Obara Meji

 

Within the Ifa divination complex, the odu Obara in general, and Obara Meji in particular, refers to insecurity and the inability to make decisions. Children of Obara Meji often make purchases on impuls, and are often the victims of wishful thinking. They have many reasons to regret their decisions that were made in haste and on impulse. In order to have succes in life, children of Obara Meji do well to feed or sacrifice to their Ori every now and then.
If the client is in business, he should sacrifice to Orunmila in order to have lots of clients; he should also worship Orunmila. Often the client is in some sort of financial trouble, and if this isn't bad enough, he may also find himself surrounded by enemies who will pull a surprise attack on him, not only when it comes to material things but also regarding his life. Sacrifice is important here, for the client to find out who his enemies are, and to define his problems in an exact way. After all: we can only solve a problem after we have figured out what exactly it is!

The main instruction in this Odu is to think before you act, especially when it comes to the making of decisions. When under the influence of this Odu, the importance of carefully and actively avoiding bad decisions and mistakes cannot be overestimated.
When Obara Meji comes with Ire, some of the key words are: inspiration, enthousiasm, synthesis, transformation, the power of the word.
When Obara Meji comes with Ibi, some key words are: misunderstanding, incomprehension, (self)deceit, manipulation by others, boredom.

In those olden days the people of Okoro were frightened
by weird and awful sounds, coming from an anthill in the bush.
For somewhere in that anthill, there along the path,
something was hiding, disquietingly, making sounds,
rumbling and grumbling away, sonorously, scaring
the travelers, who cried out loudly:
"What is it in that anthill that rumbles and grumbles?
If it wants to kill, let it come out and kill.
But if it doesn't want to kill, let it be quiet,
and let it cease its rumblings and its grumblings too".
The frightened people went up to their king, the Onirese.
The Onirese in his turn called Ifa for his help.
They told the king to take an axe, a wooden axe, quite heavy,
and take a hoe, a supple twig, and go into the bush,
together with his people, to soundly wreck the anthill,
and there they went, the heroes, singing a warrior's song:
"What is it in that anthill that rumbles and grumbles?
If it wants to kill, let it come out and kill.
But if it doesn't want to kill, let it be quiet,
and let it cease its rumblings and its grumblings too".
Although they were scared shitless, the people of Okoro
under the well-meant guidance of their Onirese king,
went digging in the anthill, discovered at its bottom
a rattlesnake whose rattlings, being muffled by the anthill,
had made the sounds that scared them, prompting them to cry in fear:
"What is it in that anthill that rumbles and grumbles?
If it wants to kill, let it come out and kill.
But if it doesn't want to kill, let it be quiet,
and let it cease its rumblings and its grumblings too".
And so the problem solved itself, for that's the way of problems.
The rattlesnake, exposed now by the people of the town,
turned out to be unable to kill a single human,
but yet it didn't want to stop its rumbling, grumbling sounds.
The people of Okoro, having had enough of snake sounds,
then beat the rattlesnake to death, and walked back home again.
They sang ('t was for the last time) the song they had sang often:
"What is it in that anthill that rumbles and grumbles?
If it wants to kill, let it come out and kill.
But if it doesn't want to kill, let it be quiet,
and let it cease its rumblings and its grumblings too".
Ifa now says to all of us that though we may feel threatened,
the threat is quite unreal and there's nothing there to fear
but fear itself. Though things unknown may seem a little scary,
the second that we face our fears they simply fade away.