The one who repairs what broke not the one who prevents the break
Warning
She mends after the catastrophe she does not stop it
Resonance
Craftspeople those rebuilding after disaster those who work with their hands
Symbols
Five coloured stonesSmelting furnaceClay figureTurtle legsCompassBroken pillarSnake tail
Mythology Summary
Nuwa is the goddess who repairs the sky after the catastrophe: in the Huainanzi, when the pillar of heaven is broken and the world is flooded and burning, she smelts five-coloured stones to patch the sky, cuts the legs of the great turtle Ao to prop up the four quarters, and restores order. The Huainanzi blames the rupture on Gonggong, though later accounts differ. The story of her shaping the first humans from yellow clay is later again, told in Ying Shao's Fengsu Tongyi of the second century CE.
Modern Practice
She is the goddess of repair work: practitioners bring her the thing that is broken, a house, a body or a life, and the offering is a piece of handwork rather than a request. Craftspeople and people rebuilding after a disaster are her natural constituency, and she is asked for the patience to mend rather than for the break to be undone.