Why am I creating digital collages?
The answer is simple. To take care of my spirit, heart, mind, and body.
My creativity is a wellness lifeline to Thriving Mindfully!
Creating art helps me release stress, experience joy and ease, and navigate changing times.
Today’s #Februllage collage (PROMPT – Jellyfish) is entitled “A Day of Jellyfish Fun in Iemanja’s Ocean.” It celebrates girls and women of African descent being, playing, and walking with freedom, joy, and ease at the beach without the fear of being harmed by jellyfish. They are able to coexist and play with the jellyfish peacefully.
I started the collage with a photo of myself playing the shekere, a West African percussion instrument made from a dried, hollowed-out gourd (calabash) covered in a woven net of beads, on a beach in Barra, a neighborhood in Salvador da Bahia. The photo was taken during my second Ancestral Spirits trip to Brazil in February 2025. Ancestral Spirits is a travel experience created and offered by Ronnell Perry, founder of AfroBuenaventura Transformative Travel.
I added a black and white photo of my mom Theresa playing with her grandmother Iona Hazel Bolden Johnson King’s goat and two photos from my childhood adventures on beaches. One photo features me sticking my feet in the water when I was 17 years old and on vacation Puerto Rico in 1982. I created two copies of a photo from one of my first visits to an east coast beach in the early 1970s.
My collage also honors Iemanja (Yemanya), the goddess of the sea, motherhood, and families, with two African mermaids. I used a photo of a beautiful Iemanja sculpture I discovered while walking in the Rio Vermelho neighborhood in Salvador last year.
A photo of two Candomble practitioners dressed in Iemanja’s colors of blue and white is also featured. I saw these two women during the Festa de Iemanja on the beach in the Rio Vermelho, my favorite Brazilian neighborhood last year.
Candomblé is an Afro-Brazilian religion that represents a melange of spiritual beliefs from the Yoruba, Fon, Bantu, and Roman Catholicism. Enslaved Africans developed it in the 19th century. Festa de Iemanja is an annual celebration held on February 2nd where people wear white or blue and offer flowers, perfumes, and gifts to Iemanja. The main celebration is in the Rio Vermelho neighborhood, specifically at the Casa de Iemanja.
YOUR INVITATION
Click on the video below and listen to my song, “Ancestral Medicine” that is featured on my debut album, Thriving Mindfully As Theresa’s Daughter as you reflect on the questions below.
1) Your loving + wise + well ancestors want you to live, play, and have fun with freedom, joy, and ease. Do you know what your ancestors did for fun?
2) What types of activities offer you time and space to have fun and play?
3) Schedule a weekly playdate that gives you time and space to have fun. It doesn’t have to cost you money or take a several hours or a day. It can be five minutes or longer.
Ananda Leeke 