This article is from my monthly column in Supernal Magazine, May/June 2023 edition
Themes around healing the betrayed and abandoned aspects of the feminine are now rising with the increasing astrological presence of dwarf planet Sedna, named after the Inuit goddess of the sea ruined by her father and husband.
When icy Sedna - one of the farthest objects in our solar system from the sun - makes aspects to major planets, changes signs or moves closer to Earth her energies rise in consciousness as we seek revivification.
Sedna is now in a trine – a full faucet gush of energy - to transformational Pluto, a rare aspect which began in 2022 and continues through 2024 as it pushes us into the seas of self to address what lies beneath.
Myth of Sedna
There are variations of the myth of Sedna told across Inuit culture.
A common one is that Sedna resisted marriage, but eventually wed a man who said he would provide generously on his Arctic island. Turned out he was a trickster who deprived and abused her, and when her father found out he came to bring her back.
As they canoed home, the husband’s wrath raised a storm and Sedna’s father threw her overboard in fear the boat would be swamped. When she tried to climb back in, he cut off her fingers and she sank in the icy water, her fingers becoming the creatures of the sea.
After physical death, her angry and grief-stricken spirit lived at the dark bottom of the ocean.
Without fingers, she could not provide for or help herself, unable even to comb her hair.
When sea food was scarce in Inuit cultures it was believed to be Sedna’s will, and the most fearless and powerful shamans would descend through horrifying places in consciousness to find and soothe her by gently combing her hair.
If utmost tenderness was applied, she might release food to hunters. If not, she was dangerous to the shaman and the hungry people. This represents the love, respect and fearlessness with which the wounded feminine must be approached in order to engage her in healing.
What she offers
Water is the element associated with emotions, especially with cleansing, forgiving and healing.
In Sedna’s case, we must thaw then manage the waters of emotion around betrayal, rejection and disempowerment of the feminine energy relating to the father-daughter and husband-wife wound and more generally, the shadow patriarchal wounds we carry.
These were inflicted by those we trusted to love or at least support us, but instead stripped us of the self-worth, skills and opportunities needed to find and express our potential, and even protect and care for ourselves at basic levels.
With naivety we once looked up to these betrayers, who could be those we have personal relationships with through to organisational and cultural expressions.
Sedna’s empowerment
Sedna’s experience led her to awaken her power, including finding forgiveness and even gratitude for what brought her to a deepened knowing of her greatness.
She shows how we can rise to create new life from wounded places in the way her severed fingers formed sea creatures as creative expressions. Being effectively knee-capped can be a catalyst for our next-level creative growth, serving to draw out our destiny as a service to the world.
Come closer
As one of the furthest planets from our sun, Sedna has an orbit of 11,400 years and thus stays in an astrological sign for decades.
Sedna has been in earthy Taurus since June 1966, and after 57 years will move into airy Gemini on 16 June 2023 for around four decades.
Sedna in Taurus helps us find our values and self-worth, including developing skills to support ourselves, our communities and the Earth. In Gemini, she will help us come up for air and refresh our thinking and how we share information and ideas, bringing what's been stuck into the light of day to be reframed.
Atlantis
The last time Sedna was closest to Earth was 11,400 years ago, right around the time many believe Atlantis sank and humanity plunged into a cycle of separation.
Sedna will next return to her closest point in 50 years, which we can consider part of the current era on Earth that coincides with our rise into unity in the galactic cycle shown in the Grand Precessional Cross, developed by the late astronomer and astrologer Nick Anthony Fiorenza.
It sees us fall into separation before we inevitably rise again, unified, taking all we learned from the creative contrast of light and dark. In doing so, consciousness evolves.
Sedna’s presence close to key fall and rise points in this starry cycle can be seen as bringing us full circle in her particular flavour of evolutionary growth.
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