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MISSIONThrough Afro-Indigenous centered swim and water based workshops, Oshun Swim School offers BIPOC womxn and non-binary people a safer space to explore our relationship with water. With healing-centered and trauma-informed instruction, we support students to connect to water from their center, and grow into embodied, joyful swimmers.
This work centers frontline communities who have been historically excluded from swim environments, yet who bear the brunt of the climate crisis, and for whom swim skills are most essential. VISIONOshun is the Orisha (West African Yoruba deity) of rivers and lakes. She represents pleasure, healing, and all of the things that make life worth living. Despite personal, generational, and historic traumas, we envision womxn of color, queer folks, and other historically excluded communities, having an Oshun infused experience in water.
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ESTUARY
Just as all rivers eventually lead to the ocean
We have always brought ourselves you, our beloved water
To celebrate
To mourn
To heal
To become new
This is our birthright
It is inevitable
We with rivers flowing through our bodies
And down our cheeks
And from our breasts
We with creation ebbing and flowing at our core
Until it rushes forward, life carried in its wake
And we whose womanhood expands beyond breast, and womb, and birth
We who, like you beloved, are also moved by the silent embrace of the moon
We who baptize ourselves
Our ancestors
Our children
With our tears of pain
And tears of joy
We daughters of Oshun and Yemaya
Beauty and joy embodied
And all of the things that make life worth living
We whose ancestors are fish and mermaids
Diving to your peaceful depths
Listening deeply
Riding your waves in sacred vessels
Lives intertwined with yours
Dancing with your rhythms, unafraid
We whose oceans, and rivers, and lakes
Have been dammed, and polluted, and buried
And disrespected
And redirected
And scorned
We whose bodies, and skin, and hair
Deemed unfit, wrong, shameful
Until bathing suit and wet hair
Turn tar and feather
We who have had our beloved water
Used against us as weapon
Fire hose snake strike us down
Poison pipes taint our blood
We left pleading for help on rooftop islands
And without ancestors knowledge to keep us afloat
We who drown in our beloved
We who have been stolen across waters
And tossed shackled into waters
We whose mere presence in water
Has incited froth mouthed hysteria and
Acid tossed from poolside
No wonder we clutch our children close
And forbid them from entering
We who have had our beloved water torn from us
And kept from us until
Our beloved turned stranger
No wonder our respect turned fear
Yet we, like you beloved, have also
rained down
And overflowed
And purified and regenerated
And reincarnated as
Wild river, gentle snow, salty tear,
Deep ocean
Peaceful lake, city pool oasis
We, like you, have renewed ourselves
Over, and over, and over
Becoming clear
And gentle
And powerful
Over, and over, and over
Beloved water
We celebrate you as sacred
We celebrate you as realm of ancestors
We celebrate you as life
We celebrate our miraculous return to you
And to each other
Our path may meander
It does take time to carve through mountains
Yet our beloved calls for us
We hear you
We are on our way
And our arrival is inevitable
Just as all rivers eventually lead to the ocean
We have always brought ourselves to you, our beloved water
To celebrate
To mourn
To heal
To become new
This is our birthright
And we are claiming it
Poem by Chandrika Francis
Founder and Facilitator, Chandrika Francis (she/her/they/them)
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Chandrika is dedicated to supporting people of color to have a relationship to the earth grounded in remembrance, safety, connection, healing, and liberation! Before founding OSS in 2018, Chandrika supported POC to reconnect with the earth for seven years in the form of environmental education, backpacking trips, camping trips, conservation work, classroom teaching, and youth development. She has a Masters in Education through the Islandwood Program at the University of Washington, with a focus in decolonizing environmental education. She is a bi-coastal baby at heart, having spent her life between Oakland, Seattle, and the East Coast, and is excited to bring her work to the lands she loves!
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oshunswimschool@gmail.com
(504) 930-8190
May you be gentle and compassionate with yourself during this time.
May you be gentle and compassionate with yourself during this time.