One afternoon Baba Adelekan and I traded stories. But let me say this
first. Some of us wear glasses and some of us don't. And among those
of us who wear glasses, we don't all wear the same prescription. The
purpose of each lens prescription is to assist that particular individual
in seeing their world clearly. So Ifa does not challenge other lenses,
other worldviews. Ifa simply offers its own. When we look at the world
through the lens of Ifa Consciousness, we see the living presence of
the sentient forces we call Orisa. The world of Ifa is a quantum universe
where everything is connected to everything else (Interconnectedness).
Baba listened.
I stand in awe of the things I've seen. One day a women who claimed
to be Ifa came to a Ifa priest seeking assistance. She was suffering
from fibroids and had been bleeding for several months. The doctors
were recommending surgery, which she wanted to avoid. I opened the
divination with prayers and the babalawo called upon Orisa to see
if the way was open for him to seek Their assistance in the woman's
behalf. The way was not open. Because the woman claimed to be Ifa,
Baba began calling upon Orisa in the name of his sixteen generations
of babalawo ancestors to open the way. After much adura, the way was
finally opened.
Baba sought answers and Orisa gave them. An ebo was called for.
A rooster needed to be sacrificed in the woman's behalf (ebo eji tutu).
When Baba announced Orisa's guidance, the woman declared that she
would not do the ebo because she believed in animal rights and couldn't
imagine him killing a rooster. Needless to say, Baba was hurt and
angry. This was a woman who in her daily life served meat and fowl
to her family, animals slaughtered by butchers with no sense of the
ase of the animal. But, she could not ask a single rooster to give
its life so that she might have her health back. Baba closed the reading
and calmed himself and apologized to Orisa for forcing the door open.
The woman bleed for several more months before going into the
hospital for surgery.
Orisa Will Have Their Due!
I listened.
The people of a wealthy and grateful city had become ungrateful.
They had neglected their sacrifices to Orisa. Every three years the
ancestors of these people would sacrifice a cow to the Orisa of the
river. But in time the children came to abandon their sacred rites.
Their new religious beliefs and new ways of thinking lead them to
ridicule the idea that such a wasteful and superstitious act could
in any way affect their destiny. In time, their good fortune began
to fail and they were forced to seek the counsel of the babalawo.
The babalawo counseled that they must do as their ancestors had always
done. They must sacrifice a cow to the Orisa of the river. They refused
to sacrifice.
One night a great explosion occurred in a nearby military compound.
In the dark of the night, with flames and subsequent explosions, the
people of the city ran in panic. Their ancestors called to them from
the shadows of the night for their neglect.
Some 5000 people drowned in the river that night. The city was
Lagos, Nigeria.
