I am T-D. Oshún…

My ritual name is Okántomí.  Many people in my religious community also know me as TeeDee Oshún.  I am a Mother, an Oshún Priestess, the widow of a loving husband, a Daughter, a Sister, and many other things.  I am not a corporation.  I craft Spiritual Bath Tea in my own home and in my own Shrines with my Orishas, Egun, and Spirit Guides...just as my ancestors have done for hundreds of years before me.  I put 100% of my focused intentions, my love, my care, and my Ashé into this!

I am an ordained priestess dedicated to the Orisha Oshún within the Afro-Cuban Lukumí Tradition. This system of Orisha worship derives from the Traditional Yoruba Religion of Nigeria and Benin West Africa, which is an ancient body of wisdom that utilizes the knowledge of nature to access divine power (known as Ashé) to benefit the lives of its practitioners. 

Ritual self-care is a cornerstone of this body of religious and spiritual practices. Practitioners have a mandate to maintain our bodies and environments in a state of ritual purity. As a neophyte, one of the first things I learned was the ritual cleansing of my body and my surroundings with powerful plants, herbs, and other sacred elements that pertain to the deities I worship and the spiritual entities I work with.

I was trained in the art of confecting Spiritual Baths by my religious elders, and I have developed a great love for this endeavor. I am passionate about working with sacred herbs to effect healing; and, after twenty years of creating spiritual baths, I am dedicated to continuing this botanical work as a lifelong educational journey of discovery and wonder.

My Spiritual Bath Tea is much more than a luxury herbal bath product! It is truly a ritual bath, composed of the rare herbs that are sacred to the Orisha (deities of Yoruba religion). These ingredients are organically grown, handpicked, washed and carefully dried by my own hands. I then mix the various ingredients and spiritually activate them in my shrines with prayers, chants, ritual songs, and incantations.   

My motivation for offering my Spiritual Baths to the larger community and the general public is to provide an authentic, handmade spiritual product that is composed of the very finest ingredients and confected in accordance with traditional religious orthodoxy as an Espiritsta and as an ordained Lukumí Olorisha. I consider myself a member of the vanguard of ordained priestesses who are acting to reclaim our ritual arts from corporatists and cultural outsiders who mass-produce "spiritual products" that lack ritual power or energy.

I live in Los Angeles, California, where I have been an active member of the Afro-Cuban Lukumí religious community for more than twenty years. I am the mother of two young boys, who are initiates of the Afro-Cuban Bantu Tradition of Palo Mayombe, and the widow of Tata Nkisi and Babal’Orisha Félix González, Oshá L’ashé.

My active elders and teachers are Iyal’Orishas Alejandrina Herrera Thompson, Oshún Coromí, and María-Antonia Hernández, Oshùn Koyumí. My Oluwo in Los Angeles is Irawo Ifa Amos Dyson, Oluwo of Ifa Temple Otura Tukaa, Isese Yoruba Herbalist and Sustainable Gardening Specialist.

I am the proud member of a Council of ordained priests of various Yoruba-derived and Bantu-derived religious traditions. This Council functions as a resource of colleagues and elder priests with whom I consult and interact, senior among whom is Isese Yoruba Oluwo and Master Herbalist Orilana Esudina Luis Emilio Marin.