our soul

If you would like to dive deeper into the teachings of the Selkie, then sign up for the series of Transformative Fairy Tales, which will begin in August on our new website.

The Alchemy of Re-storying and finding the Golden Elixir

“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you really are”

Carl Jung

As an alchemist himself, Carl Jung knew well the transformation and transmutation that could take place if one embarked on the journey of inner alchemy. The ancient alchemists practiced transforming base metal into gold.  Inner alchemy is our journey of re-storying outmoded narratives that no longer serve us and that keep us tied to the expectations and worries of those who would hold us back from this journey.

In several of our columns we have explored some of the ancient myths that show us the story and journey of transformation. Today, let us explore a bit more how we must continue the work of inner alchemy and re-story own narratives.

Inner Alchemy

What if it is our own consciousness that is the base metal than can be transformed into gold? We don’t reflect much on the myths and stories we are living out in our daily lives. They have become so much part of us and our way of thinking. Inner alchemy gives us the process to view our lives as our awakening to becoming who we really are. It’s comfortable to hide behind the stories we have taken on as our own, even when these very societal stories negate the journey of ageing consciously. As the African writer, BenOkri, said,

It’s easy to forget how mysterious and mighty stories are. They do their work in silence, and invisibly. They work with all the internal materials of the mind and self. They become part of you while changing you. Beware the stories you read or tell: Subtly at night, beneath the waters of consciousness, they are altering your world. (1997:120)

Become a conscious storyteller

We need to challenge the dominant narratives, because sick storytellers can make a whole nation sick. Stories can poison a nation or heal a nation. To create the new – to re-story, we need to destroy the old. What facets of our old story are holding us back? What are the poor habits or aspects of ourselves that are tying us in knots? Can we, like the alchemist, separate the good from the bad and discard what is toxic and keep what is ready for further growth and refinement?

Becoming a conscious storyteller is an alchemical process and involves reflection, exploring beliefs and emotions and patterns of behaviour and releasing what no longer serves us. It is another form of journeying to the underworld and embracing the dark goddess, as we have seen in previous columns.  It is to spiritually connect and work with what is within you.

The secret of inner transformation

Jung found that the ancient secret processes of alchemy were powerful symbols of the transformation of the human soul and challenges us to embrace uncertainty and bring all that is hidden in the depths of our psyche into the light of awareness. The stages are confrontation with the dark side or shadow side of ourselves, through to purification and emerging awareness, then awakening and embodiment of wisdom to integration and union of the opposites. To become who we really are is a lifelong transformative journey. Hence re-storying is a powerful step in finding inner gold – the golden elixir.

An online program will be available very soon for us to delve deeper into this transformative alchemical process. So, as you re-story, remember this:

Don’t accept the modern myths of aging

You are not declining.

You are not fading away into uselessness.

You are a sage,

A river at its deepest

And most nourishing.

Sit by the riverbank sometime

And watch attentively as the river

Tells you of your life.

(William Martin – The Sage’s Tao Te Ching)