Mother Africa, Mother Spirit
Our Mother-Sea-Change of consciousness returns us to Africa ...
and the whole world of divine cultural ancestry!
World Spirit Transmission to Cyberspace, A West African story ...
"Yemanja is the true and pure symbol of motherhood. She is the Spirit of Abundance. Yemanja brings wealth and good fortune to her children, especially those who come to her with truth in their heart and a sense of purpose."
At the heart of every spiritual tradition and culture there is a supreme female symbol of divinity and motherhood. At times, due to the nature of the culture or the religion, it is hard to identify her symbol but, rest assured, she is always there.
21st century Roman Catholics view her as the Mary Magdalene, Hebrews call her Shekhinah, Buddhists call her Kuan Yin and Muslims refer to her as Fatima. [And the Central African Dogon still call her Amma, as do the Hindu.]
For the Yoruba people of Western Africa and their many descendants the world over, she is referred to as Yemonya, Yochun, Yemonja (Emanuel), Lyemalla or a thousand other names. The 'Maya' most simply put is Mother Nature.
With uncounted millions of Yoruba devotees around the world, her worship in the past few decades has also spread like wildfire among Wiccans and all Pagans on both sides of the Atlantic. Such is her family following that the mention of her name alone in Yoruba or neo-pagan communities will conjure up deep emotional responses from both women and men.
A natural animistic and polytheistic faith, the Yoruba faith (also known as Orisha-worship) is filled with a host of divinities. Though theories vary as to the exact number of spirits, or Orishas, most modern customs place the number at 401.
Those 401 divinities that comprise the Yoruba pantheon include 200 aspects who sit to the Divine left of her, and 200 to the DIvine right. Each one of these 401 divinities is the deification of a specific aspect of nature.
Many contemporary Orisha worshippers claim they are monotheistic and that the lesser Orishas are not great spirits in the strictest sense but rather they are the fragments of the One Creation Song known as "Oloddumare." (Oloddumare translates to mean "Song of All Beings.")
Of all the divinities in this new pantheon, Yemaya holds a very special place. She is either the mother or the grandmother of all the other animist spirits. Of her love and devotion to all her children, one well-known song sings that all the divinities give her the title of "Mother of the World."
It is in today's chorus that she is being recognized again as the mother of humanity. As she holds the title of mother or grandmother with this host of deities, it comes as no surprise that as she is the oldest deva, that she is the ultimate personification of nature in all its complexities and intricacies.
The ancient name Yemaya is a contraction of 3 separate Yoruba words: yeye or iya, omo and, finally, aje. "Yeye" or "iya" translates to mean mommy or mother. "Omo" means child or children and the last word, "aje", can be translated to mean planet, fish, seashells, or, interestingly enough, priestess, shaman, witch.
Though this name is usually interpreted to mean "mother-whose-children-are-as numerous-as-fish" or as "mother-whose-child-is-the-world, " most people rarely make the connection with "mother-whose-children-are-witches."
In West Africa and in Brazil, Yemaya/Yamanja is the supreme ruler of the Iyami community. The Iyami ("our mothers") community is comprised of ancestral priestesses and She is the patron (matron!) kachina of the ajes.
Each member of this all female community can trace their hereditary powers and titles as spirit mediums all the way back for centuries.
For millennia these women were the authority in towns and villages across all of Yoruba-land. Village elders, wise women, mid-wives, herbalists and, witches - they were the ones you turned to when you sought a specific charm, when you wanted a vision of the future, or to curse a neighbor, or needed a fertility spell.
Within this tribal community, the Mother Deity's title is Iyami Oshoronga. When few people make the connection with "mother-whose-children-are-witches" fewer still realize that "Mother Nature" has two distinct faces. The kind, warm, loving side of nature is most definitely Yemanja.
This awe inspiring and often-incomprehensible destructive side of nature is the Durga Kali, Iyami Oshoronga. As the unpredictable side of nature, Iyami Oshoronga is in no way evil. Rather she is the unleashed power of earth, air, water or fire that will cleanse the karma of the old and, in so doing, make way for the new once more. Much more crone-goddess than mother-goddess, she embodies and invokes the spirits of justice and retribution and will stop at nothing to punish the evil and the wicked.
Iyami Oshoronga translates as "my-mother-who-will-wash-out-my-intestines." The Ocean Dragon who will cleanse and enlighten you.
While often considered to be a separate divinity, make no mistakes; they are one and the same. This dual nature is common in the Yoruba's social and religious concepts. This conception of duality has more to do with the polar opposites found in every aspect of nature and the human psyche than with the Western concepts of good and evil.
Unlike mono-theistic and nonpagan faiths with a clearly patriarchal system, there is no mistaking today that Yemaya/Yochun along with her daughter, Oshun, hold the reigns of power within the Orisha-worshiper community. When it comes to either one of these two goddesses, whether you are mortal or immortal, you bow your head.
Our Mother and the Maiden work as a team. Their word is law and stories abound of what might befall someone mundane or divine -- who falls into disgrace with either.
Before trying to analyze Her evolution through recorded history, it is important to stop and consider that a great many songs of oral herstory allude to the Orishas, including Yemaya/Yochun, arriving from a distant land.
Academic articles and papers written by anthropologists worldwide have shown the identity of Yemaya, Maya of India, Nuwa of China, the Sumerian Maat, and Egyptian goddess Isis. In fact with all the ancient goddesses of Earth.
More than one anthropologist has theorized that the 13th tribe of Israel did not just go south during the exodus into Ethiopia but that it split into two branches. The second branch -having obviously had a disagreement regarding religion with the first branch- headed west to and settled in West Africa.
Trying to examine cultural histories within a living culture, where names, traditions and customs, may change from region to region, town to town or even from house to house is not a simple task.
Were Yoruba culture extinct, it might actually be a much simpler task. After all, human beings do continually edit legends and stories to best suit their own personal points of view. In trying to make sense of Yoruba cosmology, the only way we can catalog and validate certain songs is to compare them to actual events that occurred throughout the course of either human or planetary history.
The ancient stories, also known as patakies, of the Yoruba faith are cataloged into a Songline known as the Ifa Verses or as the Book of Ifa. This system is composed of 257 possible signs that are referred to as Oddu. (Though the name If does create confusion, it is understood and accepted that both If and Orisha houses employee the exact same system for divination.)
When reviewing any one of thousands of stories contained within this system, one must consider that there are two distinct types of patakies: regional and universal. The regional ones may include the recounting of tales or exploits that occurred within a given geographical area to one or more local individuals. These local-based teachings of the adventures of folk heroes or heroines in a given area may appear to contradict a universal storyline.
The universal patakies are understood amongst all peoples and may, at times, even take place prior to the human race having arrived or been born on planet Earth.
The patakies citing Oduwa as the universal creatrix and Yemanja as the World Mother or as Mother Nature are universal patakies. The exact names, places, supporting characters or gender, as with Oduwa, may change from one geographical area to the other but the myth will be found in all ensuing traditions regardless of the culture or ethnicity of its society.
Prior to the inrush of Islamic settlers into Yoruba land (circa 800-1000 CE) a great portion of the cities and tribes had a vastly matriarchal bias. Chief among their female deities was Oduwa. (This name translates to English as from a warm, moist mound of female earth.) Oduwas reign as the supreme feminine deity lasted until the end of the 11th Century.
It was at this juncture that a male war hero, Oduduwa usurped her position. Such was his popularity -and so similar were their names- that a fusion of the two -goddess and living warrior- took hold in the public mind.
In Yoruba history he is generally held to be the ancestor of all the crowned kings of the Oyo Empire.
Oral myths of the Oyo regions in Nigeria retell the coming of Oduduwa from the East. Though this can be interpreted to mean the arrival of Muslims from the area of Mecca, some sources actually place his origin to be much closer to home.
In such cases, northeastern Yoruba territory or central Nigeria is singled out. Still another theory lists his origins in Egypt. Regardless of his origins, the fact remains that his arrival coincided with the largest influx to date of Muslims to the area.
For centuries the Mother Goddess, Yemanja/Yemaya, withstood wave after wave of Islamic and, later on, Christian settlers. Wars rose, raged and died. Still, She stood her ground and ruled the Yoruba tribes and their surrounding territories as the Supreme Mother.
She did this for 400 years and her authority was without question. Then in 1471 the slave-traders hit the shores of West Africa and slowly the trafficking of slaves began. What had been an ideal seat of power for Yemaya was suddenly overturned as throngs of her worshippers were thrown into chains and shipped off to the New World in the cargo holds of ships.
Never one to be held down for long -and certainly not about to abandon her children, Yemaya boarded the ships with them. As she sailed again to the Americas in the hearts and minds of her devotees, she prepared for the next stage in her evolution.
SHE has now returned to the Whole World of Consciousness,
center-stage ...
holding the hand of (former) Senator Barack Hussein Obama!
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Comments (16)
MT --
please tell us more about your sources for the story and artwork!
Thanks.
Comment #1 Posted by: Anonymous | November 8, 2008 01:46 PM
the first illustration is an old one of mine, Goddess NuWa/Naga/Yemaya in a rework of a Tibetan configuration from the internet. the other art-pieces I adapted from Yemanja/Yemaya/Yochun art circulating on the net.
the text I cut-and-pasted and shrunk and expanded and adapted from ones circulating on the net. this one is focused largely on West Africa, and I will soon try to cobble one together focused around Central Africa and Amma of the Dogon tribe.
"In the beginning, Amma, alone, was in the shape of an egg: the four collar bones were fused, dividing the egg into air, earth, fire, and water, establishing also the four cardinal directions. Within this cosmic egg was the material and the structure of the universe, and the 266 signs that embraced the essence of all things. The first creation of the world by Amma was, however, a failure. The second creation began when Amma planted a seed within herself, a seed that resulted in the shape of a woman. But in ..."
I will shortly add a few links to the West African Goddess 'storyline' above,
and HER returning ...
Comment #2 Posted by: MT | November 8, 2008 02:11 PM
Millennium
If you don't mind my asking, why are you suddenly celebrating and embracing this "sea change" in consciousness when just a few weeks ago you were ridiculing it in very pejorative terms?
Also, if you are going to post articles on a community blog, don't you have some responsibility to answer direct questions put to you? As I am sure you are aware, the question above is an abbreviated form of a question I have addressed to you three times already on other threads.
Comment #3 Posted by: david | November 8, 2008 02:47 PM
for David...
I myself would like to think that it was our love and prayers that brought our brother to the place where he would walk with us here in a healing way.
We are the goddesses he sings about. He knows when our hearts weep, and he listens when we make our prayers.
Comment #4 Posted by: Twelve Deers | November 8, 2008 05:54 PM
Thanks again, MT, for your art and research. You seem to be getting closer and closer to home. I feel like we're playing some kind of a game of warmer and warmer alternating with colder and colder.
It seems like there are two MT's, if you don't mind my saying so.
In regard to your answering questions, I said it before and I'll repeat it here. Artists often avoid answering questions to "explain" what they are doing. Dylan is like this. The answers are in the works and it is up to us to find them out there. I don't know if this fits you and I don't really care.
You've hit a live nerve in me with this latest exhibit. I feel this womam consciousness emanating from east Africa 150,000 years ago with the creation of the mother of our species which I reword "femina sapiens." I have many doubts, hesitations and unsolved mysteries but she seems quite real although describing that "reality" is a whole other herstory.
I look forward to further exhibits and sub-text. Like your Messiah Oblama, I am intrigued by what you think you are doing; if even you know. Maybe Jock knows but I wouldn't bet on it.
[Get up everybody and sing ...]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vw6F3Sf-PGw
Comment #5 Posted by: Dennis Leary | November 8, 2008 06:17 PM
Dear Twelve Deers,
What a sweet and generous thought you have expressed. Let us hope that MT finds his voice and is able to say whether your theory is close to the mark.
Dennis, if MT would confine his contributions here to his art, I might be inclined to agree with you that his art should be allowed to speak for itself. But I am not addressing his art. I am addrressing the MT who rails on repeatedly and at length about the terrible evils of the international monetary system and those who control it and the criminal gangsters like Al Gore and Dennis Kucinich who are complicit in that system. I am addressing the MT who ridiculed Obama as a Messiah and implicitly compared him to Osama bin Laden.
That MT gets away with broadcasting those views because for some reason Tyler allows him to be an Author here. As such, I think MT has a positive obligation to explain to the readers here how and why he underwent such a total conversion in such a short period of time.
Comment #6 Posted by: david | November 8, 2008 07:00 PM
kia ora, GrandMother 12 Deers,
you always surprise us with your magickal appearances.
your prayers, and those of your family, always find Megumi and I. and, as in yesterday when one of your Year 2008 offspring greeted us on the roadside, and we did sang our song back to her.
I wish that our sister Rosa Maria Cabrera had found the wealth of song in her heart to stay with us through to this breakthrough to the Sixth Morning, that she gave her life to insure (in her belief) that this Divine Mother Sunrise would come for you and I and all our world family.
Megumi and I look forward to dancing with you in these joyous days of togetherness which have come, which you always told us were coming.
with all the GrandMothers worldwide, and "All Woman' who will ~now~ be sung to the fore ...
for all the ancestors of all the tribes, singing the returning of all our sacred relations.
arohanui, enfolding our hoop of love,
Millennium Twain and Megumi Tatsuzawa
Comment #7 Posted by: Millennium Twain | November 8, 2008 07:42 PM
Dennis - are you joking? you're equating Millennium with Dylan?
That's like equating the "painting Elephant" with Picasso...What are you thinking? and by the way, I admire them both-I just don't get them confused and try to emulate the "Elephant".
Comment #8 Posted by: Dvorah | November 8, 2008 09:35 PM
Hi. I'm not "equating" MT with Dylan. I was referring to david's repeated question which MT does not choose to answer. david offered a further note about it above. I was saying that artists like Dylan, MT or whoever sometimes choose not to explain themselves or their art for various reasons. I don't understand the reference to "painting Elephant." Please enlighten me.
By the way, I did not add the "Get up and sing--We are family" video above in comment 5. I assume MT did that for me. It's OK. He is tuning into my consciousness apparently because it fits with where I'm at. This is a dance version of the "All Woman" MT refers to. I think of her in terms of "Lover" for my own reasons.
Got to go. Thanks.
Comment #9 Posted by: Dennis Leary | November 9, 2008 09:12 AM
You'll have to convince me that Maat is Sumerian rather than Egyptian. In fact, most of the Barbie Doll proportioned goddesses of ancient Sumer are a far cry from the gloriously complex Maat that we find in Egypt. Joseph Campbell thought that Maat might have been another manifestation of Isis. Remember that Isis turned into a bird inorder to transport the body of Osiris back to Egypt. That is why Horus is part bird. He was conceived during this journey.
I can't find any winged goddesses in Sumer. There is that wonderful lion headed bat in Mari, but nothing that approaches Maat. The winged divinities seem to appear post Sargon in the north, but the Sumerians had their own pantheon. The preeminent mother goddess was Ninhursag. Inanna or Ishtar was another favorite astral goddess, but Maat she's not.
Comment #10 Posted by: Anonymous | November 9, 2008 09:23 AM
alafia,
your artwork is beautiful and your sentiments divine!
may your ancestors continue to guide you on your path!
ase!
iyanifa onifa
Comment #11 Posted by: Iyanifa Onifa | November 9, 2008 12:53 PM
Yallah Afia, Iyanifa!
and Wawaka! (have you woken? well? in Bantu.)
this ERUPTION this EPISONG this long-promised AWAKENING of Global Consciousness -- of Spririt -- of Divine Mother Nature -- is beyond all our most wondrous, rainbow, loving dreams!
your website is beautiful, and I look forward to perusing fully. please share more here of the cultural enlightenment your life is about, simply is!
and, Anon, on the subject of our global ancestral goddess consciousness from 5,000 to 10,000 years ago -- please enjoy:
http://www.groupkos.com/mtwain/NuWa
and I look forward to exploring with you, and anyone here on this thread or elsewhere, the rich tapestry we are uncovering, we are acknowledging/hearing, again after so many millennia of cerebral violence against heart and mind and body and spirit.
and my brother Dennis, and sister DvorahGee, much of my artwork from the last two decades can be found on the groupkos.com/mtwain mainpage above.
now off to respond to a thousand other of our wondrous global family members -- on the subject of our new first Lady Bantu Michelle Obama! Did anyone notice the dress symbolism she wore at the acceptance speech election night!
!!!
for all our GLOBAL spirit ancestors ...
Comment #12 Posted by: Millennium | November 9, 2008 04:20 PM
Thanks again, MT. I reread more carefully the information of this thread, including your latest, lengthy link. I honor your dedication to your work.
I have no own work. We all do. We express it in words and in art which will outlive us as private individuals. It could be as simple as the art of making breakfast.
I believe a great common work for many of us at this time is to cooperate with the restoration of an original and natural culture whose central symbol was a universal womam. She appears to be the focus and source power of your work and of mine. As we all do, we come at the great work from different angles and have our own unique contributions to make.
Nature is unitary and dual. Part of the duality is evil. Evil must be identified in words or it keeps slipping away and wrecking its havoc. I identify it as patriarchy which rebelled against the original, natural and womam centered culture which arose in east Africa 150,000 years ago with Mitochondrial Eve as the mother of femina sapiens.
Patriarchy tends to multiply simplicity to the point of obfuscatory confusion. Herstory is simple and elegant and when heard by those capable of hearing resonates in the heart.
I speak from years of study, practice and changing experience, both positive and negative. At this time I need to focus and coordinate my own work with the aid of the innernet and internet.
Ojai is feminine in her name, herstory, natural environment and destiny. We come here by design, not accident. The Ojai Post appears for the same reasons.
The Post can only bear so much information and energy along these lines. From here I'm going to link to other blogs. I consider the Ojai Valley my physical home now (I live in her northernmost valley lip) and also my cyberhome from which I can travel to other destinations.
I've been able to give you the links to several other spaces in consciousness that I frequent but the most important one takes a little more effort if you want to travel with me. You have to use a search engine. That place can be accessed by three words: "loverearth aeonity blog."
I'm intend to go there after leaving here and taking a breakfast break. There is a particular aspect of the Earth Mother that I am interested in which is love. She is first and foremost a Lover; at least to me. That involves sex, a highly charged electro-magnetic item in our repressed, patriarchal cult society. It's at the heart of our problems and their solution.
As for the Lover, the Poet said it best:
"You've never learned to read or write
There's no books upon your shelf
And your pleasure knows no limits
Your voice is like a meadowlark
But your heart is like an ocean
Mysterious and dark."
Comment #13 Posted by: Dennis Leary | November 10, 2008 06:52 AM
I just tested what I said above about searching for "loverearth aeonity blog." When you get there, if you want the most recent blog, you need to navigate there by clicking on "loverearth entries." It seems that sometimes the search will take you directly to the latest blog and sometimes not.
Comment #14 Posted by: Dennis Leary | November 10, 2008 07:05 AM
ala-afia, She who loves.
and Whom is She? and What is Love?
GrandMother Spider, woven of all genders, all experiencing, all knowing, all personalities --
not 'he' who is broken, seeking, desperate, mono-gendered, alone.
not xy-brand man, nor even DoubleXX Woman, alone.
GrandMother Dragon/Serpent whom wove us all together, and of all of us together is the weave, the weaver.
not Sex, rather Song ...
hygiene, healing, hearing.
being one, Whole, true, connected
ac electric living flowing river ... not dead industrial dc battery, 'dying' for a charge.
not 'love', meaning indoctrinating in neediness ...
rather LOVE meaning RESPECT, meaning FAMILY, of all GrandMother Turtle's progeny -- holding hands every-One, immersed in Whole-Sum-Nest of Goddess Moon, Mother Earth, GrandMother Sun-Ra, Great GrandMother Galaxia ...
our 2012 collective episundance
We, 2008, heralding:
"you are invited to join us ..."
(rsvp!)
Comment #15 Posted by: mt | November 11, 2008 01:52 PM
Thanks for the invitation.
I have washed my hands and have on my wedding garment.
Words fail but yours come as close as we can get.
Spider Womam. Spider Lover. What a way to go. A love bite. A little death.
Comment #16 Posted by: Dennis Leary | November 12, 2008 11:38 AM