Ochun of the Sea by Chester Higgins. Oxum (Brazil), Ochun (Cuba), Oṣun (Nigeria) are names for the Orisha of the Osun River in Nigeria. Regarded as the goddess of love, female beauty, sensuality, sweetness, and money, she controls wealth, fertility and the capacity to experience joy and harmony in life. Her metals are brass and gold, her colours yellow/gold/amber, her number is five. She is said to be beautiful and flirtatious yet also skilled in witchcraft and very fearsome. She is hotness and swag personified. No man can resist her charms. She is often prayed to for children. She is fiercely protective of her own children and followers. There is a huge festival every year at Oṣun’s sacred grove in Osogbo, Nigeria. In Cuba her feast day is that of the Catholic saint Caridad del Cobre (Sept 8th). One story goes thus: that the mighty Ogun, Orisha of iron, a warrior and blacksmith, lost his cool in battle: nothing could sate his bloodlust and he began killing his own men. He was cast into the forest, but his presence in human society was missed - we need the keen blade of merciless truth to cut decisively through life’s problems, as well as the power and technology of iron tools and weapons. And so Oṣun was dispatched to bring him back into the world of men. She bathed naked in the river, laughing and singing. Ogun was drawn to her song and once he spied her was transfixed by her beauty. She snuck up on him and smeared his mouth with her sweet honey and beckoned him to follow. Overwhelmed, he followed her back into the world and order and balanced was restored once more. The fierceness of male power, untempered by female sweetness, can become a destructive force. Every Warrior needs a Queen, someone to soften him and remind him what he is fighting for. We humanise each other and all our gifts are blessings. Àṣẹ
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