By
Obododimma Oha
It is not only that our roads meet and branch off
in our liefeworld, we are, indeed, the roads that meet and branch off. Some
roads meet and then meet again. Some roads branch off and never meet forever.
When roads meet, it is energy added to energy and there is intense spike.
Moreover, a road that meets another is lucky or unlucky, and could be
reinvigorated or diminished. Isn’t that why we have to be careful and alert
when we encounter new souls on our journeys? We have to be very careful so as
not to lose our energies or diminish theirs in that meeting.
Nevertheless,
orita is that intersecting point
where energies happen. Little wonder the ancients were afraid and had to put
out sacrifices there for forces excited and attracted. That may not be the
answer, but they understand that an orita
was a significant meeting of roads and therefore of destinies and destinations.
The meeting
of roads says loudly that each road is somebody’s project, and so it is
dangerous to terminate that project, to end that road.
Roads that meet roads borrow or give out
energy, help the other road to continue. Roads must continue.
Some roads
meet at Ojuelegba. Some roads meet at Abeokuta junction. Some roads meet at 9th
Mile Corner, Enugu, and some at Upper Iweka, Onitsha. Do you undertand their conversations?
Be careful so that you do not rudely interrupt them!
Roads are
also narratives of narratives. They see action, life, and tell stories. Roads
may be lucky to tell their stories after meeting roads. When you stand on the
roads and think that the narratives must pass through you and even follow you
home, goodluck to you!
Oritameta is
coming with threeness; watch out! Only people with hearts can endure threenesses! Orita marun is coming with fourness.
You don’t understand the signifcs of threeness?
Ask ifa (or afa in Igbo). It will tell you, teach you properly, if you approach
it properly. And what of Orita merin
and so on? That is meeting in multiplicity and complexity. It is for an ancient
masked spirit soaked in sooth! You just have to be an initiate. But be cautious
with plurality. Do not take it for granted.
I like
visiting an orita once in a while. It
is a place of action. To observe it better, just hide somewhere you have made
you observatory and see how things happen, see how its orita life is acted out. The drama is engaging.
Every orita
reminds you that you are also an actor in the drama of life. But is acting, do
not behave like a mere spectator. Play your role.
An essential
role, of course, is to help the other road to continue, not to work hard to
terminate it. An orita is an end that should be a beginning. We have to try and
begin afresh at orita. Are we not lucky that roads have met,that energy has
flowed into energy, and roads can continue? Don’t just go to an orita and see
it as an end and block that way for others that have destinations.
The
destination is not the orita, not the end-beginning. The destination is to meet
other roads at another orita and continue the unending conversation, an orita
conversation.
Help that
orita to help those roads to continue.
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