I grew up seeing my mother’s fingers in all shades of red, yellow and orange from putting the achiote seeds in oil to make stews.

I saw women comb their hair with achiote oil so it shines, or applied in the body as a mosquito repellent, and also as body paint.

There are many myths surrounding the achiote/urucum seed; the sun with its nuclear heat radiates urucum light, the reason the oil seed is also a skin protector. It speaks to the evil spirits rushing them to go, thus, it also heals the liver, the story says that the first two women were red and black. The seeds are encased in a hairy oval red husk, intimate like the vulva.

Hundreds of them in one shrub.

 In a world of chaos and creativity, I create a sun made of urucum oil and salt for my daughter so she knows there are stories hidden in the body as well as the plants, in the cosmos as well as the seeds. I brush urucum oil in her skin so she knows that light is a spiritual and an electromagnetic affair, and I play an instrument that imitates the frogs who welcomes the turning of dry to wet season the time when the urucum grows. All is interconnected.

After all our bodies are nothing but planets revolving around our central suns.