New Myths for Restoring the Waters

Spider the Creatrix, North America, C. 1300 C.E.

From keynote speech at The Association for the Study of Women and Mythology Conference, Crowne Plaza, Syracuse, New York, May 5-6, 2023

Reweaving the Web of Life: New Myths for Restoring the Waters and Ourselves shows the importance of mythology in reestablishing kinship amongst humans and with non-humans for our planet to survive and how, inspired by our actions in this time of the Great Turning, our lives can become the myths for our descendants.

The recounting from my book, The Heart of the Goddess, of an Inuit shaman journeying to visit the Sea Goddess Sedna illustrates the direct and powerful way many indigenous cultures use myth to ensure environmental survival and spiritual practices to regain equilibrium. We can use such stories as inspiration to create new myths and new ways of being, not just looking to the past.

I weave indigenous wisdom and mythology from around the world with my story of founding, in 2010, All One Ocean to highlight the urgency of learning about ocean plastics. My story is a part of our new mythology, one in which we work to decolonize our minds, bodies and souls and take action to reweave the fraying web of life.

I have long imagined that we will each be diligently doing our work in this reweaving, sometimes unaware of one another. My vision is that eventually we will all meet in the center and turn around and see one another and the web of life that has been rewoven. It will look different than it originally did but it will be strong and vibrant—future myths for our descendants looking back at this critical time.