Oshun

Crowned woman, oh so rare, owner of a piercing knife. When the Òrìshà first came to Earth, the men among them called a secret meeting — no one remembers what about. Òshun figured out where it was and tried to attend. They turned her away. Quick with a blade, she could have cut her way in; but she thought she’d make a statement instead. If they thought they could get along without women, fine. So she revoked humans’ power of childbirth. The offenders apologized, offering copper, gold, and brass, but even her favorite metals wouldn’t quiet her wrath. Only a bribe of honey finally appeased her.

Òshun, goddess of love and affluence, rules fresh water in general and Nigeria’s Òshun River in particular. Healing water flows from one hand; a jeweled knife glitters in the other. She’s hooked up with both Èshù and Òrúnmìlà (and still practices divination), but she’s married to Shàngó now. When she first arrived in the New World, she asked Yemoja to give her fair skin and straight golden hair like a European painting of the Virgin Mary to fit dominant beauty standards, but quickly lost patience with that kind of thing. She has become the pantheon’s public face with a performer/businesswoman/philanthropist Incarnation she’s maintained for the past 36 years. This gleaming golden queen bee is always orbited by a swarm of killer bees — a deadly European/African hybrid created to slake human greed with boosted honey production, which escaped captivity in Brazil and has spread across the Americans

Òshun dearly loves her Scions, but demands results. Don’t just party: network. Don’t just clean up nice: dress to kill. Don’t settle: marry someone who deserves you. Then, when you’re rich and powerful, the witch-empress on a gold and brass throne? Heal the sick. Enrich the poor. Slay, queen, we stan that