Oxum, graciosa mãe!

One Black woman asks a question. photographer, Roland Dawson.

Oxum, graciosa mãe, plena de sabedoria!
Que enfeita seus filhos com bronze
Que fica muito tempo no fundo das águas gerando riquezas
Que se recolhe ao rio para cuidar das crianças
Que cava e cava a areia e nela enterra dinheiro Mulher poderosa que não pode ser atacada


Oshun, Gracious Mother, full of wisdom who adorns her children with bronze, which is too long at the bottom of the water generating riches, Who gathers to the river to take children, who digs and digs the sand and buries money. Powerful woman who cannot be attacked.

the OLD ways in the NEW.

Yorùbá Orishas – Oshun, divinity of rivers, love, feminine beauty, fertility, and art, also one of Shango’s lovers and beloved of Ogoun

Maria Borges by Rory Payne for Mixt(e) Magazine Spring Summer of 2015.

If the intellectual concepts of water are not sacred the power of man and women is a dead concept. The difference between a whore and a woman is the sanctity a woman embodies, or doesn't. If there is no respect for land based upon the divinity of land as Mother there is only factual dissemination of why land is property, and no soul to the laws of ownership need apply to forcibly remove money as the reason for drilling for oil knowing it will pollute a significant water supply not that far from a predicted drought coming to middle America because of the disrespectful use of water in the past.

Oshun entering American life, thought life, and the practice of leaving altars and offerings upon land would be a return to reverence. African spirituality is older than the modernity of corporations somehow faceless with no soul attached to a body of business practices affecting human life robotic like with no feeling, no real culpability as the laws have been written. But, the centuries of contact with greedy white people deemed this old but celebrated spirituality as the work of the devil. Demonized the Orishas cannot become a part of a lexicon we need to overturn what doesn't work as we face melting ice raising shorelines, droughts as white men make decisions about correcting these problems with profit uppermost in their thoughts and concerns, and economic development as their guiding light of environmental reformation. What we can do is stop our lives and let thousands of American citizens including policy makers and decision makers live in abject poverty in other countries for at minimum of a month to learn how to see with other's eyes, feel other's pain to know American life is not the center of life.

"What does the world see when they see us?"

We will never know if we don't listen. We will not understand if we cannot, if we refuse to, or are unwilling to switch position and live where someone else lives to see how we live in their perspective of us. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories Jan. 10, 2017

Cigar smoking old Cuban woman in Havana, Cuba. photo by Ania Blazejewska on Flickr.

repose

In repose

an Oshun Bath

Sea Salt 1 cup or 2 cups for cleansing negative energy.

Goat's Milk, or Whole milk exfoliates skin.

Honey

Olive Oil

Orange Peels

Essential oils, lavender, eucalyptus, lemon grass

boil some cinnamon & put cinnamon water in the bath. 

Beyond that you need to consult a woman/healer, or Priestess in the tradition. This I share for your benefit. What you need to know, or discover is outside my Medicine. Some places a man does not go.

Self View

View self
April 26, 2013

"The contradictions of American patriotism are worn rendering the average person incapable of seeing what they are wearing, thus presenting to the world-at-large what they don't know, and fail to grasp as contradictory, and divisive! It is a pity, but even self portrayals have failed to be revelatory for the average. Instead it emboldened them with the rancor of war, and bloodletting." - Gregory E. Woods 4.29.13

OSHUN with Lions

a GIFT TO OSHUN

"Oshun, I would like to gift you with a prayer the Creator gave me at the close of the last century." - Dawn Wolf, Keeper of Stories

I anoint my feet to walk to where I can do the most good for someone's life.

Let a circle open within my stomach to receive and release to objects, creatures, and spirits and people in need.

I anoint my hands to heal.

I anoint my voice to speak trust into the heart, power into the life, vision to the blind, strength to the unbelieving and weak.

I anoint my eyes to probe, to know, to see.

I bless myself to be myself.

I open myself to the elements.

Let the Unknowable Unknown permeate my being.

I anoint my Self to be a receptacle for the Mystery; the Above Person, the Unknowable Unknown. 

Gregory E. Woods (Dawn Wolf)

OSHUN SHANGO

LEGACY OF ADVOCACY: a glimpse into Diane Urban's place in history

My great-grandmother "Granny" Lucille McCrary. born 1895 transitioned 1990. Her front porch was burned down during the race riot here in Chicago in the 20's. Her mother was Native American and her father a runaway slave from Georgia. Her husband was one of the first Garveyites in Chicago during the 1920's. -Diane Urban

Grandma knew ALL about the astronomy and astrology!

A STORY:

"...My daughter, the only brown child in the class, loved Latin. She at the time was still planning on Pre-med for her major, before switching to Law. ...To make a long story short, she was asked by the teacher to do extra work not assigned for the rest of the class, to get credit for a low grade on one aspect of the project.

My daughter has always been an excellent speaker and presenter in school. It frustrated me that she was asked to do more to get the same credit as the other students received. Well...you know me! I called her Dean, the department chair and the teacher and we had a meeting. I questioned why was she expected to do more to get the same grade as the other students. The teacher, a first year teacher, gave some off the wall obviously racist explanation. I hit the roof. I stayed calm and began explaining the injustice of this request. I finally let him have it by stating this was a typical racist tactic used against her. He immediatly got flusted and the dean even tried to intercede by stating that race played no part in this issue. I politely let the dean know that she would not understand hidden racism because she does not recognize it when she sees it. I told her this is a common issue of us having to do more to get the same recognition. I then reverted back to the in your face dialogue of racism. The male teacher started tearing up and even my daughter asked me to be a little more calm. But when your daughter is 4th generation through that school, the only brown child in the class who happened to come home dancing and singing songs in Latin to be faced with this and the darker the next generation is from the previous one coupled with racist behaviour, I had had enough.

I got my point across... The one part of the project that my daughter received a low grade on was graded unfairly. The teacher lasted a few years and was eventually fired. The following year, I became co-president of APPLE (African American Parents For Purposeful Leadership In Education) of my high school. And that is another story or should I say book." -Diane Urban

"Diane, I agree with you. The presence of a parent in school is a powerful antidote for mistreatment." -Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories

"Gregory-When I was co-pres. of APPLE (African American Parents For Purposeful Leadership In Education), you would not believe how many parents were intimidated by the system. The children of these parents were the most disrespected and shunned students. The school knows that their parents are intimidated... or ill-prepared and worst of all, the kids know mom or dad is not coming up there to check on them, which leads to either rebellious behaviour and llack of interest from the student. We often served as the parent and were instrumental in being the liason or negotiator for the students. Often parent, single mothers called us in the middle of the night, scared, confused and unsure of what to do for an incident involving their student. Our school district happens to be the most litigious school district in Illinois. When we confront issues, we really confront them. But that is the price for a good education, right? I don't know anymore." -Diane Urban, great-grandaughter of Lucille McCrary

OSHUN

"I will fight for my kids till the end until they can fight their own battles. The main goal it to school them properly. I could have reserved myself during this meeting, but she needed to see me call him out of his comfort zone.... Plus, I was not willing to leave defeated by someone's obvious disdain for my daughter's enthusiasm for Latin, which at the time was preparing her for her MSATs. Our children need to see how to handle this type of bigotry and racism. I could have cowered to her teacher and her dean, but after this episode, I had full cooperation regarding her needs from that day forward. It is a good feeling to walk into any school in this district and know that if there is anything out of line, I will call them on it with with no fear nor trepidation. Once the schools know you will defend your student when they are being labeled or ill-treated, your child learns." -Diane Urban, mother, activist, & co-president of African American Parents For Purposeful Leadership In Education

a vision in the water

“The unique function of Oshun within the Orisha Awo (Mysteries of Nature) is to provide the spark of passion that attracts the Forces of expansion, and contraction to each other. This attraction occurs on all levels of existence from the polarities, which guide the formation of planets to the attraction between men and women. Oshun as the source of passion is the Goddess of the Erotic, and according to Ifá the power of the erotic motivates the Orisha in every realm of Being…”

– Awo Fá’lokun Fataunmbi, author,

OSHUN: Ifá and the Spirit of the River page 3