Growing up, I had never heard of the Yoruba people of South Western Nigeria, and I certainly had no idea that I would ever travel to Africa in my life time. It is the hope and dreams of every Jew through out the world to travel to Israel and also the same for every other Ethic groups born outside of their ancestral homeland to one day go.  While some Africans throughout the diaspora may have an urge to do so, not many do, even if they have the means to do it, they do not go. The world’s descriptions of Africa and Africans through all sorts of public medium has affected our dear land so negatively, that even though we brag about our color and of our race “Say It Loud, I Am Black And I am Proud”, most blacks are proud just to say it “Loud”, but have nothing to do with the Land from whence their forefathers came, as a matter of fact they are ashamed. There is a song which quotes a line, “Can a mother’s tender care cease toward the child she bare”? Africa, (Alkebulan, the original name for Africa), awaits her children’s return, even if it is just a visit, while the child may forget the mother, the mother will never forget her child.

 

 

After the wicked baby father and I broke up, I was on my own, really on my own. It was very frightening for me and I cried and cried for days and weeks and months. I was very young, I had all my children with me, (I began early) and I worried what would happen to me, how would I survive, how would I live down the shame of losing my business, him being with this other woman in the same town where we all lived. Even though I ended the relationship, people would say HE left me for her, and everyone knew of our quarrels and battles, it was a small Jamaican Community and I was a very popular hair stylist. I was well known, now everything crashed! During those times, I did not know that a chapter of my life had closed and that I was heading toward another. Heading toward the direction of my REAL life, which were to have many chapters, and even became more intense, with the exception that I were to have more control after I had learned most of what I needed to.  No humans would be able to hurt me as much again. The years before, when I battled family and the big bad Wolf and the Wicked baby father and the enemies who seemed to pop out of nowhere like when playing Super Mario Brothers on Nintendo.

It was almost as if I had to clear out those cobwebs, encumbrances of life, while in the process of having my children one behind each other, before the real living began. Before I came to live on this earth plane, it seemed I had planned for me to have my children early, begin my life young, have a whole lot of life experiences under my belt, in other words live the life and experience of fifty people in order to speed up everything and get me to where I needed to be, quickly. Every thing was planned out for me and with the approval and assistance of the Universe. What I thought was my hell would turn out to be wonderful bliss, a source of comfort and a legacy for my children who I cared the most about in life. What I went through, in all the posts which I have written about here on Embracing Spirituality was God’s doing and that of my ancestors and my spiritual guides, and also my Omo Orisha Osun and My Ifa, and through it all, although my human mind felt pain and suffering, my spirit was being taught, groomed, loved cherished and elevated all at the same time. I was in school as we all are, but I was being trained by my spiritual elders to become Obara Meji. What a wonderful thing that happened to me!

I went through a grueling time when I was becoming awake, I will spare you all the details today, and just recount a few, for to me to tell all, time would not allow. There is a Showtime Series called Penny Dreadful, where you will find a character name Vanessa Hives, her awakening, or what she experienced during her awakening is similar to what I went through, so much that it is quite hard for me to watch. There are exceptions however for me in her story, where in which her awakening stemmed from a very Salacious encounter, mine was not, she had to be locked up in a padded room in a straight jacket,  although there were times where I worried that I would get there, I thank my ancestors that I was spared that, and she now works although unwillingly with the Devil, el Diablo, (this is a T.V show) I do not, how could I? he does not exist!

While I went through my awakening, there were times in the mornings when I would wake up and there was a huge black book thrust under my chin and I found myself reading it. My eyes moving like heads at a tennis match, left to right and right to left, fast. There were bold black words on crisp white pages which seemed like English words, but I was never sure. I never saw who placed the book there, only that I sat up in my bed and read this book which was the biggest book I had ever seen, after which I remembered nothing. I later learned that the knowledge I acquired there, I was to use  later on in my life, just not while in school. Now I know you are all wondering in which state of being was I while this was happening, and I will try as much as I can to tell you, although the words I will use for the proper description escapes me or rather I cannot find. I would see myself laying on the bed, these things would happen around 5:30 – 6 am in the mornings. It were as if I hovered somewhere and watched me sit up with my back against my pillows and then I would find myself in my body while someone or something who I have never seen thrust this book under my chin, and the reading began.

While these things happened to me, it took three years to complete the book. I think it was completed, although I am uncertain, but within the depth of heart says it was. The first year when it began, I lost my speech, or rather I lost the ability to speak English or Patois. My whole body was weak and I needed help to get out of bed, I could not eat regular food, so the children’s nanny fed me a diet of cooked calaloo and liver water, boiling the liver and giving me the water to drink. Wood root tonic helped along with Vitamin B6 or 12. Whenever I tried to speak, another language came out, all kinds of languages.  At first I struggled to accept that I was not losing my mind, until the nanny assured me that if I were I would not have any idea of the fact. During these times, it was at nights while all slept that my teachers came, all non-physical beings, and I laid alone in my room, lights on, afraid to turn them off  and afraid to go to sleep, because I knew the moment I slept, I would be taken on journeys all over the world and within time and space and meet many people there.

It was on these journeys that I learned the uses of herbs and plants, it was on these journeys I learned how to diagnose an illness through spirit, it was on these journeys that I realized the power of the river and that that of the Ocean and of the wind and of lightening and thunder, and on these journeys where I realized that we, all of us in the world were all connected and were no different from each other regardless of our skin color. It was on these journeys I realized that nobody died, ever! It was on these journeys I knew that there were many worlds, It was on these journeys I became awake, fully awake. For three years, I went through some intense training which in the first year made me weak and almost unable to get out of bed, after which my language changed, this was when I was being trained in becoming a medium, a source through  which spirits could pass through and speak, give messages, warn, prophesy, so the language which I was familiar with was removed from me and I was taught other languages. I knew it not then, and it took a long time for me to realize that this was why I had lost the ability to speak the English language at the time. Within the third year I had regained my strength, the Nanny had gone back to Jamaica where she took two of my small children to care for until I could manage, I was still in training, but I was stronger and my language had returned and also people were being introduced to me by others who I knew. Real people who knew me or even lived with me at one time or the other would contact me via the telephone, where I would pray for them and as I prayed, their whole lives would open up to me.

I could see them, where ever they were, I saw them. I saw what they wore, their house or apartment, I saw their aura, and I heard what they thought, I saw their professions and their children, I saw their whole lives and while in prayer I would tell them all I saw, if they were to die, I saw their death or the death of whom they loved, I could tell the time and hour in which death would come, and I could speak to death and appeal to it to give another chance, I did all these things. It was as if I were in a trance when all these were happening, and when I came out of the trance, I remembered nothing. My name began to spread, and people sought me out, people far and near heard of me and I struggled to believe my new life. I became a reader and diviner. I had no idea while  I grew up that this was what I would become. I knew not that this were to be my destiny, the reason I came into being, or one of.

Here I was a spiritualist having gone through an initiation, which lasted for three years, formally, because I was being prepared since the day I was born unbeknownst to me. I went to the sea and did rituals there, honoring the Ocean and the deity which resides there, who I had met on some of my many journeys during my initiation, I went to the river and did the same, I would go to the woods by myself, unafraid and honor the spirits there as I had met them all. I built an altar, which my Padrino had instructed me how to, and I honored my ancestors there, and I settled into my life as who I had become. I realized that I had the uncanny ability to explain almost everything as it relates to spirituality and metaphysics, (the big black book) I knew what many did not know. I began to search books hoping to find in them things that I knew for sure, and although some books began well, they would always fall short of something. Theosophy spoke to me, and I loved Alice Bailey’s work and Madame Blavatsky, Rudolf Stiener, and also Gurjdieff’s, among others. Dr. L. W. de Laurence made sense to me and I giggled at times at the fear the mere mention of his name drove into many people, Jamaicans especially and I respected also the likes of Eliphas Levi. I knew a lot, but not enough and I wanted to learn more.

I knew how the Universe worked, I knew about the nine dimensions within space and time and all the realms within. The greatest discovery throughout my journeys was the realization that the Devil did not exist, and that there were many like Jesus who came before, I met them, including him. I realized that no spirit being or entity ever met what we called God, it was an impossible fete, no one dared meet the All, no one! It was possible to be in his presence, and to the light beings, those who worked within the realms of spirit, to go close but to behold the Lord, Impossible!  To do so, that spirit or being, deity or entity would cease to exist, cease to exist!  I realized that we were all fragments of this great All, a tiny speck of his form and to meet this great being, or come into its presence would mean to be absorbed back into it, as when a sponge meets water, sucked into its form and be no more. I realized that God created Good and Bad, and they were all created for their specific purpose, I realized that God had no adversaries, none. I realized that I was special and had my own claim to being special as with all of us and that madness as we see it, insane people were well but operating off a different frequency than us here in this dimension, these people were too high to live among us, they were spirit beings who could not function in our world. I realized so many things but of them, the most important was that I self realized!

No turning back, I self realized and there was no turning back, only pushing forward. I knew that I had further to go, but to where? I had no Idea. Within my journey and with all the books that I read, I did not see the African I represented. He was not present in the Bible, or the Bhagavad Gita or Vedic scriptures, The Torah, The Koran, The Kaballah, within the texts or subjects belonging to Theosophy, or among the ascended Masters, there but only one was represented and his name was Afra, (lol, go figure). Written out of life and all the holy books was my father, my mother, my sisters, my brothers, my ancestors, myself. I knew this not to be so, and so I began to search there. I remembered the book on Elegua which I found in my teenage years, and Mr, Mitchel telling me that it belonged to the Cuban traditional religion, but when I searched further, I realized that Elegua was indeed, Elgba, Esu (eh-shu) as he is called in Africa, an Orisha. I realized that this all came from Africa and that the Africans had this whole philosophy concerning all of cosmology and creation, I heard Angels sing, as I found my family. I had known this but not in great details. Padrino had given me snap shots of it but there were no literature to be found coming from the African on this tradition, they kept it sacred. This was the true beginning of my life, I had been born again, the first initiation during  the three years I was in training, I was born of Spirit, the second initiation came when I went to church and became baptized, I was born of the water, and of the blood would come when I went to Africa. I had no idea that I would go, no idea that I had more initiations to do, I had no Idea that in Lagos, Nigeria Obara Meji waited for me, with folded arms, Obara Meji waited patiently, knowing that her daughter would come, and soon.

I will continue this story tomorrow.

Ẹni tó dúró tini nígbà ìpọ́njú ni ọ̀rẹ́ òtítọ́.

Whoever sticks with one through tough times is the true friend….Yoruba Proverb!

 

All religions are valid as long as it teaches peace and love….Obara Meji!

 http://embracingspirituality.com/2014/07/02/my-road-to-initiation/

Wasted Mb...

MY ROAD TO INITIATION PART 2


After I had gone through my first initiation, the three years I spent at home under the tutelage of non-physical beings sent from within time and space to teach me and take me on my journeys, the world seemed to make more sense to me. One day at a time, I saw people differently, I saw their true colors so to speak, and I feared no one or nothing. I had become re-educated, to all I thought I knew, during my training. All that I believed I knew were stripped away. Before I go further with this story, I want to share something with you. There were many times when my spiritual elders (Spirits) came for me to take me on my journeys, as I slept they would come and my spirit would rise up from my body and go with them and it was so swift that one minute I was in my room and the next in some other realm.

 

What I noticed when these times occurred was that as I hovered over my body, I had no concern about the body which laid atop the bed. The human emotion which someone would naturally have in seeing themselves outside of  their body (fear) was not there. I was curious in these moments, but  feeling of being sad or anxious of leaving my body and probably never coming back to it,  never once happened.

 

This feeling made me question one of my teachers one day, (non physical being), when I was able to communicate with them, please note, that our communication was always done through the mind. I asked her why was it that when I left my body and was aware that I was no longer apart of the body I did  not seem to care since the action mimicked death . She went on to explain to me that there is no death, and that our spirit when we make our transition fears not the journey because it is expected. Spirits who panic, and there are some who do, when they leave the body are the ones who are now earth bound, because they made their transition through trauma, in other words, their destiny was cut short, which has set the spirit who is the driver of the body off course. This does Occur in some peoples lives and the reasons maybe many, Obeah, Witchcraft or someone can cut their own lives short by offending an innocent, someone who did good for them and they did bad in return as in the story David Part 2.  Someone who went to the shop and is gunned down, when the spirit separates from the body, (for some not all, I will soon explain these kinds), it is shocked that it cannot get back in, not because he went to the store and is expected to return home, but because the spirit knows that it has met an untimely death, which is not in support of its destiny. For the ones who have met trauma and their spirit goes off happily, even through trauma, this is in full support of their destiny, they chose this way to leave the earth.

Please remind me to do a post on the MISSING MALAYSIA PLANE, I do not know if you all are ready for me to open this up to you, explaining the different things which are very possible (POSSIBLE), but if my Ori directs me to, I will tell you all about this Plane crash and that it is possible that these people, all of them are still alive.

 

My senses heightened and I saw everything, magnified. I would walk down the street and see someone walking toward me, and then I would see their spirit run across the street and stopped before a moving bus, and the bus would hit them,  almost like a video being played before me. I would come back to myself after this flash and still see the person coming toward me, but now I had the feeling to reach out to the person and tell them that God loved them and that they should please rethink what they planned to do. At first when these things were happening, I tried to resist warning people or giving random people messages, because I feared rejection and that people would see me as insane, but I was urged on by my Ori and when I did gather the nerves to reach out to people, I was met with warmth, and thanks and given nuff respect, my trepidation were all for nothing, and I began to grow more confident day by day.

All which I had lost during the battle with the children’s father was restored. After my three intense years of training where I emerged anew and refreshed, my family heard of the things that were going on with me, they heard about people coming to me, seeking help and getting  it, they heard of my divination skills and the accuracy of it. The sun rose up out of the earth and was shinning everyday in my direction like a spotlight on stage and all the whispers behind my back which said that I was mad, shushed! People of all professions and ethnicity sought me out, they traveled from far and wide to see me, they had all heard about me through another, it was by word of mouth that people knew of me, and they came, not one by one but in droves. Soon I went for my two children which the wonderful Nanny had been caring for, and I brought them home to join their other siblings. And the work continued, during these times I was given another salon by clients who loved me and were happy for my help to them and their family. My new salon was bigger than the one the children’s father had given to me, but because of the demand of me as a spiritualist, I hired workers and would only go in the shop two times a week when I was in town, I traveled often.

The wicked father heard of this shop and he came begging and I gave him, I did not refuse him, I gave him money which he asked for to pay his car notes, he had fallen on hard times, I assisted him, soft hearted  as I was, I helped him, until a very wise old man told me to stop. He told me that God was giving him his judgement and that should I continue to give to him, then I was interfering with God’s work, so I stopped. My parents began coming around, and they came when they worried about something, I would divine for them and whatever God showed me I would reveal and we worked it out. The wicked sisters did the same. Just before I had gone into training the message was “Seek Ye the Kingdom of God and all his righteousness and all these shall be added unto you”, After I was taught and I began my work all that I thought I had lost, all that I believed would never be, became more than what I expected. God lifted me up and seemed to shout “This is my daughter in whom I am well pleased!”, lol, I said seemed as if.

I began keeping medium sessions at my house, my Padrino was a medium and would often times have Misas, or a Spiritual mass where he would invite spirits to come and speak through him, and they did and when this happened many truths would be revealed and also solution to many problems would come out. During one such session, I was told by him that one day I would sit in his chair doing the same thing. The time came and there I was every weekend having these sessions, where many people would come and I would sit and pray and spirits came, where they would use my body as a host and speak. Let me pause here to Salute my sweet and Wonderful Padrino,!

Padrino, my eyes mist whenever I remember you, I love you and I call your name every day. It was through sorrow and problems why I met you but meeting you turned it all into Joy and happiness, because what an amazing person you were while you lived here, I am now called Obara Meji, and am an Initiate in the Ifa/Orisha tradition as you once told me that I would be, and many of your predictions for me have been full filled. I have passed along some of what you taught me, to my children and to others, your work here was not in vain Padrino and I pray that I, in my lifetime and with all that I share, could impact others as you did with me, I am paying it forward, I hope you are proud of me. I thank Olodumare (God) for allowing me to know you in my life time and I thank Esu, your Omo Orisha who brought us together.  I love you sir, always, and one day, a ways far off, when the mist have rolled away my sweet Padrino, we will see each other again.

During these sessions many spirits passed through me and saved several people lives, giving messages regarding their health, they checked with their physicians and found that they had problems which were corrected with surgery. In these sessions people were warned of imprisonment and of danger, people were told about jobs which they sought and how to get them. One woman had an inheritance from a Aunt in North Carolina, which she did not even know about, when told through me by a messenger, she checked it out and although it took months, she received $25, 000.00, she never knew she had. These sessions as I called them were done by me to try to raise the vibrations of others. Normally when people did these kind of intense affairs, it was for the spirits passing through the mediums to give their messages, but I had since realized that my portion was beyond that. I had gotten gifts of everyone. Every Spiritual gift which could have been given to me, I received. I quickly realized that whenever a person came into my space, they left knowing something new, I taught them something new. That drew people to me, whenever I spoke people listened, and I saw myself in the role of a teacher.

I knew things which I did not know how I knew them (can you say tongue twister? lol), and I found myself when speaking to people saying that I was a teacher. That was what I titled myself. In every area of my life, I taught. I went into teaching mode whenever I spoke to anyone, often times unaware of it. It was natural to me, knowledge of almost everything. I was a book nut, and so I lived in the libraries and book shops, sitting on the ground if there were no seats to sit, and reading all and everything while growing up and after the Initiation I searched for things I knew in books, and here I was alive and awaken and doing my work according to my destiny but I saw myself as a teacher, a teacher of metaphysics. I was firm in that knowledge, and after a while I realized that the big black book, was actually “The book of life and all things”, at least that is what I called it, because whatever I needed to know, what ever I pondered upon came to me from within me. The knowledge was embedded within, like the heart fitted and seated in the chest of a person. I began to take a curious look at people, skeptics, Christians and Muslims who denounced spirituality, denounced spiritual workers and healers. Pastors and priests who warned people away from us, cussing us and damning us all to hell, and I felt sorry for them because I quickly realized how deep in slumber they were and severely imprisoned with no possibility of parole or release, perhaps. The sessions had saved many, divination had steered people into the right direction of their lives and helped them make life changing decisions and even comforted some, and the knowledge gained of herbs and plants had cured many ailments, how were we the bad guys?, Obeah workers, Juju makers and witches, Satan’s disciples, host of demons. Jesus beloved as he were did our very same work, yes he did, as well as the prophets of old before him.

After my first initiation I learned many things and I taught a lot, but I yearned for more. I had already made up my mind that I had to go to Africa for initiation but I allowed my Ori, to tell me when. I was patient, and that was not easy for me, I am an Aries and we are not known for our patience, but making the trip to Africa was one that I knew I had to do, but who would be the one to take me, who? I had traveled to Jamaica and by chance met a celebrity there and ended up giving him a reading where he was told that one of his many brothers would die within three months of the reading. He was very sad at hearing this, although the spirit did not say which one of the brothers would die, the message was that the person would have a fatal car accident and told the month exactly. I am being very careful in telling the story as this person is extremely well known. After he was given this revelation he asked if it could be changed and was told yes, and so he asked me not to leave the Island and he would get back to me, I agreed. I waited around for a week and only received one phone call  from him telling me that he would soon come.

One night while asleep, I had an experience, I jumped from my sleep, an associate of mine was there with me, and I began to cry uncontrollably, she came over to me from where she slept and asked me what was wrong, I found myself telling her that my husband (spirit husband) visited me while I slept  and told me to go home, he said the person was not coming and I had no time to waste here, there were plenty things for me to do on earth and a short amount of time to do it, he told me to leave. I cried because whenever I was visited by this person, and the visitation ended, I felt alone and empty. I needed him to linger for a while. So I left Jamaica and went home, back to America. Two weeks after I was home I heard a voice from far off calling out a name I was unfamiliar with, but I heard it clearly, the name was Obara! I cannot tell you what gender the voice belonged to, but it was as if the person shouted from very far Obaraaaaaaa! Obaraaaaaaaaa! Obaraaaaaa!. I asked my children if they heard it and they said no, no one heard the voice but me and it called me for one month. I was curious as to what Obara was, and there were no information on the internet at that time when I heard it. I was not bothered at the thought of hearing an actual voice, I knew it was a message, but it seem to come from a very far place. I had no idea Obara called me from Africa and I was not far form meeting her, she who was with me from birth, she who selected me to come back to earth, she who was my mother, she who was my Osun, Obara was clearing the way for her precious child to come home, although she knew me I knew her not and she was tired of waiting for me, she needed me to come home, Obara called me .

During these times when the name was following me everywhere, someone introduced me to a Jamaican Babalawo, and I told him about the name, he explained that Obara was the name of an Odu Ifa (Oh-doo, ee-fah, binary coded language).  It was to be him, this Jamaican man who was to later take me to Africa, Lagos Nigeria for my full initiation. The Jamaican celebrity called, his brother had died, same way, same month as predicted and I had to go to Jamaica because he had much problems, but this set the course for me to go to Africa, because before I went and meet Osun there in Africa, I had to go home and pay Homage to my born land. Roaring River summoned me, I had no Idea of what Roaring River was or where it was, but when you are being guided you must trust, and when the vision came that I had to return to Jamaica and bring Roaring River an elaborate gift, I did not know how or when to go, but the celebrity called and desperately needed my help, it provided a way for me to go. I went to Roaring River, with an elaborate gift, and the celebrity in tow, lol. I had no idea then but Jamaica, land of my birth, wanted me to visit her lush clean water and salute it before I went to Africa, Jamaica paved my way and blessed me for my journey. I had no Idea that I was from the water realm and that Osun was my Orisha, and that Osun was indeed Obara Meji by the route which I took spiritually to get here to this realm but I was to find out in Africa when I got there. I was to find out why I chose the parents I had, and what was my destiny. In Africa and within my initiation I finally realized the reason why all the things that I had been through happened. In Africa I found Me!

Part 3 will be along tomorrow

This seem as if it may be a series!

Nǹkan tí èyàn ò ní jẹ, kì í fi run imú. /
One should not be sniffing, what one would not eat…..Yoruba Proverb!

[Don’t start what you can’t finish]

 

All religions are valid as long as it teaches peace and love…..Obara Mèjì!

MY ROAD TO INITIATION PART 3-AFRICA


The time had come for me to go to Africa for my initiation, I had been aware of the Orishas since I was a teenager, when I had found the book on Elegua, (Elegba or Esu in Africa) but I had not realized, but for a long time that all this came from Africa, which  the Cubans have been great custodians of, to some extent.  After they, as slaves were dropped off in Cuba during the trans Atlantic slave trade, the African holocaust.

 

 

The Cubans have developed their own system of worship and have even infused Yoruba words with Spanish words within their practice or religion which is called Lucumi or as it is commonly known, Santeria. Santeria is also referenced to as Saint worship. When the slaves arrived in Cuba, many were Yoruba’s and they brought with them their religion, their way worship, being slaves they could not practice their religion openly as they had to worship as their en- slavers did and so in order to preserve their practice they had to hide the Orishas into the catholic saints of their slave owners and worship them secretly there.

 

The Orisha they called Elegua, became Saint Anthony, Ogun became Saint Peter, Obaluaye became Saint Lazarus, Sango became Saint Barbara and so on. This allowed the Cubans and also the Brazilians who did the same thing, (theirs is called Condomble) to serve the Orishas without being punished by their slave masters and it also helped them to cope with the horrors of slavery and being stolen/kidnapped away from their home. There are many variations to how the Yoruba religion is practiced in Cuba and Brazil as opposed to how it is done in Nigeria, and now that slavery has been done away with for however long the Cubans still have left theirs as is. Where Brazil has abandoned to use of calling the Orishas Saints, Cuba has continued and have no mind to change or even connect with Africa so that proper correction can be added to their way of practice, affording them to practice the tradition the correct way, so for now we say they do not practice our tradition, it is only similar. For better understanding of what I am saying please read this: Very Interesting Read.

I was excited when it came time for me to go to Africa, the whole affair was very expensive, but I did not care if it cost me the world, I knew I had to get there and I had found the person with whom I was comfortable with to take me. He had talked a good game to me, explaining to me that he would be there on the compound with me and that whenever he took anyone to Africa for initiation he watched over them and saw that they indeed got what they were supposed to without being short changed. By this time I never knew which Orisha I was to receive. A Lucumi Oriete (a male preist within the Lucumi system who did initiations), had told me that I belonged to Yemaya, which is really Yemoja (mother of fishes) the former being a Lucumi word, while the latter a Yoruba word. This turned out not to be so when I went to Nigeria.

I arrived in Nigeria a day after I was supposed to, having being stuck in France for a day due to missing the plane to Nigeria the day before, the journey, if I had not missed the plane would have taken almost 18 hours. It was a very long trip. As we arrived at Murtala Mohammed airport in Lagos Nigeria, the air was hot and sultry, and there were people bustling around looking for their luggage and I, although tired was very happy to be in Africa. The Jamaican Babalawo told me as we were on our way to the hotel where we would stay, that he could just imagine how happy my spirit family, my ancestors, were for me to be in Africa, having been the only one from my family on both sides to ever come back home. I was touched by that. I was brought up in Jamaica where Reggae music was born out of our need to go back home to Africa, out of protest and resistance by the poor and oppressed, and all my life I felt close to Africa because of how our musicians sang of the mother land, and how our elders referred to themselves. I was a proud African, but from where I had no Idea and so I only dreamed of the mother land, I never knew that is was within my destiny to one day go, but here I was driving through the streets of Lagos, I wanted to shout “Africa, I am here!”

The Rastafarian’s looked toward Ethiopia as their home, we heard stories of Nanny of the maroon one our national heroes who came from Ghana. Marcus Garvey, another of our national hero referred  to himself as an African and all of us in all his speeches and pointed us there, urging us to never forget where we came from, teaching us that we were from a great race and of that we should be proud. We in Jamaica were still connected to Africa and it was heard in our music, how we danced, our actions, even our language or rather dialect, also our foods, Dukunu (other wise known as blue drawers, the name is a Yoruba word and the food is prepared the same way). Labalaba  is a Yoruba word which means butterfly, in Jamaica the word Labalaba means, you talk too much, which actually describes the flapping of the lips while talking and the flapping of the butterfly’s wings, “Yuh too labalaba”.  In Jamaica we have Yabba pots, clay pots, Yabba is a town in Nigeria known for their making and distribution of clay pots. Red Igbo (redibo, patois for a browning, someone of light complexion), red for the complexion of a person, Igbo which is one of the major tribes of Nigeria, and also in Igbo land which is the Eastern part of Nigeria, the dirt there is very red. Poto Poto (patois, meaning muddy, or mushy), Yoruba word which means muddy or sticky.  My mother is from a place in Jamaica called Hanover and there you will find descendants from the Egba people from Nigeria who still celebrate to this day Yam festivals, and in neighboring Westmoreland, Jamaica you will find a place called Abeokuta which is the name a town in  Ogun State Nigeria, the word Abeokuta means Under the rock and this is the very town where I received my Ifa.

As we drove through the streets of Lagos, I looked at the faces of the people, trying to see myself in them, some of them stared back at the obvious Oyinbo (white person or foreigner this is how we are refereed to regardless of skin color) who they saw passing through. We arrived at the Hotel, which looked rather like a haggard motel here in America, but it mattered not to me. Anywhere else in the world no one could have forced me into staying at such a run down looking place, here I did not care. Looks mattered not to me, I was here for initiation and that was where all my focus was. We arrived in the Lagos in the evening so it were to be the next day that I was to be taken to the compound where I were to be initiated. See the workings of the ancestors?

We arrived on the compound in the night and as we drove up, there seemed to be hundreds of people waiting for us. When I stepped out of the car I began to feel slightly nervous, the energy was high, almost frenzied, people were singing and the drums were loud. Immediately as I stepped from the car a bunch of people all dressed in white came and held my hands with drummers and singers in tow, singing and dancing in Yoruba as if I were a long lost child who had finally returned home. They led me into the compound, where there were more people who met me at the entrance of the compound, they threw water at my feet and told me to mash it (step in the water, this is how Osun’s children are welcomed, I had no Idea), I did as I was told and was led to stand in front a very dark skinned woman dressed in pristine white clothes, she was heavily pregnant. Standing beside her were other women and some men, all dressed in the whitest white I had ever seen. She raised her hand and the drumming and singing stopped. I stood before her and waited to see what was to happen. A white basin filled with water was placed before me and someone had a bunch of green herbs close by. I observed men and women fully possessed and were being attended to by others. The energy was very high, and the breeze was cool and felt good upon my person. I was amazed of how calm I felt, the nervousness had left, it was as if I was in a familiar place and I had gone through this already.

The pregnant woman who was to be my God mother began to Pray in Yoruba, and as she prayed the woman with the herbs and three others bent down and began washing my feet, while my God mother prayed all in attendance shouted ‘Ase’ and I was told to also say Ase which I did. My god mother broke  Obi Kola nut, which we know in Jamaica as Bisi, (but the nut form), Kola is used as an oracle within our tradition, after the washing of my feet other things were done which I cannot say here or to anyone who is not an initiate. This first step of my initiation went on for a while, after which I was brought into a room, which was also pristine white the walls, the floors, the seats, the shrines, this was Osuns room, and I was dressed in all white by the mothers and prepared beautifully with all sorts of markings. In Africa Osun is represented by white, her color is white. I then was taken outside to Esu”s shrine.  In our tradition whenever anything is done, Esu has to be attended to first, this is so by the order of God who is called Olodumare (Olo-do-ma-ray). I did not sleep that night until morning, the night was filled with the first part of the initiation and I had nine more days to go. While I cannot go into all that was done it was the most amazing thing, beside my first initiation that I had ever been through. I was never left alone and all the mothers and Babalawo’s were very attentive and kind.

The Jamaican Babalawo left me on the compound, he was not there but for one day, but God and my ancestors saw me through and it was all well. I was surprised when I saw that I was being initiated to Osun, since Lucumi had told me, Yemoja was my omo orisha. My God mother told me no I was Osun she had made sure, she said I should be glad because while Yemoja was unforgiving, Osun was very forgiving and so we proceeded. On day nine when they had to give me my Osun name, and also know the path in which my Osun came, Obara Meji came out. I was shocked at the name, because I had heard it way before I came for my initiation, except the word Meji was added, Meji is the Yoruba word for the number two. Obara Meji fell to the earth twice, I will explain this in another post on Odu’s or our destiny, or life path. All in attendance shouted out, happy for me, as the Babalawo’s sang Obara Meji’s praise. I wondered why everyone was so happy for me and so I asked, they told me that if a thousand people came for initiation maybe one would get Obara Meji. My God mother who over saw what was going on seemed to be very happy for me also, but I was to later find out that she would become an enemy, all because of Obara Meji. Within the Odu Obara Meji, it is warned that anyone who was born of Obara Meji would eventually be separated from their God parent or parents, of which the woman initiating me was and also the Jamaican Babalawo, bare in mind that he was not there at the compound with me while I was being initiated and I will one day post his story. The woman has since died, almost two years after I was initiated she died. I was given an Osun name and also Obara Meji was now my Osun. Padrino I did it, Yay!

I then went to Abeokuta for my initiation to Ifa, where I would receive my Ifa which is the name of my destiny. This name, my Ifa name I cannot make public, I was told why I came to earth the reason I came into being, who my parents were to me and I to them, why I had chosen the family I had, and also the role of which my children played into my life, I was given the do’s and don’ts in my life called my taboos and more. I was given a life reading called an Ita,  many Sacrifices were done during this initiation to remove a lot of bad which had been done to me throughout life and sacrifices done to clear my way in life. It was a great Journey, and I am happy that two of my children have already gone through it, this is my gift to them, their legacy, something worth more than gold or trillions of dollars, I fear for them not in life, they have Ifa!. The story continues of my journey. Here in Abeokuta I met my God father in Ifa, his name was  Oluwo Okegbemi, he was 126 years old when he initiated me and never looked a day over 70 years old, a great Babalawo and what he did for me he did well, he has since made his transition, he did so at age 130, but he came to tell me after he left.  Iba Oluwo Okegbemi! He watches over me, this I know. I will speak more about him in another post, but a kind and sweet person he was. I salute him where ever he is in time and space.

Ẹni tí ò gbọ́ tẹnu ẹ̀gà, ló ńsọ pó ńpàtótó, tẹnu ẹyẹ, lẹyẹ kúkú ńsọ. /
Those who didn’t hear out the palmchat bird would deride it as a noisy bird; but it no doubt has its point….Yoruba Proverb!

[People invariably have their reasons (for their actions), give them the benefit of doubt.]

 

All religion are valid as long as it teaches peace and love….Obara Meji

@Lushore1, Is your true life story or fiction?

emeritus856:
@Lushore1, Is your true life story or fiction?

Its a true life story but not mine, you can find out about the author here....http://embracingspirituality.com/2014/07/02/my-road-to-initiation/

There are so many things you've mentioned that I can identify with. Like my son who is always telling me, "he's so glad he chose us for his family" then he would go on telling us about how he almost didn't get us because they sent him to another family and they didn't want him, so they sent him back.
Love the blogs, stayed up until 2 in the morning reading, very deep and well written.