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Oshun
The goddess of love, sexuality, beauty and diplomacy. She is the owner of the sweet waters. With her sweetness, she overcomes the most difficult tasks. She is the protector of the abdominal area and the teacher of pleasure and happiness. She is a great giver, but when she is angry, it is very difficult to calm her down. She is often invoked in matters of love and money.

She is also the Goddess of the rivers that sustain life, she rules love, beauty and the arts, especially dance. Streams, rivers, lakes and waterfalls carry her voice on their waters. Adorned with gold jewelry, she speaks to one of her birds, the parrot. She is holding the fan of a priestess of Oshun who is the mediator between the divine/natural world and the world of people (the cross in the circle indicating a meeting of the two worlds), from Osogbo, Nigeria.



Oshun, Goddess of Love
Oshun, the Yoruba Goddess of Love and Life-Sustaining Rivers, is the Goddess of all the arts, but especially dance. Beauty belongs to Oshun and represents the human ability to create beauty for its own sake, to create beyond need. It is also said that she is the knitter of civilization, since great cities have been founded, for the most part, along rivers in order to supply water to their populations. She is portrayed here in a pose typical of the Yoruba priestesses of Oshun who recline gracefully along the banks of the Niger River in West Africa. In the branches of the tree on the left is the fan of one of these priestesses from Osogbo, Nigeria.



Oya
Oya is the goddess of the wind, fire and the thunderbolt. As the female warrior of the Yoruba pantheon, she represents female power. She is strong, assertive, courageous and independent and is always willing to take risks. When she is enraged, she can create tornadoes and hurricanes, but these also happened when she is ready to make changes. Oya is a great witch and the guardian of the gates of death. She is invoked when there are serious illness or when transformation is necessary.



Yemaya
Yemaya, the Yoruba Mother of the Sea, mother of all life because the sea is the source of all life, is said to have seven aspects with various characteristics. The first time she walked on earth, fountains that later became rivers sprang up wherever she set foot. Sea shells, through which the priestesses and priests could hear the voice of the universe, were among her first gifts to the people. She is wearing an 18th century Ijebu armlet with a fish-legged figure.

Yemaya is also the goddess of the moon. She is the mother archetype and the provider of wealth. As the one who gives life and sustains the Earth, she is extremely generous and giving. She is the nurturing energy that sooth anyone. But like the ocean, when she is angry, she can be implacable. Therefore, she represents the mother who gives love, but does not give her power away.Yemaya is also the owner of the collective subconcious and ancient wisdom, since she holds the secrets that are hidden in the sea. She is often invoked in fertility rituals for women and in any ritual concerning women's issues.



Mawu
Mawu is the Creator/Moon Goddess known among the people from the Dahomey region of West Africa. After creating the earth and all life and everything else on it,she became concerned that it might be too heavy, so she asked the primeval serpent, Aido Hwedo, to curl up beneath the earth and hold it up in the sky. When she asked Awe, a monkey she had also created, to help out and make some more animals out of clay, he boasted to the other animals and challenged Mawu. Gbadu, the first woman Mawu had created, saw all the chaos on earth and told her children to go out among the people and remind them that only Mawu can give Sekpoli - the breath of life. Gbadu instructed her daughter, Minona, to go out among the people and teach them about the use of palm kernels as omens from Mawu. When Awe, the arrogant monkey climbed up to the heavens to try to show Mawu that he too could give life, he failed miserably. Mawu made him a bowl of porridge with the seed of death in it and reminded him that only she could give life and that she could also take it away. She is holding a 19th century Fon royal staff from Dahomey and wearing a 20th century shell headdress from the same region.



Nut
Ancient Egyptian Goddess of the Cosmos, she was also known as "she who bore the gods". Nut was the eternally permanent sky arched over the earth, with her children, the sun, moon and stars, moving through her. It was she who poured the nourishing rain down from the heavens with her water jar and she who offered water and food to the souls of the departed. Her image was often pictured inside the tops and bottoms of coffins so that the dead could be embraced by her for eternity. Ceiling relief from the Temple of Hathor, Denderah, Egypt, 1st-4th century CE.



Erzulie
Erzulie is the Haitian Goddess of Love whose roots go back to the Yoruba West African Goddess of Love, Oshun. She is beauty, sweetness, love and sensuality personified and is renowned for her generosity. The arts, especially dance, are her domain. Rivers, streams, lakes and waterfalls are hers and she can cure womb-related problems with her cool waters. The fan that she is holding is from Osogbo, Nigeria and belongs to a priestess of Oshun who is the mediator between the divine or natural world and the world of people, the cross in the circle indicating the meeting of the two worlds.



Isis
Ancient Egyptian Goddess of healing and magic. She lived with her brother/husband Osiris until he was killed by his brother Set. Isis found his body in Phoenicia in a tamarisk tree and returned it to Egypt for a proper burial. After Set's second attempt to dispose of the body, Isis brought siris back to life and later conceived a child with him, Horus. Isis created a snake that bit Ra, highest of the gods. He asked her to 0heal him but she claimed that she could not until he whispered his secret name to her; he did and, in curing him, she gained eternal power over him. She is holding a naos sistrum which, when rattled, enabled Isis to give out divine blessings, for the Goddess resides in the sound. She is wearing a sun disk between cow horns, which represent the moon and its cycles, thereby uniting the permanent and the transient. Relief from the Temple at Abydos, c. 13th century BCE.



Sekmet
Sekmet was a lion-headed Sun Goddess from Egypt, defender of the divine order, who became so disgusted with people's lack of reverence that she began to eat them. The other gods, wishing to save humanity, laid out a mixture of beer and pomegranate juice which she drank, falling into a stupor. When she awoke, her rage was gone. She represents the cleansing fire that brings energy into form. In addition to her ferocity, Sekmet's strong magical powers caused her to be highly regarded as a healer. The flail in her left hand attracts celestial energy. She holds a mirror representing the head of Hathor, c. 1460 BCE, and stands in front of a representation of herself from the tomb of Imen M. Hebra, Egypt.

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