Sedna

SEDNA

RULERSHIPS

None

DETRIMENTS

None

KEYWORDS

Endurance

The Kuiper Belt object Sedna was discovered in November 2003 and officially named on March 15, 2004, although its status as another 'dwarf planet,' like Eris, MakeMake and Haumea, has yet to be determined. It is comparable in size to Pluto, only slightly smaller, and when it is closest to the earth it is only about twice as far away from the Sun as Pluto, but its orbit is so eccentric that it can range to distances much farther out. The orbital period of Sedna is likely to be well over 10,000 years. This contrasts with 240 years for Pluto, slightly more for MakeMake and Haumea, and 556 years for Eris, making these far more amenable for astrological work. The mythology of Sedna provides clues to its astrological meaning. In Inuit myth, Sedna was the daughter of a man who cared for her but who ultimately abandoned her. She was very beautiful, but remained unsatisfied with available suitors and her frustrated father then allowed his dog to mate with her, giving rise to the races of animals and men. Later he suffered remorse and the dog was drowned. She was then affianced to a handsome man who proved to be a nature god called 'raven man' with no warm hearth to offer her and from whom she needed rescue. Her father first rescued her by kayak and then consigned her to the waves under attack from the raven man, who whipped the seas into froth with his power. The father even famously cut off her fingers to prevent her return to the boat, and her severed fingers became the creatures of the sea: seals, dolphins and whales. Although her children populated the earth, Sedna remained in anger on the bottom of the sea. The great distance and remoteness of the physical body of Sedna is reflected in the nature of her story and of the Inuit peoples themselves, who dwell so far from the comfort of the temperate zone. In this creation myth we see a theme of the natural world in contrast with the human, and of betrayal and abandonment especially of the feminine by the masculine. This may well inform the astrological symbolism of Sedna in natal charts as we better come to understand it.