Keywords: Independence, Courage, Balance, Sacrifice, Restoration
Shadows: Betrayal, Death, Punishment, Exile

Sedna is the Mother of the Deep, the Sea Woman, the Big Bad Woman. She was a woman of her own power, identity and determination and she suffered greatly for it. She made a sacrifice and became the very spirit and guardian of the sea – the global womb from which we are born. Her lessons can be as harsh as the tundra, but not without fierce love.

There are a few different versions of her story, but what they all have in common is Sedna – either the daughter of a deity, an abused orphan, or a beautiful maiden uninterested in marriage – ending up in a kayak with her father (or others) who, in some fear or other, throws her overboard. When she grasps at the edge of the kayak to pull herself back in, she gets her fingers chopped off which then fall into the raging sea to become whales, seals, otters and other warm-blooded marine creatures. And she herself becomes the mighty goddess of the seas who keeps the animals hidden from the hunters if her taboos are broken.

Sedna is concerned with balance and natural order, and we are a part of nature. Therefore, we have obligations. The Inuit understood these varying obligations to everything from personal possessions to family to the spirits of animals consumed. If these were neglected then Sedna would become angry and call all the creatures of the sea down to her and away from the offending humans, who would face starvation.

Sedna’s home is deep in the Inuit underworld of Adlivun, of which she is queen, and there stands her palace of whale bones and stone. It is to this place that the angakkuq (shaman) would take a perilous journey to meet with Sedna and attempt to set matters right. He or she (female angakkuit were rare, though considerably more powerful than males) would comb Sedna’s long, tangled hair. It was tangled and weighed down from all the broken laws, neglected responsibilities, abuse and destruction in the world above; the world that so desperately depends on her world.

When Sedna appears, it is time to set matters right. If you are not asserting your independence, if you are not making sacrifices to get what you want, now is the time to step forward, step into your true self and to be willing to make necessary changes and sacrifices. All loss makes room for new – and often better – growth.