Goddess Mythology

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Goddess Mythology
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Post # 1
Personally myself I feel that Goddess energies are getting stronger towards the start of 2011 and I just thought it would be nice to share some Goddess Mythology.
If anyone wants to add on a story about a particular Goddess please do so :)

I would like to share with you the story of Sedna Inuit Goddess of the Sea.
There are different versions of the story but I have choosen to share this one.


As the legend goes, Sedna was a beautiful Inuit girl who lived with her father. She was very vain and thought she was too beautiful to marry just anyone. Time and time again she turned down hunters who came to her camp wishing to marry her. Finally one day her father said to her "Sedna, we have no food and we will go hungry soon. You need a husband to take care of you, so the next hunter who comes to ask your hand in marriage, you must marry him." Sedna ignored her father and kept brushing her hair as she looked at her reflection in the water.
inuit kayaker Soon her father saw another hunter approaching their camp. The man was dressed elegantly in furs and appeared to be well-to-do even though his face was hidden. Sedna's father spoke to the man. "If you wish to seek a wife I have a beautiful daughter . She can cook and sew and I know she will make a good wife." Under great protest, Sedna was placed aboard of the hunters kayak and journeyed to her new home. Soon they arrived at an island. Sedna looked around. She could see nothing. No sod hut, no tent, just bare rocks and a cliff. The hunter stood before Sedna and as he pulled down his hood, he let out and evil laugh. Sedna's husband was not a man as she had thought but a raven in disguise. She screamed and tried to run, but the bird dragged her to a clearing on the cliff. Sedna's new home was a few tufts of animal hair and feathers strewn about on the hard, cold rock. The only food she had to eat was fish. Her husband, the raven, brought raw fish to her after a day of flying off in search of food.

Sedna was very unhappy and miserable. She cried and cried and called her father's name. Through the howling arctic winds Sedna's father could hear his daughter's cries. He felt guilty for what he had done as he knew she was sad. Sedna's father decided it was time to rescue his daughter. He loaded up his kayak and paddled for days through the frigid arctic waters to his Sedna's home. When he arrived Sedna was standing on the shore. Sedna hugged her father then quickly climbed into his kayak and paddled away. After many hours of travel Sedna turned and saw a black speck far off into the distance. She felt the fear well up inside of her for she knew the speck was her angry husband flying in search of her.
oceanshoreThe big black raven swooped down upon the kayak bobbing on the ocean. Sedna's father took his paddle and struck at the raven but missed as the bird continued to harass them. Finally the raven swooped down near the kayak and flapped his wing upon the ocean. A vicious storm began to brew. The calm arctic ocean soon became a raging torrent tossing the tiny kayak to and fro. Sedna's father became very frightened. He grabbed Sedna and threw her over the side of the kayak into the ocean. "Here, he screamed, here is your precious wife, please do not hurt me, take her."

Sedna screamed and struggled as her body began go numb in the icy arctic waters. She swam to the kayak and reached up, her fingers grasping the side of the boat. Her father, terrified by the raging storm, thought only of himself as he grabbed the paddle and began to pound against Sedna's fingers. Sedna screamed for her father to stop but to no avail. Her frozen fingers cracked and fell into the ocean. Affected by her ghastly husbands powers, Sedna's fingers while sinking to the bottom, turned into seals. Sedna attempted again to swim and cling to her father's kayak. Again he grabbed the paddle and began beating at her hands. Again Sedna's hands, frozen by the arctic sea again cracked off. The stumps began to drift to the bottom of the sea, this time turned into the whales and other large mammals. Sedna could fight no more and began to sink herself.

Sedna, tourmented and raging with anger for what had happened to her, did not perish. She became, and still is today, the goddess of the sea. Sedna's companions are the seals, and the whales that sit with her at the bottom on the ocean. Her anger and fury against man is what drums up the violent seas and storms . Hunters have a great respect for her. Legend has it that they must treat her with respect. Shaman's from the world above must swim down to her to comb her long black tangled hair. This calms Sedna down. Once this is done, she releases her mammals to allow the Inuit to eat from the bounty of the sea. It is for this reason in the north that after a hunter catches a seal he drops water into the mouth of the mammal, a gesture to thank Sedna for her kindness in allowing him to feed his family.

This is the legend of Sedna.

Info from http://www.hvgb.net/~sedna/main.html.


Love and Light


Re: Goddess Mythology
By:
Post # 2
This is very interesting, and horrible at the same time. Still, I'd love to learn more about the goddesses... will you post again soon?

Re: Goddess Mythology
By: / Knowledgeable
Post # 3
Quite the story!
Interesting how so many creations have been made from a human body in so many tales and legends...now all you see is how human is destroying the precious diamonds of this world...

Re: Goddess Mythology
By:
Post # 4
I'll post another story now and again on this thread about different goddess stories when I have the time to search for their stories/legends, the one below is about Pele Hawaiian goddess of volcanos.

Call upon Pele to get in touch with your true passion. to motivate and energize youself to find your hearts true desire.

I forgot to add in this part in the first post for calling upon Sedna...

(Call upon Sedna when in need of plentiful supplies for your family, also for help with any ocean releated ventures and working to protect the sea and the creatures that live within it)

The Story Of Pele by Serge King

Pele is well known as a volcano goddess living in the crater of Kilauea on the island of Hawaii, and for most people that's about it. So here is some background on this famous lady of the isles who is virtually unknown elsewhere in Polynesia.

There are a number of variations in the legends that tell of how Pele first came to the Hawaiian Islands. One of the most common tells that she was one of a family of six daughters and seven sons born to Haumea (a very ancient Earth goddess) and Moemoe (a name having to do with purposeful dreaming). She lived in Kahiki* and longed to travel, so she borrowed a canoe from a brother and came from the northwest with some of her siblings, landing first at Lehua, a small volcanic cone sticking up out of the water just north of Niihau. Another variation says she was chased from her homeland by her angry sister, Namakaokahai, an ocean goddess. Pele's essence is fire and she dug into the island to find a firepit to live in, but was unsuccessful and went on to western Kauai. Traveling along the Na Pali to the north shore she dug again but only found water (at the Wet Caves) and journeyed inland to the very ancient peak now called "Puu ka Pele" (Pele's Hill). Still having no luck she followed the Waimea Canyon to the south side, dug around Poipu for awhile, then went on to Oahu, Molokai, Maui and finally Hawaii where she found a place for her family to live at last in Kilauea. From a research point of view it is quite interesting that her route followed the progression of volcanic activity in geologic time.

Now the tale varies again as to when she fell in love with the mortal Lohiau, a chief of Kauai. One version says she was sleeping in her home at Halemaumau crater on the Big Island and another that she was standing on the Rock of Kauai at the western end of Oahu when she heard the sounds of a hula festival. By astral travel she followed the sounds to Haena on Kauai, saw the handsome chief dancing at a festival, and fell in love (or was aroused by lust). Materializing the form of a beautiful young woman (Pele was a good shaman, able to change into many forms), she entered the dance, captured Lohiau's heart (his name means "retarded", if that has any significance) and lived with him for awhile. Finally she had to return home and promised that she would send for him. That story involves her sister Hi'iaka and we will save that for another article. At any rate, the house site of Lohiau and the remains of the famous hula temple where Pele danced still exist near Haena at Ke'e Beach. We can also note that there is an ancient volcano on Kauai's north shore called Kilauea, the same name as Pele's home on Hawaii. That word can be translated as "energetically spreading vapor (like volcanic gas)" and there are some who think that Kauai's Kilauea was Pele's actual home in the exceedingly distant past. However, that does not correspond to Western geological or anthopological ideas, and it would not make the people of Ka'u on the Big Island very happy.

There are many stories equating Pele's wrath, usually stimulated by jealousy or someone's arrogance, to volcanic eruptions or destructive lava flows. In fact, the Hawaiian word pele means molten lava. However, no human sacrifices were ever made to Pele, just red berries in ancient times and gin or brandy in later days. For Hawaiians, respect, if not worship, for Pele has lasted longer than that for any of the other old gods. Visibly active power has a strong influence on hearts and minds.

There is a modern legend invented by a park ranger on the Big Island which says that Pele will curse people with bad luck if they take rocks home from the islands. The fact is that it is against Federal law to take anything out of a national park and the ranger decided to give the law a little more bite. There is absolutely no Hawaiian tradition relating to Pele's concern about rocks. There is one legend from the black sand beach of Punalu'u west of Kilauea that says there are male rocks and female rocks there that give birth to baby pebbles, and that if you take a rock from there another rock will not be able to make babies and the beach will eventually disappear. The ranger's version was probably based on this one, although it has no curse attached to it. This made-up myth about Pele's bad-luck curse has caused many hundreds of guilty people or those having bad luck to mail hundreds of tons of rocks - and even sand - back to the islands every year.

*"Kahiki" is commonly thought to be a Hawaiian variation of Tahiti, but the word actually means any place out of sight. That could be over the horizon, in outer space, or in the spirit world. Early Hawaiian authors used it in all of those ways.

(Source of info http://www.sergeking.com/HAM/pele.html)


Love and Light

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