Oshun (Yoruba Osun) is the orisha of fresh water, and she is inseparable from a real river: the Osun, which rises in and flows through southwestern Nigeria. In Yoruba understanding she is the presence in that water, and, by extension, the orisha of love, beauty, fertility, wealth and the sweetness that makes life worth living. Where Ogun is iron and force, Oshun is honey, brass, cool water and gold; devotees invoke her for children, for love, for prosperity and for healing, and her offerings characteristically include honey, sweet oranges, and yellow or brass objects.
A widely told Yoruba account gives her a role at the very foundation of the world. When the other, male orisha came down to order the earth and left Oshun out of their councils, their work would not prosper; only when they turned back and honoured her did creation succeed. Worshippers draw from this the teaching that the cool, generative, feminine power she embodies is not optional but essential, that force without sweetness accomplishes nothing.
Oshun is worshipped today throughout Yorubaland and across the diaspora, and her devotees understand her, in the present tense, as an active and generous presence.