“Yemanjá, our mother, pity us and help us. For though the earth is great, your strength is even greater.”
– traditional New Year’s prayer to Yemanjá, the Umbanda divinity of the sea, mother of waters, hurricanes, typhoons, tsunamis, and savior from drought –
Offering to Yemanjá: Our Water
Yemanjá, you are within us as the waters and salts of our bodies, and we are within you as the personification of life; Please, we ask not that you forgive our abuse – the greed and piracy that have always exploited you, raped your depths, and murdered the creatures sustained by you alone – rather we ask that you inspire us to a better way to live with you, in use of you, without abuse of you. We ask not that you withhold your justified rage, but that you use it to destroy our delusions of superiority to nature and compel recognition of ourselves as part of nature, despite the vanity and pride in our human nature. Please refill our rivers and lakes with waters of the same pristine clarity as the human mind in its choice of wisdom over waste; end the droughts of the world that are metaphorical manifestations of the withering of the human spirit amidst the stresses of worldly life and the confusion of progress; purify that which we drink so that human life in its totality may be enduringly nourished; quench our thirst by refilling our hearts so that we may again drink of the beauty of your truth that is primeval within us, though we forget. Yemanjá, have mercy on us; bathe us in your compassion as vast as your realm, as infinite as your tides; bestow your waves as breakers of ignorance and offenseand return to our consciousness the humility of our souls as our tears return to you as their source.
– Mary Jo Magar –