Pataki Episode 2: Changing Lanes

September 11th hadn’t come on a Saturday since 2010. What a divine time to release this Pataki entry!

Pataki. Oni Mi Ojo Abameta, Owewe Merinla, Odun Egbawa Mewa, Ogorin Awon Ojo Igba Ooru.

Translate: Diary. Today is Saturday, September 11th, 2010, 80 days into Summer Solstice. It was Virgo season, third decan, and 9 years to the date that the twin towers fell. The moon was waxing in Scorpio, and my vertex was opening in the most trying of ways. It had been 42 days since Leroy Roper’s prophecy, and this day drove me straight into the cohesion card’s cloud.

I had a bad fight with my karmic common-law ex husband the morning I was headed to sounndcheck. Although I had graduated, I still kept my Saturday radio show, “The Bamboo Lounge” on the weekends. I was driving a reasonable distance to put energy into my craft. It was that connected to me.

I had a wonderful show, not knowing I had done my season finale. I got into my car, a 2004 gold Chevy Impala and headed 290...eastbound. There was a huge truck hauling a factory part down the freeway, escorted by police cars. A large pickup truck swerved in front of me and hit the brakes. I had no time to react. In trying to avoid collision, I lost control of my car. Fishtailed left, then right. Spun. Flipped over the guardrail on the shoulder of westbound traffic. Inverted. Stillness.

For a moment I thought I left. Panic immediately set in, and in my hysteria, I pulled the seatbelt from around my neck and crawled out of the driver’s side window. I I was met with a hysterical police officer. “Ma’am! Ma’am! Is anyone else in the car?” I laid out on the pavement beside my car...and screamed.

The moments to follow were a blur. Through the haze of sirens and cars stopping to help, I remember a woman. Blonde. Huge green eyes. She held some kind of medical badge in front of my face before proceeding to check my vitals for pain. The last thing I remember before the oxygen induced state of calm was the voice of a medic. It angelically melodic and male. “Someone sure was smiling on you today…as we continued on the eastbound road. “I would later learn that ‘someone’ was Ogun. Ase.

Went to the hospital to get checked out. My only physical injury was a scratch on my right foot. A scratch that didn’t need stitches. I did however gain a scar on my soul in a hard lesson. The lesson was pertaining to learning the difference between carnal and spiritual family. (for more details, please see my written chapter, “Crossroads Where Blood Ties,” in the book “Unmasking the Truth Behind I’m Good,” available on Amazon.)

We went to where my car was taken to see that could be salvaged. When the tarp was pulled off my car, I fell to knees. I was as grateful to be alive as I was baffled of how I survived. That’s when I felt it. Her pulse. Onile’s pulse. She Earth as a living thing. Something I was searching unawarely for… None of my years of stiletto stepping, driving nowhere fast, eager to get to places that would feed my ego and pacify my pain felt like this pulse. Feeling the pulse of the ground helped me see that the road I’d just lost was filled with places that only wished to use my energy, drain my pocket, and waste my time. I kept this sentiment secret for a while. I raised my eyes to the Sun. it was setting in the west. My karmic commonlaw ex husband drove me home...again on the eastbound roads. East is the direction on new beginnings. Fire. For me, it was lit deeply inside. I was not boots to the ground. Literally.

Some in the village whispered it was sorcery. Some poor imbalanced woman unable to handle rejection from a man. This was my introduction to African Spirituality...petty juju from outsiders and inner convictions from my fading Christian spirit. I quickly learned that there were those who truly honored, respected, and loved the traditions of Ifa/Orisa and Egungun, and others that feed the stereotype that our people can be counted on to ruin anything, even spirituality. I was inspired to never practice such petttiness, should the inner convictions carry me into a new faith. This was the starting point of a much needed unravel to the core of my soul.

Ogun took my car and spared me 7 years before I would really know why. When the time came, it was revealed to me that my lanes were changed to get me on the right one. The roads have been kind to me since I accepted and applied this revelation to my being. I learned the symbolic difference between wanting to drive your way, and letting Spirit take the wheel. The totality of this event in my life brought about divine blessing, that I had to change lanes to receive.

Ase in Love,

iiiYansaje T. Muse

P.S. To hear the audio version of this story, complete with soundtrack, beam up (tune in) to 222.9 The Mothership!