III — The Empress/ Sedna
The Empress
… the might of an empire … primal creativity … the combination of divine law and inspiration …
There are several ways of looking at this card. A popular view holds that she is the consort of the Emperor. Here she plays the role of the Other Half of the Male Principal and combined the two of them make up one Whole. Whereas the testosterone-driven Male (think Mars, Odin or Ares) is war-like and aggressive, the peaceful Female (Venus, the May Queen or Aphrodite) is fertile and creative. The downside to this approach is that the Empress cannot stand on her own as an individual. Furthermore she is rendered into some sort of passive über-baby machine, fit only for endless cycles of procreation. The Empress is not, I believe, a sexual workhorse shackled to a patriarchal slave master. We must think outside the box.
A different way of looking is to go back to what she once was before modern scholars and critics began to tinker with the symbolism of the card. Currently, in the Rider-Waite deck, a tall, blond woman sits in a field of grain by a flowing waterfall. In one hand she carries a scepter and the other a shield with the female emblem rooted on its front. On her head is a twelve-pointed crown. Like the High Priestess' slow transformation from a female pope into her current form, the Empress at one time bore the trappings of the head of the Holy Roman Empire and signified the inherent power of Female divine law. That those symbols no longer remain in the card's artwork, replaced instead by defused and obscure imagery (the field of wheat, the waterfall, etcetera, all pregnant depictions), is unfortunate. This simultaneously strips the card of any cultural and religious authority it might have once held and illustrates our petty understanding of what, exactly, is the role of the Mother in this day and age.
There is more to being an Universal Mother than simply bringing forth the next generation. The Empress is the archetype of the Matriarch. Matriarchy, I think, is a concept not fully understood in the West.1 As the goddess's birthright, the riot grrl's call-to-arms, the Empress comes to eminence not passively but due to her prerogative. Those who tap into this authority must be self-possessed else they become consumed by the dark side of all power; vanity, corruption, greed. When the High Priestess returns with secrets untold, this is what she brings back from the shadow lands. As the once ruler of the mightiest empire on Earth, the Empress can show both savagery or benevolence, bring forth life or destroy it. It is our choice as how we will use that power that is important. That is the role of this card.
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The Card
Far below the surface of a raging ocean, in the land of Adlivun where the drowned go, a shaman is combing the long hair of a terribly scarred woman. From the continual blood flowing from her severed hands all manner of sea creatures billow forth. Similar to Odin's role as the All-Father, this is Sedna, the Inuit All-Mother; the supreme deity.
Sedna is the goddess of all the oceans and the creatures in it. As the controller of destinies, she can curse her people with "sickness, bad weather and starvation if taboos are broken. If observed, animals are plentiful. As the ruler of Adlivum … she is [also] called Idliragijenget" (Leach, 394); as well as, "Ai-willi-ay-o, Arnaknagsak, Arnarquagssaq, Avilayog, Nerivik, Nerrivik" (Coulter, 417). There are two different stories as to how Sedna came to be. One depicts her as a ghoulish titan, gnawing on her parent's legs. They throw her into the ocean where she becomes the ill-tempered personification of winter storms. In another:
Sedna was a beautiful young girl who refused all suitors until Seabird came along. She went to live with him in his nest, but when her father came to visit he was horrified at the filth and took Sedna away. The bird people followed them and the sea began to rise and a storm overtook them. To calm the water, Sedna's father threw his daughter out of the kayak. She clung to the boat. Three times he chopped at his daughter's hands until she finally let go and sank to the ocean's bottom. The pieces of her hands became sea animals. (Ann, 386)
Within this particular motif there are many versions and departures. Some focus on Sedna's father. In one version it is the fear of drowning that prompts the sacrifice of his daughter. "And so terror made the father do what he thought he never could … She belonged to the sea — why would she not surrender? … Why, thought the father, couldn't she just go ahead and drown?" (Ferguson, 87 - 89). Other versions focus on the jilted Seabird Husband; he is Arctic Loon (Yolen, 106), Petrel (Ferguson, 87) Raven (Andrews, 175). Sometimes Sedna's husband calls on other gods for aide. Even though he keeps her with him against her will, the sea gods summon up a wild storm because "[they] were angry that Sedna had betrayed her husband" (Yolen, 106). Whatever the case, Sedna is cast into the ocean and her fingers cut from her. It is from her severed fingers we get seals, whales, sharks; in short, all marine life is attributed to her.
It is the role of the Inuit Shaman, or "angakok, to visit the Mother of the Sea Beasts … Only his spirit makes the journey; his physical body remains behind, bound with ropes to prevent it from disappearing, too … In her anguish over the wrongdoings of people, the Sea Mother has become dirty and unkempt and she has penned up the sea mammals … [the] angakok's task is to comb her hair while trying to persuade her to release the imprisoned creatures. When he succeeds, the spectators back on earth hear the animals moving out into the water and see the shaman 'surface' from the sea, gasping for breath" (Ferguson, 88).
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The Empress/ Sedna in a Reading
If Sedna honors your reading, be aware of how you cultivate, nurture, attend to your world. "To mother" something or someone has taken on more than one meaning; however, we must move on beyond modern, dark cynicism and examine what it means to employ our endless ecstasy, joie de vivre, inspirations. It is not enough to be fertile, the Empress must know how to engage her divinity for her own uses and for others. All creativity is a form of power. How do you use yours? Regardless of your gender, what do you do with your riot grrl muscle? Stage a revolution? The Empress is both laureate and judge, mother superior and sovereign of her empire. What will you allow in yours? Whose energies are you willing to deal with? It is no small thing to find other people using your creativity for their own ends. However, when the Empress is reversed we find just that; a frivolous use of your power. Is someone playing on your self-serving interests? Are you indeed a passive baby-machine, expending power without thinking why or to what end? Do not use the verb "to mother" in its dark form; to extinguish, to silence, to smother. As Sedna has the responsibilities to care for all the sea creatures in her realm, be kind but but know your own soul. In other words, do no harm with your prerogative.
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– Little man, work that comb. This lice shall vex
me. — My! Great Mother, your sea flows darkly
tonight. All I see are millions of specks
of far-flung suns, shimmering like algae
in your hair. — No, little man, my bloody
stumps flow and what you mistake as dark suns
are my seals, my sharks. I bleed up the sea!
I bleed eels and red kelp. I bleed dolphins
and, ouch! — O! Forgive me! You have dozens
of snags, Great Mother. — Sad, little man, did
you come to vex me or beg the ocean's
body made flesh? You know I forbid
you from my green darkness? — Mother, I know,
it is the source of our people's sorrow.
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Works Cited
Andrews, Tamra. A Dictionary of Nature Myths. New York: Oxford University Press. (1998)
Ann, Martha and Dorothy Myers Imel. Goddesses in World Mythology. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO. (1993)
Coulter, Charles Russell and Patricia Turner. Encyclopedia of Ancient Deities. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland. (2000)
Ferguson, Diana. Native American Myths. Consultant: Colin Taylor. London: Collins & Brown. (2001)
Leach, Marjorie. Guide to the Gods. Edited by Michael Owen Jones, Frances Cattermole-Tally. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO. (1992)
Norman, Howard (ed.) Northern Tales: traditional stories of Eskimo and Indian peoples. New York: Pantheon Books. (1990)
Yolen, Jane (ed.) Favorite Folktales from Around the World. New York: Pantheon Books. (1988)
- Matriarchy, like patriarchy, is simply a system and like all systems they have flaws and errors. If we all have the divine Fe/male inside ourselves, why is it in the West we do not respect both? Why is it that only one side is roughly honored while the other vilified? If you do believe in duality, then the Empress is our Female Principal, separated from the Whole forever. Really, who would want that? I find it one of the main problems with duality. [back]