This chant celebrates the joining of the river to the Sea
and to the Goddess of the Ocean.
At the same time, it is a love-song of the soul to God,
for the river flows through each soul.
"Yemaya is the gush of the Spring.
The gush of the Spring is Yemaya.
The Mother of the Children of Fishes is the Owner of Rivers.
The Owner of Rivers is the Mother of the Children of Fishes."
The river seeks the Sea as the soul seeks
the Source from which it came.
It rushes down mountain pathways,
into tumbling streams which become rivers,
always flowing toward the One.
It does not wait, it does not tarry,
it finds its way past boulders and rocks,
through Spring's plenty and Winter's scarcity,
until it reaches the outlet to the Sea.
This Sea is its home.
The home of the soul.
The home of the heart.
The home of one's being.
All of life depneds on the Sea.
For the Sea is the great Mother,
and all of life lives within Her.
The aching dryness of parched land,
the cold frozenness of inhospitable passages -
none can stop the forward motion of the River,
for its destiny is the Ocean, which is both
its beginning and its end.