Yemaya and New Year

Around the first Full Moon of the year the Temple of the Dark Moon together The Goddess House will be hosting the annual "Blessing of the Waters" at Grange Beach, Adelaide.  This event is dedicated to the Africo-Carribean Mami Wata, the "Mother of the Waters", commonly known as Yemaya. 
 

Yemaya, or Ymoja as she was known to the Yoruban people of West Africa, was the Mother of the Ogun River. This is because she was said to have given birth to the world's waters ... and that new springs would appear whenever she turned over in her sleep, and springs would gush forth whenever she walked.

The Djanggawul Sisters

A Haiku by Luthiena o Lorien

Endlessly pregnant,

Produced the world's first sacred,

Holy artifacts

According to the Aboriginal people of north eastern Amhem Land, the human race evolved from three great ancestorial beings, known as Djanggawul and his two sisters: Bildiwuwiju (or Bildjiwuraru), the elder sister who had many children; and Muralaidj (or Miralaidj), who had just reached puberty.  Together, they lived on an island known as Baralku, the island of the dead.

One day they decided to load up their canoe with sacred objects and emblems (which they kept in a conical mat basket) and travel to Australia.  They landed on the Arnhem Land coast at a place called Yelanghara beach near Port Bradshaw.   When Djanggawul plunged his mawalan (walking stick) into the sand, a freshwater spring formed.  The stick then grew into a she-oak tree.