“Comb my hair.”
Touch the comb. Go down gently.
Tellings differ among Inuit peoples, and the story is not a toy. In a widely shared public version, Sedna is betrayed: by a husband who is not what he seemed, by a father in a storm, and as she grips the kayak her fingers are chopped. They fall into the water and become seals, whales, the food of the people. She sinks and becomes a being whose tangled hair, if neglected, withholds the animals.
Shamans in traditional practice go down to comb her. Relationship with the source of life requires tending, not only taking.
Inspect
INTERPRETATION
Sedna is the wound that became a world. What was cut from you may now be feeding others. The tangled hair is neglected grief. You cannot bully the sea mother. You can go down, gently, and comb.
The shadow
The knife worshipped instead of the wound. Food taken, hair uncombed.
Four lookings
Campbell
What betrayal are you still calling the weather?
von Franz
Whose hair, including yours, has gone uncombed while everyone waited for food?
Hillman
If the creatures of your life come from a wound, how will you honor the wound without worshipping the knife?
Coelho
What would it mean to go down, gently, and comb, as a looking not a rescue?