Ya-Ya Origin Myth

When I was first kicked out of my initial coven, I met with some people I knew back at Gold ‘n Silver. We decided to form our own coven and continue to move me toward becoming a witch queen. The problem was that at 17, I fully complied with the coven’s outrageous, idiotic and demeaning demands to stop identifying as Aphrodite-even though I was (and am) truly that goddess incarnate.

So what was I to do?

I met with a group at the Gold n’ Silver to talk out some next steps. They agreed to form a coven with me so I could move forward with becoming a witch queen. My “little red book” was taken from me so we chose to study The Witch’s Bible.

After talking about it, the first of my covens were known as the Ya-Ya’s.

Yes, Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood  had been released. And Yahweh was a term for God. Many creator myths from the Rastafari to the Taino identified a creator known as Jah/Yah or Ya-Ya, but our use of the term meant something different.

Where did our coven name come from?

First, and foremost, we had a habit of replying as a group with a sarcastic “yeah, yeah” to anything someone said that we didn’t believe. Second, us ladies often referred to our “ta-tas” and would even say “tah-tah” as we left the Gold ‘n Silver. We couldn’t be the “ta-ta’s” so someone suggested “ya-ya’s.” That worked in some respects because a female in the coven called herself Ya-Ya. I cannot remember her real name but it might have been Yari but I think she was named after Yaba-the African goddess of justice and the wife of Nyamele. This would later prove to be a problem when Ya-Ya wanted to be high priestess of the coven and felt her name made her the obvious choice.

Advice to folks-when in doubt, name your group after yourself and just accept that people might see you as a cult.

https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2718&context=etd

However, to bring it back around to me, the final connection was the Babylonian Book of Judges.

Within that book, it is said that, “Ya indeed is the moon.” This related directly to the Moon God, Sin. And to my crescent mark. Also, there was reference to a connection between Ya and Astarte /Ishtar (equivalent Isis/Hathor/Aphrodite).

The first of my covens were known as the Ya-Ya’s.