Obatala The Father of All Orishas

For a long period of time, we lived in a world that was strictly physical. We believed that if we couldn't see it, touch it, or smell it, that it just didn't exist. Of course the mystics always knew that there was an invisible world. They knew about energy and quantum physics long before any scientist had ever looked through a microscope.

We can see this in many of the creation stories in the Yoruba pantheon. Obatala, the father of all orishas; is also known as the deity of purity, peace, and creation. He descended from the heavens onto to earth on an iron chain. This story can be interpreted in two ways. It can symbolize the concept of manifestation. It can also represent the biological makeup of human beings. Today, we understand that DNA is a genetic code that houses information that is past down from one generation to the next.

Practioners in the Yoruba religion seemed to have understood this concept as well. When examined under a microscope DNA looks very much like a chain or a double sided helix. Today, scientists understand that a person's DNA code is pretty much set in stone. However, there are external factors that influence the behaviors of DNA.

Epigenetics instructs DNA on how to behave. It works, very much like a light switch, turning our DNA codes on and off. If we are overeating, epigenetics will instruct DNA to increase fat cells. If we are dieting, epigenetics will instruct our DNA to shrink fat cells. It can instruct our bodies to increase the production of cancer cells, or decrease cancer cells. A great way to think of epigenetics is to imagine that your body runs like a corporation. There is an executive board, which responds to the external economical environment. There are the middlemen, line managers who supervise the workers. Lastly, there are the workers, who don't think. They just take orders without thought or question.

The corporate executives decide that they need to lay-off workers because of a recession. The executives don't do the dirty work; they send the middleman or the line managers to do the firing. Workers get laid off, and the ones that remain are doing twice the work. The same thing happens in our body. We are the executives of our bodies and how we respond to our environment has a direct effect on us. Feelings of scarcity induce high levels of stress. We innately send signals to the middlemen to instruct our cells to stop working at optimum levels. As a result, other parts of our body have to pick up the slack. This is why people who are severely depressed are sluggish and lethargic.

In a nutshell, our thoughts can make us sick, or better. Positive thoughts, feelings, and actions allow the body to work at optimum levels. We need to understand the adverse consequences of negative thinking. We must call upon Obatala, the orisha of purity, wisdom, and whiteness to cleanse our negative thoughts, so we can be pure again and realign with nature.

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