Sedna Rises

Lily Michaud, Sedna, 42” x 52” quilt (toddler size), velvet, silk, synthetics, sequins, gemstones, pearls, glass, 2026

Quilted with Sedna’s story:

“My husband was an evil raven in disguise

I escaped by kayak with my father’s help.

he threw me overboard to escape my husband

I grabbed the kayak he cut off my fingers

A storm came I fell through the water

My fingers became sea creatures

the Storm goddess

my lover

We live opulently

in the depths Play nice we can nourish or kill

Close up of the raven that, what was once Sedna’s finger, now, as an octopus, consumes.

Close up of the octopus’s eye.

For years, when I heard Sedna’s story, it ended with her fingers and hands being chopped off and her falling to the bottom of the sea. It was bleak! While meditating with Octopus, I was asked “What was the purpose of that myth?” It is the Inuit myth for the origin of all sea creatures. They are all magnificently regenerative. If not regrowing limbs or healing quickly, they are making pearls. What better guidance for fully living after surviving abuse and attempted murder? Now Sedna and the Storm goddess are prayed to, will the fisher folk survive through storms, will they have enough catch?

Sedna’s afterlife quilt (a life, very much alive under the sea) is in the works. :)