Music has the power to smooth, heal, and inspire. It can be a powerful tool to unlock self-expression and can help us to connect with our innermost feelings and emotions. Devotional music is one such form of mindful meditation that can help us overcome shame and fear of expressing our unique creativity through sounds.

Today is the first video of the "Praying with music" program and we're going to be taking a look into a song called Iemanja Soba. It's a beautiful song with a simple guitar.

Iemanjá, goddess (or orixá) of the sea, is a central deity in the Candomblé religion. She watches over sailors and fishermen and controls their catches. She is very powerful, and is concerned with every aspect of womanhood, fertility and family; she is also the protector of children. She often is shown as a mermaid and is always dressed in either white or blue.

Her ocean chants with breath
crisp with brine
sweet the clapping wave
crystal blue rapture
of vast acoustics
calling us, the Goddess
in sensuous channels
washing our woebegone ears
an impregnating orchestra
with compelling hymn
while we roam in her fathoms of sound

Every year on the February 2, the festival of Iemanjá takes place in many places in Brazil. The biggest celebration takes place in the Rio Vermelho neighbourhood in Salvador. During the festivities, followers of the Candomblé religion offer flowers and gifts to their goddess Iemanjá at the sea’s edge and send them out to her in the ocean. Everyone dresses in white and the music and the dancing continues in a beautiful pilgrimage around the town.

Traditionally, people make shrines in the sand, offering flowers and beauty product such as perfume, lipstick, jewellery and mirrors. Small replica boats with statuettes of Iemanjá are made and sent out to sea, as well as white food such as sweet rice and coconut puddings. If your gift is washed up on the shore, it is believed to have been rejected by the goddess. If it continues out to sea, she has accepted your offering and will give you her blessing.

The invitation is for you to connect with this Orixa, Immerse yourself in this musical waters and bring it back to the ocean, refreshing your connection with your spirt and the beauty that Yemanja brings to our life.