27/07/2026
Sedna — Goddess of the Deep (Soon available at my exhibition 8-18th August, Glastonbury Galleries)
Sedna is the Inuit goddess of the sea, keeper of the deep oceans and mother of the marine animals.
Her story is one of betrayal, descent, transformation, and ultimately sacred power.
Long ago, Sedna was a young woman who lived with her father in the Arctic North. Many sought her hand, but she refused all suitors, sensing they were not what they seemed. Eventually she was lured away by a mysterious stranger who promised abundance and beauty. But when she arrived at his island, she discovered he was not a man at all, but a spirit in disguise.
Lonely and afraid, Sedna cried out for her father to rescue her. He came by kayak and carried her away across the freezing sea. But the spirit unleashed a terrible storm, and in fear for his own life, Sedna’s father cast her into the ocean.
As she clung desperately to the side of the boat, he cut off her fingers one by one. As they fell into the sea, they transformed into whales, seals, walruses and all the creatures of the deep.
Sedna sank beneath the waves, but she was not destroyed, she was transformed.
There, in the cold dark depths, she became the great Sea Mother: sovereign of the underwater realms, guardian of intuition, grief, instinct, and the ancient wisdom carried in the body and soul. She sits with us in our grief and when we are betrayed, holding space as only one who has experienced it can.
In Inuit tradition, shamans journey to Sedna when the world falls out of balance. They comb her tangled hair, soothe her sorrow, and restore harmony between humans and nature.
Sedna teaches that our deepest wounds can become sources of power.
That what is abandoned and cruelly discarded may become sacred.
And that beneath grief lies an immense, untamed wisdom, if we can allow ourselves to go into the cold shadows of the deep. There we will find our warmth again, like Sedna, who became mother of the beautiful sea mammals.
