100 Paintings 100 Insights 100 Days

100 PAINTINGS 100 INSIGHTS 100 DAYS
JULY 1, 2015
DAY 1
Painting: KISSED BY YEMAYA
2008 30X40 Acrylic on Canvas
Visit: www.milagros-phillips.artistwebsites.com

I can feel the excitement bubbling up in me, as I recall how my first Yemaya painting came to be. I was visiting a friend in New Hampshire and on her fridge was a photo of her last trip to Florida. She had been swimming with the dolphins, and in the picture, she was being kissed by one. The dolphin’s gentle kiss felt like a memory to me. That photo was stirring something in me that felt more familiar than the experience of looking at that picture.

As a child, I remember a song that was very popular in the Latino community and was part of rituals in Santeria Circles. The words to the song were, “O mi Yemaya, quitame lo malo, quitame lo malo, y hechalo en el mar.” – Translation – “Oh my Yemaya, take the negativity away, take the negativity away, and throw it in the sea.”

Yemaya was one of the few Goddesses to survive the middle passage, (The African Holocaust). Out of approximately ten million Africans kidnapped and brought to “the new world,” only four hundred and fifty thousand were brought to the continental USA. The rest were scattered throughout the Caribbean, Central, and South America, with a great deal of them taken to Brazil.

Yemaya, the Goddess of the sea, is still worshiped today. People still bring offerings to Yemaya at the edge of the ocean. They still pray to her for a good catch, a safe return from sea voyages and the reuniting with loved ones. Yemaya represents relationships, individual and communal, as those who lived close to the water were close-knit communities dependent on her generosity.

In my heart and mind, I saw the relationship of the dolphins to the Goddess of the sea, as synergistic and nurturing. Kissed by Yemaya became a collection that is still unfinished. The collection is made up of thirty original pieces, some of which have yet to be painted.

Next time you approach the ocean, approach it with reverence. There, among the fish, sea mammals, and mollusks, lives YEMAYA. Next time the ocean caresses your face, feel yourself KISSED BY YEMAYA.

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