Maiden
What you need to sow
Let pleasure lead. Beauty, flirtation and delight are legitimate beginnings.
Yorubaland / West Africa
Oshun
Sweet Water, Owner of Honey
Yorubaland (Nigeria) and the Atlantic diaspora — Cuba, Brazil, Trinidad, the US — living tradition
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Her story
Historical context
goddess · Yorubaland (Nigeria) and the Atlantic diaspora — Cuba, Brazil, Trinidad, the US — living tradition
Orisha of fresh water, love, fertility and diplomacy, Oshun is remembered as the one who saved humanity when the other orishas' pride failed: dancing upward as a peacock to plead with the sky. Her rivers and rites live on in Nigeria, Cuba, Brazil and beyond.
Mythology & traditions
In one telling the orishas withheld rain until the earth cracked; only Oshun, transformed into a peacock and scorched bare by the sun, reached Olodumare and brought the water back — beauty as endurance, not decoration. The annual Osun-Osogbo festival still carries offerings to her river in Nigeria, and her grove is a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Domains
- Fresh water
- Love and pleasure
- Fertility
- Diplomacy
- Divination and wealth
Symbols
- River water
- Honey
- Brass and gold
- Cowrie shells
- Peacock and vulture
- Mirror and fan
In the oracle
Her guidance
Mother
What you need to grow
Nurture your sweetness. Soften a relationship you have been meeting with hardness.
Crone
What you need to know
Know that charm accomplishes what force cannot. Diplomacy is the deeper power in this situation.