Feast of the Feminine Saints - EWA
Ewa, Orixá Artist: Gil Abelha
Talk about liminal space. Today we celebrate Ewa, Orixá a deity or archetypal field of consciousness connected to nature rooted in Yoruban traditions of West Africa and spread across continents through the tenacity of spirit of enslaved peoples forced into migration. She is an Orixá of the space between, of dusk and dawn, of vapor and mist, of vulnerability, ferocity and sight. She was syncretized with Santa Lucia for some, who is also a keeper of sight. When the snake sheds her skin, she literally becomes blind temporarily in the transition. It is in the space between, that she is most vulnerable and most in her power to see. She is accompanied by Oxumaré who is also serpent, also rainbow: nature’s manifestation of a healthy kundalini and chakra system expressed in the radiant coming together of water and sunlight, feminine and masculine. When I started a dance company nearly 25 years ago, we called it MA Dance. We were six women. It seemed appropriate. We called our nonprofit The Movement Alliance - also MA. When we performed our first repertory concert, Barbara Dilley who was mentoring some of us in her work of ‘Deep Play’, generously shared a poem with us from a green room somewhere somewhen… it turns out that in Japanese MA also means the space between things. It is the “dragon or the demon”, “in art… an alive suspended moment of potential between what has been and what will be.” The potentiality of becoming.
I feel a certain weaving taking place where once lines of separation fell.
Thinking of a recently published TED talk a colleague actually recorded a year ago. In it he talks about “the big idea” and how it’s not important that we all have the same one … just that we all have ONE. But he talks about the divinity of the Mother. And I could not help but notice when we republished the piece we did not mention this. When all I could think about was, “God is a woman.” Yeah that’s a big idea! And how our Indigenous relatives all know the Mother as Sacred and the Earth as Mother… and this ..: this is in fact… the big idea. It is the return of the Mother. It is the return of Brigid.
I sit here in the vast energy of this new moon by the fire with a tiny altar for Oxum and Iansa and Guadalupe and Ewa all celebrated this week. And I pray ever so simply for this reintegration to take place in the consciousness of each and everyone. So that we might make good choices for ourselves and the planet and for future generations.
I celebrate the mending of this circle of the people of the four directions in resonance and relationship with our star relatives and all life deep inside this Earth as we detangle from thousands of years of pain and brutality and find our way home to each other and to ourselves. It’s raining now. An hour ago there was sun. The light has changed more times than I can count today. And my heart has cracked open one more time - to let more in - to show me, yes - I can love even more.
Author’s Notes:
*A Note on the Title: While investigating decoloniality through syncretism, the Feast of Feminine Saints is what I came to lovingly call this transformative week in December where the Mother is celebrated through Iansa on December 4th (Santa Barbara); Oxum on December 8th (Virgin of Conception); Guadalupe - Tonāntzín (Aztec, Nahuatl: Our Mother) on December 12th; and Ewa on December 13th (Santa Lucia). It is in someways a comment on or a balancing of the June Festivities dedicated to Saint Anthony, Saint Peter and Saint John.
**A Note on Spelling: There are multiple spellings for the word Orixá (Orisha, Orishá, Orichá, etc.) and the names of the orixás themselves depending on the cultural point of entry, study or initiation. I came to know the Orixás living with a Brazilian family in the United States and traveling to Brazil over the course of ten years to study with a community in the high forest. Therefore, I use the Portuguese language and spellings generally consistent with the community I ‘grew up’ in.
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