Owonrin Meji

Dirty Hands and Forgotten Roots

Owonrin Meji delivers two powerful teachings that ultimately point us toward one responsibility: mind your destiny.

The first verse warns us to stop practicing evil against our fellow human beings. Binsaila borrowed money to begin raising chickens, and as his business grew, the wealthy man he owed became afraid that Binsaila would eventually become independent. Out of jealousy and a desire to keep him dependent, the man destroyed Binsaila’s chickens. But what was intended to ruin him became his breakthrough. Those dead chickens suddenly became valuable because kings needed exactly what Binsaila possessed, and the destruction meant to keep him poor ultimately helped make him prosperous.

The lesson is clear: someone may interfere with the circumstances surrounding your destiny, but they cannot rewrite your Ori. Sometimes the very attack meant to decrease you becomes the circumstance that increases your value. Owonrin Meji reminds us that another person’s blessing is not evidence that Heaven has rejected us, and we do not have to dim someone else’s light for our own to shine.

But the second verse turns the mirror back toward us.

Olojowon abandoned the spiritual responsibility attached to his destiny and tried several other paths, yet nothing prospered. Only when divination instructed him to return to what he had abandoned did his life begin to open again.

This teaches that every delay is not caused by an enemy. Sometimes we are struggling because we have wandered away from our own road. We keep searching for something new when Heaven is telling us to return to our Ori, our elders, our ancestors, our responsibilities, and the instructions we already received.

Together, the two verses teach:

Stop destroying your neighbor’s future, and stop abandoning your own.

One person became distracted by another man’s destiny. The other became disconnected from his own. Both were forms of misalignment.

Owonrin Meji therefore gives us a simple instruction:

Keep your hands clean and keep your roots watered.

Do not sabotage, manipulate, gossip against, or secretly pray against another person’s progress. At the same time, remember your Ori, honor those who carried you, fulfill your spiritual responsibilities, and stop running from what Heaven has already placed before you.

You do not have to destroy someone else to prosper.

You do not have to chase every enemy.

You do not have to search endlessly for another path.

Mind your destiny.

May what was intended to reduce us increase us, may what appeared dead reveal another purpose, may our hands remain clean, and may our roots remain strong.

Aboru Aboye Abosise ooo

Ase wa ooo