There is a myth within Inuit folklore that speaks to something many of us may recognise.
It is the story of Sedna – a story of trust, deception, and betrayal, and what happens when what we have known as safety is no longer what we believed it to be.
In some versions of the story, the Bird King comes to Sedna in disguise, appearing as a man, and asks for her hand in marriage. She follows him, trusting what she sees, leaving behind what she has known.
This kind of openness may be described by some as naïve. Yet what is being named here is not foolishness, but a more unguarded way of being. A willingness to trust and meet another without defence.
However, Sedna soon realises she has been deceived. What she has trusted is not as it first appeared. Sedna cries out to her father, asking to be brought home.
Her father comes for her in a boat, and for a moment there is the possibility of returning home, a hope that what has gone wrong may be restored. But as they attempt to leave, driven by rage at being abandoned, the Bird King creates a storm, and the sea becomes a place of fury.
In the midst of this, her father is unable to remain with what is arising within him. Faced with fear for his own life, he acts to save himself, sacrificing his daughter by throwing her overboard.
In this moment, Sedna experiences the shock of betrayal.
She reaches for the boat and tries to hold on. One by one, her father cuts off her fingers. With each attempt to hold on, something is severed.
There is something in this image that many of us may recognise. The experience of trying to hold on, even when it is painful to do so.
We may feel confused or disorientated and question what is happening. Is it really as it seems?
We may feel grief, anger, fear, and loss all moving at once. And eventually, the pressure builds to a point where we can no longer hold on, and we realise we have to let go.
Sedna is now alone in the water, waves crashing around her, trying to catch her breath.
We may recognise something of this — the kind of soul-wrenching pain of betrayal that feels as though it may never end.
There may be moments where we come up for air, only for the next wave to follow.
Over time, the storm begins to pass. The waters become still.
There is a different quality here. A quiet that was not felt before.
There is less holding on. Something has already given way.
In the myth, Sedna sinks to the bottom of the ocean.
It is here that something transforms. Where what has been severed becomes something else. Her fingers, cut away in the struggle to hold on, become the creatures of the sea.
In some tellings of the myth, Sedna remains at the bottom of the ocean. From this place, she becomes the source of life, sustaining those who depend upon it.
In our own way, something can shift here too.
Not in the removal of what has been felt, but in how we come to be with it.
By Serena Maren
