Synkroniciti is excited to welcome back Canadian poet and photographer Katharine Weinmann, with a gorgeous poem and photography pairing, Sedna’s Sea. Sedna is the Inuit goddess of the dead, presiding over a kingdom at the bottom of the sea. When she was a maiden, she eloped with a sea bird to an awful, smelly nest and a life of slavery. She appealed to her father, who rescued her, but as the sea birds surrounded their boat, he threw her into the water to appease them. When Sedna tried to climb back into the boat, her father cut off her fingers, then her hands. Sinking into the water, her severed appendages and body became sea animals and she gained power over the cold, stormy sea. During times of privation, Inuit shamans descend into the depths to appease Sedna. It’s a violent myth, but it is also an acknowledgement of the travails of woman in a forbidding and inhospitable world.
Katharine’s incredible photo shows us an iceberg which resembles one of Sedna’s severed hands with its sundered digits. Her beautifully alliterative and musical poem further explores this icy, magical landscape, sending a prayer down into the waters to begin a new season. In response, “from her frigid depths, crystalline shards of shadow/ float to the surface while sea lion, narwhal and walrus/ swim unperturbed by the phosphorescence/ in darkness revealed.” In times of upheaval, our souls descend into the depths to experience a sea change into something new. Women find that mermaid self that is able to swim in dark waters.
Experience Sedna’s Sea in our September 1st issue, “Broken,” available for purchase here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
Katharine Weinmann is a seeker whose reading of poets and philosophers shapes the container from which her words and images emerge, revealing beauty in her imperfect, sometimes broken, mostly well-lived and much loved life. An intrepid traveler who enjoys sharing good food and fine wine with family and friends anytime, any place, Katharine loves to concoct one-off “silk purse” meals from kitchen leftovers. A published poet and award-winning photographer, she blogs at A Wabi Sabi Life and is co-editor of the online quarterly, Sage-ing: The Journal of Creative Aging.
Katharine lives with her husband and their beloved Annie dog on the Canadian prairies, but her heart is most at home on the mighty Niagara River, or in Italy. Che bello!