Recently a new planet has been discovered beyond Pluto, a little planet in the cold depths of space astronomers chose to name Sedna. Why Sedna? What meaning does the story of Sedna, the Ocean Mother of the Inuit people of the Pacific Northwest have for us?

My own journey to Sedna began in January of 2004, when I had an exhibit at the Muse Community Arts Center in Tucson, Arizona. There I met Grey Eagle, a Native American storyteller who had come, with his wife Ann, to attend the show.

Grey Eagle is a ceremonial storyteller, as well as a scholar, who has collected stories from indigenous people around the world. I felt honored when he offered me the story of Sedna, which the Inuit gave to him when he was living in Alaska. I was also moved to learn from him about the actual rituals the Inuit do when they feel it is time to restore the balance with Sedna, their Mother Ocean.

We decided to create a community performance as part of the Global Art Project, founded by Katherine Josten. The story of Sedna that Grey Eagle gave us became the theme for our ritual, which we called Restoring the Balance.

I believe there are stories that want to be told. They find a way through the mysteries of inspiration, synchronicity, and necessity. The understanding the Inuit people have about the need to continually bring themselves back into harmony, alignment, and "good relationship" with the forces of nature - are stories that have profound importance for our time.

To indigenous cultures, the Earth is perceived as alive, a Great Mother with many children. Like the dances and prayers the Inuit do to heal Sedna, or the Sundance ceremonies of the Lakota, spiritual practice concerns maintaining a relationship of mythic, conversant reciprocity and ethics with all aspects of nature, as well as within the human community.

It is no small irony that the Inuit are among the first human populations to be displaced by global warming. As the western Arctic coastline recedes, they are losing their villages and lands. Pollution and over-fishing has also contributed to the loss of their livelihood.

The dances and prayers for Sedna are more important than ever.

The Story of Sedna

Sedna was a beautiful girl who lived with her widowed father by the cold Northwestern sea. Many young men offered her marriage, but Sedna, fearful for her father’s welfare, refused them all. Until one day, a handsome, vivacious man came to her.

He charmed Sedna with his beauty, and promised her a better life. Best of all, he promised he would also provide for her father. But when Sedna left with her new husband, she found he was really a raven disguised as a man. Raven took her instead to a desolate island, where she lived in hunger and poverty, and no provisions were sent to her father.

At last Sedna’s father came to find her. He was furious to learn they had been deceived, and took Sedna into his kayak to paddle back to the mainland. But Sedna’s husband, learning of her escape, caused a great storm to arise. Huge waves rolled toward them, and Sedna’s terrified father, hoping to save his own life, cast his daughter from the boat.

But Sedna clung to the side of the kayak, and would not let go, begging her father to save her. In cowardly desperation, her father at last took his knife, and cut off her fingers and hands. As Sedna sank to the bottom of the ocean, her fingers fell into the sea, becoming at last the fishes, the seals, and the whales. And at the bottom of the cold Pacific ocean, Sedna lives still, in her house of bones, attended by her children.

"Sedna is cold and naked. She is covered with a tangle of hair that she can't comb out, because she has no hands.“ Grey Eagle wrote,

"And it’s also said that all the broken taboos, and sins against nature of the people who live in the above world fall into Sedna’s underwater realm, collecting on Sedna's body. When the accumulation is too great, Sedna sobs in sorrow and pain. Then the sea creatures leave the shore, and gather to comfort her.”

When the “above world” no longer remember the sacrifice of the Ocean/Earth Mother, the Inuit believe, they have fallen from grace. As the Earth absorbs their sins of arrogance and ignorance, as Sedna suffers, ultimately, so must they.

“The people know it's time to gather with their Shaman,” Grey Eagle continues, “and when that time has come, they publicly confess their broken taboos and their sins. The men, remembering the name of Sedna’s father, do a dance of contrition, and all send Sedna their prayers. Slowly dancing, they sing a song of remorse for the sins done by man to women, to earth, and to her children. And at last, their shaman purifies herself to take the dangerous journey to the underwater world where Sedna lives. She gathers fine sand with which she lovingly cleanses the filth from Sedna’s body. She sings while tenderly picking the crabs from Sedna’s hair. And she offers Sedna the confessions of those above, their prayers of love and respect."

 

Rites of “at-one-ment” and purification reconcile the above world and the below world.

“When Sedna is comforted, She sends a prayer to Creator, asking Creator to forgive the people for the ways they have become out of balance. Her sobbing is no longer heard in the waves, the sea animals end their vigil and offer themselves again as food. Their shaman returns to tell the people of Sedna's enduring compassion. And the Inuit are inspired to return Sedna’s gift by making better life stories."2

Myths are “life stories“, the templates upon which religions and civilizations are built, and individual lives are also given meaning. How can we also create better life stories, life stories that can prepare us for a sustainable future? Our stories, our continually evolving cultural mythos, crystallize the ways we perceive, experience, and ultimately live in the world.

If we view ourselves as living in, and being part of, the body of Gaea, then the Inuit practice of of "restoring the balance" through their prayers and dances reflects profoundly ecological wisdom. Sedna is another name for the world Soul, Anima Mundi. And Spiderwoman's Web is another way to express what quontum physicists call "entanglement" or the "unified field". There is a way of seeing each day as a collaboration with an infinitely creative, intelligent, responsive world we are intimately part of, and accountable to.

We are dancing the future into existence by the stories we tell.

Our cast was amazed to learn, during our rehearsals, that a new planet had been discovered beyond Pluto, astronomers chose to name "Sedna". For us, it was an affirmation that we were, without knowing how, part of a larger telling.

"We have heard this sacred story together", Grey Eagle wrote, "And now we can close with: That’s the way it was, and that’s the way it is."

RESTORING THE BALANCE

Katherine Josten, who danced the role of Sedna, is the founder of the Global Art Project, a network linking artists around the world to share their creativity and diversity through the arts. In preparation for her performance, Katherine observed in her journal that:

"The work of our group is not to re-enact the ancient goddess myths, but to take the myths to their next level of evolutionary unfolding. Artists are the myth makers. It is time for us to create the next chapter, to join the energies of Goddess and God. Time for a reconciliation of that which is within and without. The integration of male and female must occur in order to bring balance to the earth and human consciousness. It is necessary for a dialogue to occur so the pain of both may be brought to light and transmuted. Raven and Sedna’s father were acting out of fear, out of their own pain. Both their pain and Sedna’s pain must be brought to light for true transmutation to occur."3

Transmutation is peacemaking in the deepest sense. Alchemically, it means to join that which is seemingly opposite with its polarity in order to "commune", to exchange substance. Where opposites find balance there is generation. Something new is born. It's the "Butterfly effect”, a term often used to mean a paradigm shift toward a new holistic, way of thinking. In The Coming of a New Millennium, Nick Manolukas and Heidi Neale comment that:

“The late great archeologist Marija Gimbutas interpreted the labrys” (found in Minoan art and architecture) “as a butterfly, suggesting it was a symbol of transformation. When we look at a labrys, its symmetry reminds us of balance – the balance between the masculine and feminine spirits which together make up the whole within each of us. We interpret the labrys as a symbol of partnership and peace, which embodies our relationship with each other and with the community of life.”6

RESTORING THE BALANCE was performed April 9th, 2004, at Nations Hall Theatre in Tucson, Arizona. We chose to invoke seven Goddesses - Sedna, and the Tibetan Bodhisattva of compassion White Tara, “She who hears the cries of the world”. Amaterasu, sun goddess of Japan, because, like the Sun, each of us can emerge from the darkness of despair into the radiant light of true potential. The Virgin of Guadalupe, revered throughout the Southwest and Mexico. Selu, Corn Mother, to represent the Great Mother of Native America. And Kali, the Purifier, Mother of those who are yet to come.

We closed with Spiderwoman, who wove a Web with the audience made of biodegradable cords, to symbolize our need to actively weave the Web of all life. Afterwards, members of the Cast took strands of Spiderwoman’s Web to scatter throughout the desert, so the spirit of the "Web of Interconnectedness" could symbolically extend beyond our small community to the world. Documentation, video, and photographs were then sent to a participating group in Cameroon, Africa as part of THE GLOBAL ART PROJECT.