Don't you think it's extremely interesting that the scientists who discovered the newest planetoid beyond Pluto have named her Sedna, for the Inuit underworld sea goddess? Not a male god from classical mythology, but a goddess from a North American indigenous culture. I wonder who chose the name, and why? And I wonder what qualities astrologers will assign to Sedna, once they begin to study her myth and where She appears in natal charts.
Just found this nugget:
Announcing the name Sedna, Dr Mike Brown, leader of the Cal Tech research team, said: "We knew it could end up being the coldest, most distant object in the entire Solar System. Early one day we decided it was appropriate to name any objects out of this region after Arctic mythology."
Ah, well that makes sense. But there are many mythological Arctic characters -- why Sedna? Can it be yet another example of the return of the Goddess?
Sedna has been on my list of "Goddesses I'd like to paint" for a long time, but She never made it up to the top. I found a number of Sedna images on the web, all different, all powerful:
Goddess artist Hrana Janto's painting of Sedna
A soapstone carving called "Appeasing Sedna" by Inuit artist Bill Nasogaluak
An actress wearing a mask created by Lauren Raine for a ritual theatre production, "The Tale of Sedna." This page has several excellent Sedna stories and interpretations.
I identify Sedna with the story of Skeleton Woman from Women Who Run with the Wolves, a book that made a huge impact on me ten years ago. (Hmmm . . . it may be time to read it again.) Sedna, like Skeleton Woman, is an emanation of Lady Death. An uppity woman, she defied her father to marry a dog-man (an unacceptable choice in their community). In retaliation, he chopped off her hands, which became the seals and other sea creatures that sustain the Inuit culture. He then threw her over the side of his kayak to drown. Reduced to bones and hair, She now lives at the bottom of the sea as a kind of guardian of the ocean and its creatures. When something goes wrong in the upper world, shamans journey to her, to beg her intercession. They comb her long hair and sing to her. Once propitiated, She offers healing and restoration.
This myth can be read as one of environmental balance, and in this way the story of Sedna is similar to our own Northwestern stories of Salmon Woman. When people do not honor the ecological balance -- if they overfish the seas and overharvest the forests, for example -- Salmon Woman (and Sedna) withhold the bounty of fish and food. It isn't until we allow time for restoration of forests and fish, and then harvest only in a sustainable fashion, that we have the blessings of Skeleton Woman (aka Sedna, aka Salmon Woman) once again.
On a more personal level, Clarissa Pinkola Estes admonishes us to embrace the "death" in "the ancient life/death/life nature." In our western culture, most of us have been taught to believe that Life=Good and Death=Bad. I am speaking of all the "little deaths" and endings in a person's life, as well as physical death. And yet those little deaths are only one stop on the Wheel of Life. This is the same lesson that is taught to us by the cycles of the moon: a new moon unfailingly waxes to full, wanes to dark, "dies" and becomes new once again.
"Among wolves," writes Estes, "the Life/Death/Life cycles of nature and fate are met with grace and wit and the endurance to stay tight with one's mate and to live long and as well as can be. But in order for humans to live and give loyalty in this most fit manner, in this way which is most wise, most preserving, and most feeling, one has to go up against the very thing one fears most. There is no way around it, as we shall see. One must sleep with Lady Death."
(Women Who Run with the Wolves, pg. 131)
Dear Sedna, Skeleton Woman, Lady Death -- now we know that you reign in the outer realms of our solar system, as well as at the bottom of the sea and in the depths of our psyches. Let us comb your hair, let us sing to you, let us embrace you and take you to our hearts. As we honor you, may you restore us to balance and harmony. Blessed be.
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