I was struck by her image.

She is beautiful. Long black hair and cobalt eyes, sinuos body, a maternal femminility, reassuring. She rises out of the sea dancing in a blue gown, voluptous in her movements, alternating notes of purity in her being virgin and mermaid, mother and lover. Her arms are open, her palms facing the sky and in her look something different transpires. It envelops me in an unknown warmth.There is mystery in Yemanja'. A mystery that I kept on my wrist for almost a year since I bought her escapolario. And with me her icon. Mythical queen of the sea, female patron saint of fishermen and mother of all Brazilians.

Every year on Febrary 2nd, in Salvador de Bahia, a festival called Presentes de Yemanja' is celebrated on the mainland of Rio Vermelho and on the island of Itaparica

It's dawn. Along the Beach of Rio de Vermelho, the sound of drums and African chants fills the air.The 5 am sun sheds its light on part of the small white house at the end of the road. It’s Yemanja'’s home, the sacred place where, very shortly, we will take part in the private ritual of the offering of ebo. Ebo is a dish, prepared with boiled corn, onion and palm oil, they say it’s the favorite food of the queen of the sea. I’m told that for each orixà (that’s how divinities are called in Brazilian Cadomble') there are different votive offerings, according to symbolic color, personality and connected natural elements.

Yemanjà is a white orixa'. In the liturgy of Cadomble', this color is associated with creative power, air, life’s basic element, and with water, a substance that creates fertility, cools down and reconciles in the genesis of the world.
And to gain Yemanjà’s benevolence, she goes on, a few boiled corn grains are not enough.The mythical queen of Nigerian river Ougun, merged with the Bahian concept of Virgin Mary, is a woman of rare beauty.The African version of an undine, sensual and mysterious, who possesses all the features of feminine vanity.

Whimsical and yet compliant, she loves to receive everything that can improve her appearance. Piles of white roses and baskets filled with perfumes, flowers, soaps and ribbons are invading the beach of Rio de Vermelho.

Everyone participates, everyone offers the goddess a gift in exchange for her grace,regardless of their race, origin or color. I’m enthralled by the beauty of the people in procession, by their devotion, which transcends every cultural and racial barrier.

I listen to the drums and in the crowd I see circles of women in white dresses who twiddle and swing their hips. Some of them fall to the ground, caught in a trance. Yemanja' has appreciated it, I'm told. Now he is in the body of that filha de santo.

The frenzied rhythm of the percussions awakens my bowels, it flows, it slides inside me, making remote parts of my body vibrate. I dance following the wonderful fluttering of sangallo skirts. I dance between trembling bodies, the smell of sugar cane and the green of Bahia.