Tavvauvusi: The Shaman’s Vision — The Icarus Writing Collective

By Shelly Jones

Once we dreamed of ravens swallowing the sky, their black feathers crystallizing, molting ice. This was a time of prosperity: the nanuq fat, roaming the floes; the nattiq barking from their glacial homes.

But now we dream of weasels, their whiskers twitching, troubles surfacing from below.

In search of answers, we travel beneath the ice, journeying to Sedna’s sacred realm. We comb the goddess’s hair, skimming crustaceans and sea slugs from her black wave. We wash her feet with sand, dead skin sloughing to the bottom of the ocean floor before blossoming into sea lilies.

Sated, the goddess nods and we begin our supplication. We open our minds to the islands, let them speak through us in a language lost eons ago. We feel the islands weep as they sink further into the sea, their voices drowning, garbled, soon: silent. A few have already been lost, sinking beneath the water, unable to staunch the rising tides.

The goddess smiles pitifully, extends her hands, fingers shorn, empty.

We begin our journey back from the depths, our hearts studded with frosty disillusion. Our eyes flutter open and we watch another atoll slip beneath the surface forever.

We say to you here: the islands seek our strength, to keep them alive in our memories, in the stories we pass down, their names melting on our tongue like snow. Do not let them disappear as easily as our breath, as fleeting as the sky’s dancing lights.

Tavvauvusi, the islands weep goodbye to us all.

Shelly Jones (they/them) is a professor at a small college in upstate New York, where they teach classes in mythology, folklore, and writing. Their speculative work has been published by F&SF, Apex, The Future Fire, and elsewhere. Find them on Twitter @shellyjansen or at shellyjonesphd.wordpress.com.