Invoking Oshún
Drums beat through my chest. Voices travel from vocal cords to heart cords, carrying with them the soft, rhythmic and harmonic frequencies that invoke Oshún, the goddess of the sacred waters of the Yorùbá faith.
Abdias Nascimento, Oxunmaré Ascende courtesy of IPEAFRO Black Art Museum Collection, digitale Reproduktion von Miguel Pacheco e Chaves, RCS Arte Digital
A large woman whose curves are celebrated by folds of blue silk and who represents Oshún sits at the centre of the stage. Her hands curl around invisible water as she scoops it up from the ground and brings it to her body, softly stroking her skin and occasionally sending a playful swoosh over her shoulder in perfect unison with the striking of a chime. Other priestesses form a circle around her, smiling as they chant their praises, wash and adore her.
I’m in Salvador, Brazil, where Oshún is a powerful river deity among those who follow the Yorùbá faith – an African diasporic religion observed by around 85 million people in the country. The rhythmic folk dance, bàtá, is considered a form of communion between the human body and the divine force of Nature. This dance, like a lotus flower, now has the formidable power to blossom around the world, having been sullied by decades of colonialism and oppression. I think of those who silently carried their faith across oceans through entirely oral traditions amid the Atlantic slave trade.
Oshún carries many faces, depending on the strand of religion, which has transformed and merged through centuries of displacement and forced co-existence amongst West African people. In a similar strand of Candomblé, a related religion of the African diaspora, for example, Oshún is called Nkisi Ndandalunda, ‘the Lady of Fertility and Moon’. She is often invoked to help women with childbirth. She is associated with femininity, beauty and love. And yet she is also associated with sadness, loneliness and jealousy, so many are able to relate to Oshún and the strength and power that she brings.
Audre Lorde often evoked goddesses and spirits as a way of empowering oppressed women and of reconnecting them with the right to their own bodies. In her poem ‘The Winds of Orisha’, she writes:
“the beautiful Oshún and I lie down together
in the heat of her body’s truth
my voice comes stronger”
Oshún is traditionally invoked through song and offerings of her favourite spices and flowers, such as cinnamon and sunflowers, as well as honey. Invoking Oshún is thought to bring love and flowing feminine strength into your life. The river and oceans are her tears of both sorrow and joy, cleansing and purifying for all those who bathe in her sacred waters.
Whilst Oshún is one of the most beloved orixás (also known as orishas – a form of spirit or god) of the Yorùbá faith, Ìyá Nlá (‘Great Mother’) is the primordial spirit of all creation in Yorùbá cosmology. She is a force to be reckoned with. She is seen as the powerful source of all life on Earth. She is the celebrated older woman, the shared mother of us all. Ìyá Nlá is not an orixá, but a form of ashe.
The concept of ashe is explained as the universal life force of African-Caribbean religions, not that dissimilar to the concept of prana in yogic philosophy. Plants and other entities in Nature, such as the streams, rivers, seas, oceans, wind, clouds, rainfall and sunlight, have ashe. The same type of energy can be found in a word, in a song, or in any form whereby something is happening.
“The Orishas represent Nature and each Orisha not only resides and represents natural ecologies like the ocean, river, mountain tops, swamps and volcanoes, but they actively are those natural ecologies.”
Different orixás are embodiments of different elements of Nature. While some orixás have ashe of the rivers, others, such as Oya, have wind life force. In Yorùbá cosmology, Oya’s representation as the embodiment of wind showcases her dynamic and transformative nature. She is often depicted as a fierce and passionate warrior, commanding the winds and storms with her breath. Some scholars argue that Oya is an amalgam of Native American and European goddesses.
Inle, also known as Erinle, is an orixá associated with estuaries, in-between spaces where freshwater rivers meet the salty sea. He is the deity of health and medicine and is often regarded as the patron of LGBTQ+ people. Òsanyìn, known as the god of leaf and herb, lives in the forest to care for the plants.
There is also Mami Wata, who is connected to the deep-water realms of knowledge. Throughout central and coastal Africa, she is one of the oldest entities in existence, with evidence harking back to the 15th century and earlier. Haiti is home to the sacred serpent, Aida Wedo. Her warrior strength springs from the hope that we can always improve, just like the emergence of a rainbow after a storm.
“we are part of the same life force, the same ashe.”
In ‘The Body as Layered Divinity’, published in the Harvard magazine ReVista, dance educator Nadia Milad Issa elegantly describes the connection between orixás, our bodies and Nature:
“The Orishas represent Nature and each Orisha not only resides and represents natural ecologies like the ocean, river, mountain tops, swamps and volcanoes, but they actively are those natural ecologies. To understand my body with which I perform and through which I teach dance means to unlearn and relearn that my body is in relationship to natural ecologies, and ultimately, divine nature.”
Each person is believed to be born with a guardian orixá, according to the Yorùbá faith. Throughout our lives, it is thought that we encounter different orixás who guide us along our journey. The Yorùbá believe that daily life depends on proper alignment and knowledge of one’s ori – part of one’s soul that influences personal destiny and success. Lorde expresses the power of integrating all aspects of our being in the collection ‘Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches’:
“My fullest concentration of energy is available to me only when I integrate all parts of who I am, openly, allowing power from particular sources of my living to flow back and forth freely through all my different selves, without the restrictions of externally imposed definition.”
As I journey through Salvador, where the warm ocean greets me every day, I think about Oshún and the odyssey it took her to get here. Lorde’s words resonate within me, accompanying me on my travels as I infuse my spirit with Oshún’s strength and wisdom.
Guided by the Yorùbá faith’s vibrant music and dance, we are urged to honour the sacredness inherent in every aspect of our being – from Oya’s winds of change to Aida Wedo’s rainbow after the storm. It is through dance that we are united in the same beat, a beat that wakes us up to life and reminds us that we are here, we are connected, we are part of the same life force, the same ashe.
This article was originally published in Resurgence and Ecologist Magazine. You can find a copy here.
