My thanks to Dele A Sonubi for sharing with us another translation from the verses of the Yorùbá religious corpus, Odù Ifá.
Òrúnmìlà is the Yorùbá sage from whom the Ifá corpus originates and in this Odù he receives instruction from Ọba’lúayé, the “King of the World”, one of the Yorùbá pantheon of gods.
It has been said of Ọba’lúayé that “When we come to earth it is because he permits our arrival, and it is because of him we merge with the earth when we depart.”
Some Yorùbá myths describe Òrúnmìlà as a historical figure who lived around 500 B.C., but in other myths he is deified as a spiritual being who came from heaven to teach mankind the secrets of the cosmos through Ifá. The following Odù describes Òrúnmìlà consulting Ifá before making the journey to Earth and receiving instruction from Ọba’lúayé as to the sacrifices he should make to ensure that his path is not obstructed by the negative supernatural forces that he might encounter in the World.
“Make way for me to pass, make way,
Be there wizards that are ahead of my way today, make way for me to pass…
