07/24/2022
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Yemoja represents the creative force of the unconscious, the secret depths that bring the unseen into the physical realm. The African Goddess Yemoja gave birth to all of the 14 gods and goddesses in the Yoruba religion. She is caring and nurturing and yet also fiercely protective and strong with a desire to relieve her children of any struggles or sorrows.
She is worshipped at the ocean, or in any flowing body of water, though it is said that her true home is the Ogun River in Nigeria. She is considered to be a mermaid, whose energy, blessings, and power flows through all forms of water. Cleansing, renewing, inspiring, and reminding us of the limitless love we are. In Brazil and Uruguay, she is offered succulent food and gifts on tiny boats cast out to the sea from the beaches. Her worshippers ask her to give them her blessings so that their desires in the New Year can manifest. She is the queen of the ocean, and ruler of the subconscious, and the creative force that allows us to translate the ineffable into art. As the mother of all, she is the energy that brings new life into this world.
When your soul selects her card:
Yemoja creates a flow where before there was a block, or a stagnation in our life force. When we feel uninspired, or stuck in life or in a creative endeavor – from having a child to writing a book– Yemoja is the feminine essence that sets our energy back in motion. As a mermaid, she exists both in the world and also in the unseen depths. She can help us dive down deep into the unconscious or into the collective unconscious and retrieve the hidden secrets, or the wise pearls that we need to integrate now for our life to flow again.
As the queen of the ocean, she baptizes us to start over, to begin again right now, to let everything become brand new. She encourages us to use water as a ritual to send out our offerings to her, to bless our bodies in a warm bath, or to walk along a body of water and allow it’s perspective to give us the answer or blessing we seek. Yemoja wants to cleanse us of the thoughts that are holding us back. Why do children calm down after a bath? Why do we feel healed, and more centered after a nice long soak? Water is the element that held us in the womb. The return to our first most primal element, the loss of gravity, the freedom of buoyancy, this allows us to release feelings or thoughts of being trapped or stuck. Yemoja reminds you to use your tail; you are not of this earth. You are of the sea.
- Excerpted from “The Divine Feminine Oracle” by Meggan Watterson
Illustrated by Lisbeth Cheever-Gessaman
“Yemoja”
Mixed Media
2017