IN HONOR OF THE OSUN FESTIVAL!

Many years ago, and this was before I went to Africa to receive/initiate Osun, I went to Jamaica to work for someone there, spiritually. When I came home I had a vision that I must go to Jamaica and bring an “elaborate gift” to a place called Roaring River. I had heard of Roaring River, which is in Westmoreland, Jamaica, but I had never been there.

After hearing this command, I questioned the spirit by saying I was just in Jamaica, why wasn’t the message given to me then? And I was told that I should just go. It was about 2 weeks after that a certain call came in for me to hurry back to Jamaica, my help was needed and needed fast. As I got there and met with my client, I realized that the “elaborate gift” that I were to bring to Roaring River was not in the form of presents or sacrifice but in the form of the client himself as he was a celebrity.

After I came home from Jamaica, I heard a voice from far off call the name “Obara Meji.” This went on for about a month, the voice was clear and when I asked my children or anyone there with if they, too, heard the voice – all would say no. It was not long after that that I went to Nigeria for my Osun initiation and during that time, as I initiated Osun, Obara Meji was born.

I now identify Roaring River in Jamaica as one of the many rivers throughout the world where Osun can be found. Jamaica is an island filled with many beautiful rivers and many Jamaicans will often tell stories of the River Muma. She is often times depicted as a mermaid, although Osun does not like the reference. She says she is no mermaid. In Nigeria there is a yearly festival done in the town of Osogbo where millions of people from all over the world come to celebrate and honour Orisa Osun which is by far the most popular Orisha.

This is done every Mid-August and there you will find many Osun worshippers, Kings, Arabas, Babalawos, Olo Orishas, Iyanifas, Awo’s and then some, gathered by the Osogbo River with bottles in hand getting water for whatever healing they or their families may need. It is Osun we look to when we want children. It is Osun we look to when we want to put together our families; if a woman wants a husband, she will pray to Osun, and if a man wants a wife, he will pray to Osun and if both when they meet want children, and it proves difficult, it would be Osun that would be appeased to bring the child or children forth. This is quite often the practice in Nigeria which has the most twins born yearly than any other country in the world.

Below is a post that was written some time ago which tells a story from my childhood memory of my realization of one of my first connections to Osun in physical form. It also describes the archetypes of Osun. Please read and enjoy:

I remember as a child living in Kingston Jamaica, my mother at times would send me to a shop on Waltham Park Road which the locals called Bun Dung. A fire had happened there sometime ago, but even after it was renovated and re-opened the name stuck, that is Jamaica. I could either take one of two roads to reach Bun Dung shop on Waltham Park Road, it was either Delamere Avenue or Languard Avenue, it depended on my mood.

At the end of Languard Avenue, right at the corner on the right hand side, beside a betting shop (where peopl bet on horse races),  there was a house, and the owner of the house was called Mumzel. I was about six or seven years old then, and people in the community would gossip about Mumzel, saying that she was a prostitute or a madam, because her yard was always filled with many young girls just hanging out, and men solicited favors from them and Mumzel negotiated the deal and got a her share. I remember her yard being painted in White and blue, with a wrap around veranda which had shine red tiles,  it was very clean, her yard, with beautifully well kept flowers and trees of all sorts. The walk way leading from her gate unto her veranda was also tiled shinny clean, and superbly well kept.

I would see Mumzel, who all the women whispered about go in and out of her yard, always with a pleasant expression, always smiling and all her girls would be on the veranda laughing and joking all together, they were all nicely dressed and seemed to be having a good time together. They had the love, respect and admiration of men, but the women spoke badly about Mumzel,  yet nothing seemed to frazzle her spirit, she was a strong woman.

Mumzel had beautiful black skin, cool, never sweaty or shinny as I remember and she was plump with wide hips and a huge bum, the likes of what Kim Karadashian could not pay for, or could never have, hers was real. Nowadays people look at fat people with disgust, (so sad), but Mumzel who was not obese, she made fat beautiful to how she carried herself.

Mumzel had an amazonian quality about her, yet not in a manly way, she exuded femininity to its core, yet she had an energy which conveyed, I am mistress of my own domain, respect me, she never called respect, it was automatically given to her.

She was always well dressed and neat, she had pretty white teeth, and at the side of her mouth she had a gold tooth (on her eye teeth) which gleamed when she smiled you could almost hear a ping as the gold sparkled from Mumzel’s mouth.  She had dimpled cheeks which lit up her face, and she carried her weight as if she had no extra weight at all, she was active.

Mumzel was very pretty (I paid homage to her, name,description and all, in the Trevor story). She seemed confident and strong, and I as a child saw all of that in Mumzel. Whenever she would pass the women who would speak badly about her behind her back, and I am sure she knew this, she would smilingly greet them and they would hypocritically answer her back, hailing her and making much of her while laughing, they would continue gossiping after she had breezed pass leaving a whisper of her sweet perfume in the air.

As a child I admired her, and would often take the Languard avenue route to see her and her beautiful yard, she always smiled with us as children, and would touch us on our heads as she made much of us, sometimes giving us candy, (she seemed to love children, she had at the time only one child, a daughter who was a pre-teen, it was said that Mumzel was very strict with her), which the grown ups would tell us not to eat, for whatever reason, we were not told. There was an energy which came off Mumzel which resonated with me, it was Osun(OSHUN), but I had no idea, she and I were from the same realm, she was apart of my spiritual family unbeknownst to me back then, but very known to my head and my spirit. I had been introduced to my spiritual mother represented in the physical form by Mumzel, but I had not yet the wisdom to understand, only that Mumzel was like a celebrity to me, I was drawn to her spirit and I wanted to be like her, Osun showed me herself through Mumzel.

There was something about Mumzel, even her name that made me in awe of her, and although I have no idea if the rumors were true that she was a prostitute or a madam, I have always secretly wanted to be a madam! I wanted to resemble Mumzel in that way, yes if I was confident enough to enter that world (not being a prostitute, but a madam for my working girls) the idea or the inspiration for that ambition would have come from beautiful Mumzel.

I had no Idea who was Orisha Osun, and as I traveled along life’s way and met my Padrino, (Padrino was lucumi, white Cuban, but he respected Africa and Africans, calling himself African, unlike these nowadays Lucumi practitioners who have no respect for us Africans who are their elders,of whom tradition they are practicing a bastardized version) and became curious of the Ifa/Orisha traditional practice of the Yoruba people of South Western Nigeria, I began to realize that Osun was always close to me, she was never far away from me, I was her child and she was with me.

Padrino had a God child, her name was Connie, an older woman when I met her, but she had a charming personality about her which was mixed with a hint of madness. I am just stating the truth here, no disrespect at all to Connie, her spirit or her head, nor am I making an attempt of  humor whatsoever. It was Connie who made me meet Padrino (it was my head, but it used Connie). Connie had been working for another Spanish woman at her Botanica (spiritual shop and religious items and herbs) as a reader.

I was taken to the shop by one of my customers because my shop was under spiritual attack, Connie (who was Lucumi) had connived with the owner of the shop to dupe people into giving them fake Ellegua’s (Lucumi version of Esu or Elegba), they had no idea that I was one who people could not fool with and so after paying for the Ellegua which was supposed to help my business and bringing it to my business place, I did as was told on how to care it, which was giving it coffee and cigar and sweets (not done in Africa). I gave it all I was told, and it was after two weeks I had a dream where a non-physical elder came and told me to throw that S&*T (that is the word they used) away, but put on a tuxedo, which meant that I could not just throw it away like that, it had to be thrown away by way of ritual.

After the dream, I called the shop and Connie who helped prepare the scam Ellegua answered and when I told her the dream, she immediately began to apologize and gave me in secret her home address and phone number, that is how I met my sweet dear Padrino.

Connie had Osun as her Orisha and Obatala, in Lucumi they give father and mother Orisha, not so in Africa. She was a good reader to some degree and what I mean by that is she used tarot cards, nothing wrong with that, Tarot cards diviners (if they know it well) are excellent, I also read cards and I love them ,but she did something I did not like, she would embellish what the spirits told her, meaning she added on her own opinions in the reading,not leaving it all to spirit, so she muddled the reading which would have been otherwise good without her input of self. Not good!

Connie, had a personality where she would be sweet one minute and very evil in a second, she always wanted to do bad and dirty work, but complained that she could not, because Obatala restricted her from doing bad. She was like a sinister evil witch who itched to do wicked deeds, but couldn’t for fear of her master. She had big bug eyes, and an screeching laugh like a banshee. She had times when she would squint her bug eyes and tell you things which was the truth, which left you thinking, “How the hell did she know that? Connie was sweet today and sour tomorrow, blowing hot and cold in the blink of an eye. She was not easy to understand. She was happiest when she thought of evil and doing the work. Padrino had to always cool her down with a look, she had real respect and what also seem like fear for him. She reminded me of the saying, “Come into my parlor said the spider to the fly”, because when she was nice, you were drawn to her, temporarily forgetting her other side.

They say the river can get murky at times, and some time it can come down and sweep away many, perhaps Connie was that side of Osun, perhaps!

According to some people they say Osun, although sweet and loving can be (if thwarted) your worse nightmare, she will fight her enemies and if she does this they may not survive. She is water, so she can go into your blood stream, she can flood your house, drown you, make your kidneys fail, give you herpes or de odda ting, poison yuh, dehydrate your body, kill you in child birth, and more, her power is insurmountable, and there is nobody that she cannot get to, unless the person does not use water and who does not use water? I must make it clear however that it takes a lot to get Osun to a place where she will deal with you! She will however act quickly if any of her children are threatened, she nuh play with those that belongs to her.

Yet with Connie, nobody had to thwart her into becoming Lucifer’s personal assistant. Then I wonder how can people not stay upset at her for her offensive and mad (call a spade a spade) ways, including me, I always forgave her and so did everyone. Was it the fault of Lucumi and how they initiated people, how they initiated her? I wondered about that, or was Connie a mad woman before initiation, and the sweetness of Osun was trying to come out (when she was nice) but the madness intervened and sey not ah rass!?

She use to beg me to hurry up and get initiated, because Padrino told her that one day I would become a big witch. Yes, she used the word witch, she could at times be crass, so I paid her no mind.

Connie wore white everyday, and I use to do her hair, she wore Jeri curl. She always had a lot of jewelry on, bangles and bracelets, rings and chains, all gold. Osun’s children loves jewelry, especially gold She also wore contact lens, hazel ones, and tried to look nice always. She was proud of being Omo Osun, child of Osun, but she always complained that Obatala would not allow her the freedom to do Juju, bad Juju, which she loved. Shi love to obeah people. She was an African American woman.

Padrino loved me a lot and she knew this and he predicted many things for me, including that I would be a medium like him, and that I would bring the tradition far, she always heard this and secretly did not like it. Padrino was a very strong Palero and so he would invite me to come to his house late at night so that he would show me how he worked his Palo pot, he would come and get me and take me to do rituals out in nature, Connie did not like that, but she said nothing. Eventually she blocked me from seeing Padrino. Whenever I called she told me that he traveled and she blocked me from him, so that when he died, I had no idea. It was a visit to the realm I went and saw him doing initiation there, when he saw me he hugged me like a long lost daughter, that is how I found out that he had joined his elders. Iba Padrino.

Orisha Osun, the goddess of sweet water, of the rivers, lakes, and ponds, is a wonderful Orisha.

Oore Yeye O

Omi ooooo

Ota ooooo

Eri oooo

Agba ooooo

Oore Yeye OOOO, Osun OOOOO!

Hail to my mother Osun!

Osun people will work in areas such as these:

Hairdresser (Orisha with the comb)

Midwife or healer

Writer and any form of communication

Dancer, (she is for all areas of the arts)

Actor

Singers

Models

Music composer or arranger

Make up artist Stylist

Movie producer

Spiritual Diviner

Spiritual practitioner

Artist as in paintings

Decorator

And more, but I cannot bother write, ah tiad!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCu51MncMhc