Sedna – Feminism and Religion

Sedna’s Tale by Sara Wright

The story of Sedna is yet another rendition of the Handmaid’s Tale. This one comes from the Arctic and the Inuit people. During this time when it seems as if patriarchy has a stranglehold on so many of us, I offer this Indigenous version of the story to remind feminists that tapping into mythical patterns strengthens us in ways that are impossible to articulate beyond stating that we can access that power when we align ourselves with it. As in all oral traditions there are many versions of the story but the roots of the myth are the same.

In one version of the story a young man comes to sleep with an entire family during a blizzard. By morning he is gone without having revealed his identity, but the father discovers large dog tracks in the snow and realizes his family has been deceived. The young man who slept with the family was a wild dog.

Sedna in Spring by Anna Marie Laforest

With the Sun in Aries and then Taurus from late March through mid-May, representing Spring and the renewal of all things creative, it is a good time to think about the evolution of the goddess Sedna who created the walruses, seals, and new kinds of fish to feed her Inuit tribe which until then had to make do with bearberries, seaweed, and arctic moss. Sedna’s name means “provider of food,” but of course her creations came at a very dear price.

Her father, in a moment of patriarchal panic, cut off her fingers to separate her from their lifeboat kayak during a storm in which he could only think to save himself, as he was the chief of the tribe. As Sedna fell deeper and deeper into the sea, she was surprised that, instead of feeling frightened, she felt more like her real self than ever before. She saw her father (who had lied about killing her first love) and the “bad crow” husband he had selected for her instead, for who they were, and she saw her fingers, as they tumbled down with her, turn into wondrous, powerful animals.

When she got to the bottom of the sea, her bones had been purified by her blood and the salt water of her tears, and her skeleton was radiant. She quickly put on body weight, of a sea kind, and with the help of her sea-children she made herself ruler of the under-water world. Continue reading “Sedna in Spring by Anna Marie Laforest”

Survivorship to Thrivorship in Sedna’s Ocean by Carolyn Lee Boyd

These past three months I have learned the wonderful, important word “survivorship.” At the cancer center where I receive care, “survivorship” means life’s physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, economic, social, and political aspects affecting the quality and quantity of life after treatment.

“Survivorship” also perfectly describes what I have seen over and over working with older women, especially those who have made their lives masterpieces of this art. The deaths of loved ones, the loss of home and country, devastating illness and lifelong disability, violence from family and discrimination and hate from strangers – through it all they have found a strength and power that they have used to make their lives and that of others more meaningful and impactful. In fact, almost all older, and many younger, women I know have been transformed by their own kind of survivorship into someone beyond who she imagined she would ever be.

Survivorship also describes the courage, persistence, strength, wits, guts, intelligence, and wisdom of the global community of women necessary to overcome the trauma, violence, violation and repression of at least the past several thousand years. It is what has brought women through to where we are now. Women’s spirituality as a force and a movement is also a heroine of survivorship. Through millennia of being repressed and dressed up in the garments of patriarchal practices to suit their needs, the traditions and spirit of the Female Divine have survived and we now see Her reclaiming Her place in our spiritual lives, theology, and world history.

Continue reading “Survivorship to Thrivorship in Sedna’s Ocean by Carolyn Lee Boyd”