Your Part of the River
Ọ̀ṣun Across the Waters Ch. 13 & 14 Overview
Welcome back, loves. Between Sex Down South, traveling to see family, and being sick for the last two weeks, your girl has been out of the loop, okay? I am still recovering; there is tissue in my nose as I type this, so I hope you know how much I love this and y’all. But we are back, and I’m excited to dive in again. We are almost done with this book—just about four chapters left—so we should be able to wrap it up by the top of October, which is perfect timing before we hop into our next read! Let’s begin:
Chapter 13 Overview: What Part of the River You’re In? African American Women in Devotion to Osun
This chapter serves as a collective meditation on the ways Osun is received, embodied, and lived through the lives of African American women. Rachel Elizabeth Harding weaves together the testimonies of six women: four with paternal roots in the Southern United States, one Haitian American, and one with both Caribbean and Southern ancestry. Their stories reflect a spectrum of faith experiences, many with proximity to the Christian church—Baptist, Methodist, Catholic, Lutheran, and Presbyterian.
Across their narratives, Osun consistently emerges as healer, diplomat, reconciler, mother, artist, and source of grace. She is celebrated as the feminine principle of sensuality and the joy that flows from beauty, good food, love, and community. Yet these women also wrestle with Osun’s popular stereotypes, particularly the image of the flirt or “sex goddess.” Their voices complicate the narrative, showing how Osun’s sensuality is never just surface-level—it is tied to diplomacy, reconciliation, and power.
One story that really spoke to me was from Dorothy. She described how years of martial arts training and a resistance to sexist images of women left her struggling to embrace Osun’s sensuality. I felt that deeply. Like Dorothy, I’ve wrestled with the way society projects sexuality; how it often feels stifling, even suffocating, yet through Osun, I’ve been learning to lean into sensuality differently. Not as something shallow or stereotypical, but as power, presence, and softness. Dorothy shared how she set up a place for Osun in her home and was told that Osun wanted gold, not brass, not copper. And gold itself became a lesson: it’s flexible, it bends without breaking, it endures, and it carries weight. For Dorothy, and for me too, this speaks to how Osun teaches creative softness and the beauty of luxury, not luxury as excess, but the wisdom of surrounding yourself with the best you can afford, of honoring quality, of knowing how to keep what is good. At its core, Osun teaches us to recognize value, whether in objects, in history, or in ourselves.
Another powerful story comes from Osunguunwa, who spoke of the tensions her practice created with her mother. Coming from a middle-class Black family, her mother struggled to understand her only daughter’s initiation and rituals: “Why do you have to do all that stuff? Why not take the shortcut?” For many of us in the diaspora, this experience is familiar—the tension between ancestral calling and modern skepticism, between spiritual rigor and the desire for ease. Her story shows the power of persistence and clarity: her mother eventually came to not only accept her path but to attend her initiation ceremony, saluting her daughter in front of the community. This act of love and acknowledgment brought Osunguunwa to tears and symbolized how devotion can bridge even the most personal divides. For me, this resonated as a reminder that part of walking with Osun is getting clear about my why, not because everyone around me will understand, but because I need to be rooted, and in that, others will soften towards understanding and respect of my practice.
Osun’s energy also shows up in how women embody community care. Osuntoki notes that the deity’s influence shapes her work with teenage girls. She sees Osun guiding her to nurture their confidence, encourage their womanhood, and remind them to treasure their innermost selves. In her words, the deity pushes her to be a force for reconciliation and encouragement in her students’ lives.
Harding highlights how these personal journeys with Osun are not just about ritual but about transformation. The deity becomes a mirror for African American women navigating issues of self-worth, femininity, and social roles. As Osunguunwa beautifully states, “It really makes you look at who you are and feel good about your walk in the world, which is important because quite often we African American women don’t walk that way. They help us with our understanding and our beauty.”
The chapter closes with Mambo Do’s reminder that no matter what road we take, we are never lost—we are found. Osun’s presence in the lives of these women affirms that devotion, in whatever form it takes, is a path back to ourselves, back to source, and back to the river that holds us all.
Chapter 14 Overview: Ẹẹ́rìndínlógún The Seeing Eyes of Sacred Shells and Stones by David O. Igungbile
We explore the 16-cowrie shell divination owned by Osun, which is an indispensable bridge between humans and the spiritual world, a sacred dialogue with benevolent and malevolent forces alike.
The process of divination is described as tripartite: prognostication, explanation, and control—a sequence that mirrors modern medicine’s cycle of diagnosis, prescription, and treatment. Through this structure, Igungbile illustrates how Ẹẹ́rìndínlógún is not only a system of foresight but also a curative practice that underscores Osun’s enduring role in healing, balance, and cosmic order.
Osun’s Power in Divination and Cosmology
Osun’s possession of Ẹẹ́rìndínlógún emphasizes her centrality in Yoruba cosmology. She is not a passive participant in the divine order, but a powerful force completing the male-female principle among spiritual beings and natural phenomena. Her power is rooted in her feminine image, which carries profound biological and ecological significance.
Yoruba cosmology identifies three interrelated levels of women’s power embodied in Oshun:
Mystical Power – the ability to navigate spiritual forces beyond empirical knowledge.
Temporal Power – influence over the human and social order.
Physiological Power – the capacity to extend life through procreation and sustenance.
Together, these powers reflect the interdependence of male and female, human and divine, natural and spiritual forces—an interdependence Osun both embodies and protects.
Osetura and the Affirmation of Female Power
The essay revisits the Odu Osetura, where Osun was the only female among the 17 principal divinities. Initially excluded, her neglect rendered the efforts of the male divinities futile. It was Olodumare who affirmed Osun’s power, noting that her role as a woman was as essential as her male counterparts.
In this myth, Osun wields her authority through four powerful messengers—Overcomer, Paralysis, Grievous Harm, and Strong Captor—who helped her balance construction and destruction, nurture and ferocity, fortune and misfortune. Through them, Osun reveals the dual nature of women’s mystical authority, which is both protective and corrective.
Her conferral of this power to women manifests in the Àjẹ́ society, the most revered and feared women’s cult in Yorubaland. Here, Osun’s leadership affirms that women hold divine, social, and political power, legitimizing their central role in both ritual and community life.
Water as Divine Medicine
In Yoruba thought, water is divine—the most essential element of life and a symbol of Oshun’s essence. It is constructive and destructive, soothing and fierce. Rituals for birth, initiation, crisis, and death all require water. As one Odu teaches:
“The one who unexpectedly comes into the world will be admitted by water. The one who slowly goes back into heaven will be received by water. It is water that we bathe with. It is water that we drink. No one makes an enemy of water.”
Stories affirm Osun’s supremacy in using water to heal and protect. In one Odu, when Orumila faced destruction by fire, it was Osun who poured water on the flames and rescued him—an echo of her eternal role as mediator between heat and coolness, destruction and restoration.
Sacred Tools: Cowries and Stones
At the heart of Iride Logun divination are cowrie shells and Osun stones (Òta Osun), both drawn from her waters. Cowries—taken from the ocean—represent Osun’s expansive essence, while her sacred stones are collected from the Osun River, ensuring her eternal presence in ritual.
These instruments are placed in her Agbo Osun, a sacred water pot filled with fresh water drawn daily at dawn. This water, imbued with her ashe, is used for healing, fertility, protection, and progress. Praise poems spoken into the water transform it into medicine, making every drop a vessel of Osun’s curative force.
Ori: The Head as Destiny
Igungbile emphasizes the importance of Ori, the head, in divination. Ori is one’s personal orisha, the seat of destiny and personality chosen before birth. Ori mediates between human beings and the spiritual world, providing the ashe that makes ritual offerings effective.
This is why care of the head through rituals, adornment, and especially hair is so significant. Osun herself is associated with hairdressing and braiding, acts that honor Ori Inu (the inner head). This connection resonates powerfully with African American culture today, where hair remains a sacred expression of selfhood, style, and lineage—a continuation of ancestral knowledge embedded in practice.
Conclusion: Osun’s Eternal Presence
Chapter 14 closes by affirming Osun’s multidimensional power through Ẹẹ́rìndínlógún. As owner of this divination system, she holds the mysteries of life, sustains humanity, and upholds the balance of the universe.
Her presence in every cowrie, stone, and pot of sacred water testifies that Osun is not only a goddess of fertility or sensuality, but a divine custodian of wisdom and destiny. She carries the power to heal, to protect, to dismantle, and to restore. Above all, Osun teaches that water, like life itself, must flow—sometimes gentle, sometimes fierce, always essential.