- Attributes: Fertility, Cycles, Rejuvenation
- Symbols: Earth, Corn and Turquoise
- Place: North America
 |
| Artifact depicting Estsanatlehi |
The Goddes Estsanatlehi (the pronunciation is something like es-ta-nah-tle-hee) is a Goddess worshiped in the Navajo tribe in the Arizona region of North America. According to her myth, Estsanatlehi was found by Atse Estsan, the first woman, next to a mountain. Fed up with pollen, the Goddess reached adulthood in just eighteen days. As an adult, the Goddess found a lover and every night she met him to make love. Her parents, the first woman and the first man, followed her one day, but they only found the Goddess’s footprints. This made them very happy, because the discovered her lover, for leaving no footsteps, was actually the Sun!
Estsanatlehi lives in a houseboat in the “waters of the west.” All night after his journey, the sun goes there to stay with his beloved.
Navajo natives call her the Changing Woman, thanks to her ability to stay young during summer and spring, to become an old woman during fall and winter, and for being able to become young again with the return of spring.
It is also said that the Goddess had twin children with the Sun and that in just eight days, they have reached adulthood. At this moment, the two were presented with magic weapons by their parents to fight the monsters that haunted the Earth. After these battles, four monsters remained so that people could value life: misery, age, hunger and winter.
The cycle of life
The myth of Estsanatlehi shows us that we should not fear time, since everything is part of a cycle necessary for our life. Her ability to rejuvenate after the dreaded winter in spring and summer also teaches us that we should not give up when we are in some difficult period, because we will always be reborn stronger!
Summoning Estsanatlehi
We can summon Estsanatlehi when we need guidance or help to renew our energies or to move forward with confidence. How often do we think that a certain event will be the end of everything? Or that we can never be happy after some fact? This, unfortunately, is common. We were conditioned to have this kind of thinking by our society and by the dominant religions. But there is nothing to worry about. Really! It is enough to have confidence in ourselves and in the Goddess.
A suggestion of ritual to summon the Goddess is through the cycles you are passing through. The Goddess lives her four-season cycle, where she is born and reborn in the spring, becomes an adult in the summer, begins to grow old in the fall, and becomes an old woman in the winter. If we stop to think, everything in our lives follows this “script”. Therefore, when summoning the Goddess, think about the current cycle you are going through so that she can provide you the strength and confidence you need to be reborn!
If you wish to build an altar for the Goddess, decorate it with turquoise stones. These stones symbolize the Goddess’s house in the “waters of the west” and its fertile ground.
The Goddess Tarot
Estsanatlehi is one of the Goddesses present in The Goddess Tarot. The card number III, Estsanatlehi, represents Fertility:
This benevolent Navajo corn Goddess symbolizes the changeable and fertile land. Like the earth itself, Estsanatlehi appears as a young lady in the spring and summer months; As the wheel of the year changes into autumn and winter, she changes form being and old lady.
