When I asked this deck which card it thought I should review first, this is the card that came up – of course!!  This is the Daughters of the Moon deck after all, and the Moon reflects the Maiden/Mother/Crone aspects of the Goddess as it moves through its different phases.  The Moon is often associated with women in various aspects, with emotional and intuitive personalities, hormonal cycles, and with all of the feminine mysteries that men throughout history have found alluring, frustrating, and even frightening about the female archetypes and personalities.  It is associated with passive and reflective light, with the yin, and with the subconscious.  The round shape of this deck is particularly well-suited to this card, and the concepts of subtle changes in energy associated with card orientation and phases of the moon.

The painting for this card is one of the few that was not contributed by the main deck designer, and in some ways it shows, although the card fits in well with the overall deck.  The colors are relatively muted and there are few distinct symbols or details.  Perhaps this is in tune with the concepts of the Moon – we must find its meaning within ourselves, rather than being shown all the interpretive clues directly.  The full moon shines brightly in sky, sending out concentric circles of light into the darkness.  The light of the moon forms a bright, rippling path on the water below.  An African woman floats above the water with her arms upraised, following the path of light toward the moon.

The name of the card, Yemaya, is that of an African goddess of sea, prominent in the Santeria religion.  Her colors are blue and white, providing the color inspiration for the card.  She has many forms, and some of them are associated with either the full moon or the crescent moon.  She is considered the primordial source of life energy, and it is through her that we understand the cycles of life, the connectedness of all things, and receive the ability to think intuitively.  She is honored in connection with fertility and motherhood, and because the moon regulates the female hormonal cycles that are related to pregnancy and childbirth, it is natural for her to be associated with the moon as well as the waters of life.  She rules the seas, the depths of the ocean, and rivers that empty into the sea, and her name means “mother whose children are the fish”, representing both the uncountable number of her children and the ocean as the primordial source of all life, the womb of the world.

Thrysse