January Full Moon Altar: Yemaya

This month's full moon altar honours Yemaya, Goddess of the New Year.  Originally an oceanic creator goddess of the Yoruba people in West Africa, the slave trade resulted in Yemaya's transformation into a Caribbean and Brazilian deity. Because her enslaved people were punished for practising their own culture or spirituality, Yemaya's worship became "coded" in the New World for people's own protection. In the secretly-practised Santeria and Voudou religions, Yemaya was always presented as a mermaid, a familiar European symbol which raised no suspicions among the white overlords. Yemaya's name became simply "The Mermaid" in English-speaking colonies or "La Sirène" in French-speaking ones. She was an undercover goddess operating beneath the radar of an oppressive and racist colonial system.

Yemaya's connection to the New Year stems from a ritual still practised today in Brazil. On New Year's Eve, people build altars of sand on the seashore at night, on which they place small candles, shells, flowers, food offerings and a paper scroll asking the Goddess for a special blessing or favour in the upcoming year. The tide on New Year's Day comes in and then goes out again, carrying all their offerings and requests to The Mermaid.

My altar represents Yemaya the Mermaid lounging on a sandy beach, surrounded by a blue ocean altar cloth, a plumeria blossom, goddess stones, a large mother-of-pearl seashell and two martini glasses full of small seashells, sea glass and tea light candles.

My handcrafted terra cotta Mermaid comes from the island of Cozumel off the coast of the Mexican Riviera near Cancun, which we visited about 20 years ago. The plumeria blossom is a wooden hair barrette from Maui. I found the large mother-of-pearl seashell in a Winnipeg curio shop about 30 years ago. I loved it then and I love it now! You can see how the iridescent mother-of-pearl was laid down by the mollusk in small circular increments from the centre of the spiral outwards. Over the years as the mollusk and its shell grew larger, the spaces became filled in as one solid swirl.

[Photos © Debra She Who Seeks, January 2022]