Last night I dreamt I was in the Queendom of Yemanjá. It was under the sea and above all clouds at the same time. The blue of the sky or the water was deeper than I’d ever known — it was the blue of my flag, of my heart, of her soul. The streets of her Queendom were cobbled with seashells that tickled my feet, and lined with all the white roses we’d offered her over the years. Far out there were dunes of the whitest and softest sand, where my toes sunk with delight. There was nobody else in sight — just me and the flowers in all of that blue, though, somewhere, I knew, was also Yemanjá.

The warmth enveloped me. I felt it like the breeze that kissed my skin in old January afternoons. I realized it was her love, radiating from all the things she had created and given me. It was so wholly self-evident that I wondered how I ever doubted it, and I cried in shame.

When I opened my eyes, there was a castle, too monumental for me to comprehend. It seemed to appear suddenly, but I knew it had been there all along. It was made of thousands, millions, billions of pearls that my mother would have called furta-cor. It would have been slanderous to claim that the pearls stole colors — it was their iridescence that gave nature color, not the other way around. I stood in awe in front of the colossal front gate, and at some point, hundreds of years later for all I knew, I knocked. The sound was not a knock but a shimmer, the glint of stars on summer nights, the flow of the gentle wind near shore. The doors opened with the motion of a tide, and with the same rush I was propelled forward.

Yemanjá sat in a throne made of ever-crashing waves. Her hair, the color of moonlight, flew around her with the force of a typhoon and the grace of a sacred spring. A curtain of pearls covered her eyes, but in the midnight blue of her skin I could discern a smile so benevolent and serene. I fell to her feet, the seven skirts of her dress fluttering before my eyes. I had to cover them — I could not bear this much beauty. But my Goddess leaned down, and her fingertips grazed my chin, lifting it upward. She urged me to come closer, her lips parted, and I knew she had something of the utmost importance to say. It could be a confession of the darkest secret in the seven seas, or an apology for the rainfall that ruined beach days in my youth, or the forgiveness of my kind, her children, for destroying the waters she so zealously sprung forth. It would all have meant the same had I had the privilege of hearing it.

I was awoken by a gust of wind that slammed my window open. It made me shiver to the bone, and it wasn’t even cold.

Tonight, dressed all in white, I walked into the sea. The waves were her gates and I threw myself toward them, begging for entry. I was witnessed only by the glowing crescent moon. The whole time I sung, ’til the water filled my lungs to the brim.