Astrology Explored

October 5, 2007

Astrology for October 5 through October 11, 2007

Beyond Pluto is a wonky little planetoid named for the Inuit Goddess of the Sea. Sedna’s myth is a sad tale of loss, betrayal and transmutation.

In this tale Sedna is a beautiful Inuit maiden, living with her father, who allows her to do anything she pleases. This is an important aspect of the story, as Sedna’s father irresponsibly avoids teaching Sedna any values. As a result, Sedna develops into a self absorbed young woman who refuses all offers of marriage. At a certain point, Sedna’s father decided he could not longer afford to feed himself and Sedna, and decides she should marry.

Because Sedna had turned away all the potential suitors in her village she was forced to look elsewhere for a future husband. A suitor came to her village dressed in beautiful furs and proposed to Sedna. Though she didn’t see his face, she was impressed by the richness of his furs and accepted his offer. They were married. Sedna’s husband took her far from her village to her new home. Sedna was expecting a fine and comfortable hut, but instead was taken to a barren rock of an island to a nest lined with feathers. It was only then did Sedna see her husband’s face and she found to her horror that she married a demon bird.

Sedna’s husband left her alone for days at a time while he was hunting and when he came back only brought her fish to eat. Sedna was so unhappy she spent many hours crying.

Meanwhile, Sedna’s father started a search for Sedna and eventually found his daughter on the barren rock, miserable and lonely. When he heard about the true identity of Sedna’s husband, he agreed to take her back to their village. However, when Sedna’s husband found his wife missing, he hunted for her and found her while Sedna and her father were on the ocean. Sedna’s husband viciously attacks the father, threatening his life. Sedna’s father becomes very frightened and dumps his daughter overboard in the icy Arctic waters.

Sedna clings for her life to her father’s boat while he desperately tries to pry her fingers off. When he could not, he began cutting her fingers off at the joints, until she could no longer hold onto the boat and she slides into the ocean and drowns.

The thirty pieces of Sedna’s fingers transmuted into new sea creatures, the seals, walruses and whales, who the Inuit came to rely on for food. Sedna herself become immortal, with dominion over the new creatures and the sea in which she dwells. She demands attention from humans in the form of offerings and prayers, and when she feels humans ignore her she keeps the seals, walruses and whales away from the hunting grounds. Only when a shaman visits her and pays attention to her will she allow the sea creatures to be hunted again.

Sedna is a story of a wounded goddess. Though astrologers are still sorting through the meaning of Sedna in a your chart, my interpretation is this. Sedna is the place where our parents fail us. They fail to teach us, either because of their own flaws or lack of knowledge or inattention to our needs how to navigate that area successfully. It is the place where because we lack a base of knowledge to work from, we are blind. We can not put into perspective the issues Sedna touches off in our chart. With work, we can transmute our understanding of this area, but it will always be a place where we experience loss and betrayal.

Here is an example of a Sedna story. The individual’s Sedna is in Aries, intercepted in the eleventh house. Sedna also squares natal Mars in Capricorn denoting male withholding of financial resources. This woman’s personal history is marked with emotionally scarred relationships with both parents. The father is totally self absorbed. When in desperate financial need, this individual called upon her financially well off father for help, he traveled from Florida to Connecticut to “see what was happening.� Upon arrival, he asked to meet her friends and the woman gathered them together only to find that he used this opportunity to pitch his business to them! He then declared that he thought his daughter was doing well enough and declined to offer any financial help even though her car was repossessed that very week.

At the time of the incident with her father, transiting Sedna squared natal Jupiter and transiting Mars.

This individual mirrors this behavior. Even though she is intelligent, charming and verbally engaging, there is a lack of empathy in her relations with others. Her relationships with men are distorted, not being able to discern whether a man is truly physically or emotionally available for a relationship. Currently, though she has established an long term relationship with a financially secure man, he is reluctant to share his financial resources through marriage. In fact, the focus of this relationship is for his considerable emotional needs to be met and when they aren’t, he threatens to leave her.

Where Sedna is, we are blind. Because critical information was not imparted to us as children, we can not put into perspective the issues Sedna touches off in our chart. Only with work, and possibly with a good therapist, can we transmute our understanding of this area.

To check out where Sedna is in your chart, here is an ephemeris.

For more about a slightly different view of Sedna and astrology check Karma Astrology

Carving of Sedna from Inuit Art of Canada.

Bob Betzen of Radical Avenue talks about abuse and parental failure in this post

For the Upcoming Week:

Gemini and Aries, you just aren’t understanding why you can’t get your own way. Its because the Universe wants more cooperation, less bluster, that’s why.

Sagittarius, Libra, Leo, everything feels like a party this week and for you it is. Smile for the camera.

Aquarius, you can strike out on your own without alienating others. What a relief! People are actually acting like they like you again.

Virgo and Cancer and Taurus, someone has to take care of the day by day. Lucky for us, you like doing it.

Scorpio, aren’t you chatty lately? Weird, isn’t it.

Capricorn and Pisces, you think you can, but you shouldn’t. Enough said.

astrology, horoscopes, zodiac, Sedna, Inuit Mythology