Artwork by Omiladé Adédìran

Just let me get this off my chest…

Whenever I am poised to answer the question, Who is Oshun? I respond in the language of Odu. My justification for this is to counter the naiveté of which runs rampant among those who are allowing themselves to remain victims of colonization’s embellished mindset. These persons seek to minimize Oshun’s importance to that of a sex-starved seductress relishing in an inherent need to parade her insatiable lust over throngs on men. These individuals would also insist that all women with a desire to take men at will to their beds are Omo Oshun. They would argue that women with dark skin and definitive African features are always going to be crowned Omo Oya and thick-bodied women with supple breasts are Omo Yemonja. Seriously, I have heard this out of the mouths of devotees and if it was not ignorance in need of being stomped out, I might find it hilarious instead of offensive.

For me Oshun speaks her true essence through Ose Tura. It is here that we are given access to both the femininity and the womanyst. As the text goes, and for matters of length I am paraphrasing, When Olodumare advised the Irunmoles to come to earth, they ignored the divine words of Orunmilla. They refused to bring among their party feminine energy. In no time their existence on earth was met by bickering and all out war. No problem was solved with logical reasoning and thus trouble beyond imagination permeated the atmosphere. Sango was sent by Olodumare to punish them for their insistence in what had become an epic failure. When Sango left, they settled back into their old ways of whipping the snot out of each other. It wasn’t until Olodumare inquired of their actions in not bringing the woman with them, as deemed necessary as verbalized through Orunmilla, that they responded in a manner which showed that they felt themselves superior energies.

Olodumare told them in order to get on with their great work and make the earth a place worthy of humanity’s trials, tribulations and ultimate successes; they must employ the ASE of the same woman whom they found an unsuitable travel mate. Oshun having felt the pain of rejection and seeking to enact her own justice closed off the wombs of women. In addition, we all know what happens to a civilization’s legacy lest its women are unable to bear fruit. The males went to her realizing that it was she who had the upper hand therefore; they admitted to their injustice against her, pleading for her feminine help. Oshun still reeling in the aforementioned scorn agreed to aid them (to straighten it out) if she were to birth a male child. Right here we see the compassion and the foresight of Oshun.

Jessica M. Alacron in “(Re) Writing Osun,” hits the nail on the head, when she reiterates, Oshun’s birth of a male child allows her to sweeten her feelings towards MENKIND. It is her accepting the offerings of destiny, which allow her to soothe an aching heart into forgiveness. How can she hold a grudge that would end human existence, and admonish men, after giving birth to a male? It was impossible to hate men and love a male son. The capability to free herself of hard feelings in a sense is Oshun’s immediate response but never forget how revolutionary a womb can be. Now that is a woman to be admired and feared.

Moving forward to the energy of Oshun in my home…

In my kitchen, on a marble counter-top sits Oshun in all her radiance. The kitchen is the place I go to when I want to lay it all out on the table - these are my goals and aspirations and this is how I envision my future. “Auntie I need to know if I can accomplish it all in one lifetime, because it seems so daunting.” Many times Oshun in her whimsical retort will respond, “If you could not handle the life, then why did you choose it?” I find myself laughing, expecting nothing but tough love from Auntie Oshun; the same kinda tough sincerity that I would hear from my Mama Oya. “Enough said,” I whisper and toughen up my outer shell for the living that must be done.

Last summer I was told I needed an adimu for Oshun, she wanted to sit in my house to see exactly what I was doing and what I wasn’t doing that was bringing me so much instability when it came to accomplishing my heart-longed passions. I will be very honest, I was afraid to allow Oshun entrance because I knew that she was not going to go easy on me. I did not expect the feminine sex goddess but the sword bearing warrior woman who was sick and tired of my creative juices lying by the wayside. Immediately she opened her mouth telling me where she wanted to be enshrined. “Put me in the kitchen, where the sunrise can warmly awaken me. Spray me with lavender and keep fresh fruit near me and lots of laughter and children in deep thought.” I make it a habit to sing to her before asking a question that might require either an attentive ear or merindinlogun.

"Auntie, what about the PH.D., the Akan initiation, the poetry book, the independent school, the children’s stories, homeschooling Sekou, the adjunct position? Auntie I am in the mood for creative change, which will heighten my creative output?"

Oshun just grins and the aroma of her lavender permeates from her sopera. Oshun softly offers Orisa wit, “What must happen in order for a chain reaction to take place? “ I look puzzled. “You must react against the known in such a way that the known impacts the unknown without detection. It must happen before the unknown can assess what hit it. Which one of your desired knowns would you place out front as the beginning to this journey of creative change?” I whisper, “I guess the thing that I have the most control over at the present moment, coming home to teach Sekou.” Oshun giggles, “It sounds like you have already begun homeschooling him and yourself in the process. Moreover, that becomes the force that started a revolt.

In order to be able to carry the weight of change we must be mentally and physically ready. Just because we ask, does not mean that we are ready. Sometimes "no" is not a door closing but a cautionary roadblock that’s not meant to remain in place forever but just until we have gained all that was meant from point A before entering the realm of point B.” I tell her that I understand and she asks for more lavender.

Oshun for me has become that symbol of creative exploits exploding into a wealth of genius. She tells me all the time, “Why don’t you be the voice that you find lacking in contemporary writers.” I sit beside her disgruntled at the market of written materials bearing the familiar imprints of Tyler Perry and even though folks always say they got to eat, I wonder where they eating at; and how much is their bill? I am hungry for cultural voices that speak an AfriKan centered language and not Negroes selling their souls for fame and fortune. Did the last great male playwright go to the Ancestral realm when August Wilson transitioned? Is Nina Simone the last of our feminine energies that got it-the intermingling of revolution to music? How many of us knew it was Oshun who told Amiri Baraka to say that shit again and again even if they took away his label Poet Laureate- he said Somebody Blew Up AmeriKKKA and we listened. I mean if the white man giveth then he just really loaned it in the first place so why are we stifling our true selves for him? Oshun is the flailing golden skirt fringed by peacock feathers waving in the wind when that music hits a spot that you thought your body could not reach through no mo. It is the song you hear over and over again and remember the birth of your children, the kiss from your lover, the embrace from your mother after winning first place in your kindergarten spelling bee.

I had to come to Oshun bearing all of my preconceived notions, and there were many. I mean I too have been a victim of westernized bullshit, and by that I mean, the sanctified whore complex. You know it when you hear it or read it. It is the same mud I had to crawl through before I opened my eyes and ears up to the TRUE energy of Oshun. I literally had to become a muckraker and get me some Oshun reading material that was not written as if Oshun did not originate in AfriKa. I had to meet Oshun priestesses who were ritualized properly into the ways of their Mama and had themselves gone through the toil of working with her energy. These Priestesses had not invented a prototype after reading somebody else’s account of what an Omo Oshun should act like, look like or in some instances, how she should dress.

I had to go and scour through countless reading materials until I found a justification of Auntie that set the record straight for me but also for my daughter- who has Oshun to the head. My chile of fifteen years, asked me, “How come these Orisa writers, mostly male, always starting off with sex when they talk about Oshun? How come honey gotta be between the legs? When a mama feeds you, food cooked from the stove and makes you fresh juice drinks - that’s honey. When your daddy goes out and buys what you need for school and you know all you gotta do is ask and he got you covered. That’s honey, now where the sex in that?” I admit my tenth grader called it right. We so quick to go to Oshun and her honey pot between the legs and dismiss the creative ingenuity it takes to educate our children in the ways of culture while living in the white man’s abyss - ain’t we exerting honey when we show improvement as PARENTS?

We overlook how we have chosen to make our mark on the collective atmosphere. That’s honey, the fact that we have traveled back to our beginnings, followed the pebbles dropped on the ground by our ancestors who had hoped that we would wake up and stop suffocating our genetic existence with the white man’s lies. That is a whole lotta honey; it brought us HERE to our true beauty our essence.

Oshun who is regarded as this beauty with the mirror also has a sword-mind you. She is saying to us, see who YOU are, look at the true beauty not the manufactured store bought glamour that was not pushed out before or after the placenta - accept YOU because it is YOU who will guide YOU to your own genius. Moreover, with the sword, she says fight against those who would deny you your beauty, your right to exist as a sacred indigenous being. Make them feel the wrath, laugh and they won’t know what hit them. Cry tears of joy every time you look into the eyes that are not yours alone but bear the remembrances of millennia. Cry because you have found your way home.

That is my connection to Oshun, the one who sits on my counter-top bathed in lavender- the Auntie who gives voice to women-the sweet charmer who will cut the throat to those who seek to stand in the way of success. Auntie Oshun, I welcome your sweetness into my life and my home for eternity.

Ase and Oda

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Olorisha Aboyade Bomani (Mawiyah Kai EL-Jamah Bomani) is a native New Orleanian and Omo OYA. Mawiyah’s writings have appeared in The Crab Orchard Review, Dark Eros, Catch The Fire, Freeform Magazine, Beyond The Frontier, Kente Cloth, Fertile Ground, Family Portraits, Chicken Bones: A Literary Journal, Survival Digest Quarterly, From A Bend In The River,and Women’s Issues and Feminism in the 21st Century. She is co-writer/director of the play Brown Blood Black Womb and of the plays Hair Anthem, Spring Chickens, What Happens to Niggers in French Quarter Nightclubs and Hoodoo Gumbo. Olorisha Aboyade is an educator who currently resides in Shreveport, Louisiana.