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.
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.
There are eight earth centric festivals that make up the "Wheel of the Year" which celebrate the journey through the seasons.
In Dancing the Sacred Wheel: A Journey through the Southern Sabbats, the author take the reader on a journey through this seasonal Wheel. Incorporating traditional Pagan myth and folklore, history with ritual, the author also shares her own personal experience in developing an underlying relationship to her local environment.
By looking deeper at our own spiritual practices in order to re-connect with the land on which we reside, we are able to gain a greater level of knowledge and understanding in order to celebrate the "Wheel of the year". Dancing the Sacred Wheel: A Journey through the Southern Sabbats provides invaluable ideas on how we are able to achieve this.
Exhortation of Isis
You are She in the dust of whose feet is the hosts of Heaven,
Whose body encircles the Universe,
Who turns the Earth in its orb,
Who gives light to the Sun,
Who rules the World.
You tread death underfoot.
To Thee, the stars are responsive,
To Thee the seasons turn and the Gods rejoice
And the elements are in subjugation.
You are She that is the natural Mother of all things,
Mistress and governor of all elements,
The initial progeny of worlds,
Chief of Divine powers,
Queen of Heaven,
Principle of all the Gods celestial and the light of Goddesses.
At Your will are disposed the planets of the air,
The wholesome winds of the seas
And the silences of the unseen world.
