Osa Kuleya

Where Oya Stopped Eating Ram

The woman of the wind was the keeper of the market.
She hunted, she traded, she dreamed of the man of fire.

One day she saw a black buffalo
that shed its skin before her eyes.
She took that secret and kept it.

The man of fire searched desperately.
He found her.
She said:
“Your secret in exchange for your company.”
He agreed.
From that union, the twin children were born.

But envy spoke,
and the secret was revealed.
The man of fire put on his disguise again
and went in search of her.

He found her with her children and her flock of rams.
She, knowing she could not escape,
chose the unthinkable:
she gave up herself,
she offered the ram to save what was essential.

That day the woman of the wind stopped eating ram.
That day Yanza was born,
the whirlwind that drags everything,
but also protects.

---

Ifá says

How many of us truly see the sacrifices of our mothers?
How many times did we give thanks for the bread on the table,
even when they themselves kept silent about their hunger?

They forget themselves
so that we may live.
And we, so often,
repay them with pain through our wrong choices.

The sacrifice of the woman of the wind is a mirror.
It forces us to look within.
To recognize that what we are today
was woven with sacrifices we never saw,
with tears we never heard,
with silences we never valued.

The message is clear:
do not throw overboard what others have carried for you.
Do not despise the silent love that gave you strength.
Because if you do,
you not only lose yourself:
you also break the heart that sustained you.

---

I am only the apprentice

Today I learn that greatness is not in holding on,
but in knowing how to let go with love.

I learn that the sacrifices of a mother
are not chains,
but wings that teach me to fly.

And I speak with humility, with certainty, without fear:
Ifá is exact,
and so is its teaching.

Are you with me?