On World Oceans Day, I am reminded of the importance of this Kenyan proverb:
“Treat the Earth well. She was not given to you by your parents. She was loaned to you by your children.”
So, today, on World Oceans Day, I will go to the sea and offer a healing ritual and blessing to Yemaya for healing the world’s oceans and waters. The healing and cleansing ritual was posted on this blog yesterday. Feel free to use this ritual, adapt it or create your own.
And I will say a prayer to Yemaya for her continued health, vibrancy and balance (not my original prayer but one found on many websites):
You who rule the waters, pouring over humankind your protection, O Divine Mother, wash their bodies and their minds, performing a cleansing with your water and instilling in their hearts the respect and veneration due to the force of nature that it symbolizes, let us protect your group of things and what they protect. We beseech powerful Yemaya, Queen of the waters, to receive this prayer. With love and justice, give me the required and necessary strength to withstand everything. In your sea of nature and harmony, I want to live. Protect my loved ones from all harm and danger. Hail Yemaya, Queen of the Sea!
How are you celebrating World Oceans Day and the theme of Our Oceans, Our Future?
What does the ocean — and the fresh waters of our Earth — mean to you?
The seas have always been magical to me. I love living by the ocean… breathing in the salt air, listening to the seagulls, watching the herons wading in the shallows and the bald eagles soaring in the sky, spotting a playful seal and hoping to one day see a whale breach in the Bay.
Some days I visit at sunset, meditating at the end of the day. Other times, I visit at low tide… walking out on the flats, through the shallow tidal pools, connecting with the ocean floor. It’s a blessing to live where the Sea meets the Mountains.
But I am also aware of both her power and her fragility. As I looked through my pictures of English Bay here in Vancouver to share with you on World Oceans Day, I realized that although many capture our gorgeous scenery of mountains, sea, and sky, very few are absent of the commerce in the Port of Vancouver — the numerous ships anchored each and every day awaiting their appointment at the docks. Even this sunset picture was marred, in my mind at least, by a tanker crossing the horizon as it sailed into port. And if Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain expansion moves forward, there will be even more tankers, carrying toxic crude oil piped from the Alberta oil sands to overseas refineries… at great risk to the environment.
So I will continue to lobby against that expansion
and to lobby for the health of our Oceans.
We are custodians of Mama Earth.
Let us treat her —and her waters —well for our generation and for future generations.
Trackbacks/Pingbacks