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Destined to be Apetebii

admin — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 02:47:50 +0000

If you refer back to my “Words Unsaid” post, I remember that moment when Sweet Thing said to me that he doesn’t do reassurance.
I remember being so stunned that he could say something so fucking cold and selfish; but I suppose it is one of the few times that he was truthful about himself and his intentions. He certainly went on to prove it.
This has kind of created a kind of anxiety in me about my state of loneliness, and the struggle against it and the ensuing depression has been tough. You know, you’ve been reading.
It’s funny though, Spirit had told me years ago who was my husband, the type of man he was, who he was. At the time when I need reassurance most about finding someone and settle down, have children, live a spiritual life, is when it came. And not from the muddle of confusion Sweet Thing created in my life either. I am now seeing his fuckwittage as a blessing, because he was too weak in too many areas to cut it in the unflinching world I live in anyway.
My Godfather, the Nigerian babalawo who gave me my Hand of Ifa, and I have been emailing back and forth, in the last two weeks or so. He reassured me in the last few days that my husband was coming, that he would be a deeply spiritual man, that we would have children and he would love me. I wrote back and told him his words were comforting and reassuring and they are and have been.
This is the other part of that story: During my Hand of Ifa ceremony, I was initiated as Apetebii, a wife of Orunmila. It is a special kind of status, and it doesn’t always mean the same things, but I in the most basic sense I have discovered that I am a wife of Orunmila. For those of you who haven’t read my blog in the past, Orunmila is my supporting Orisa. In Orisa they would say Orunmila is ‘below’ and Osun is on my head.
From my studies, Orunmila is figure in Yoruba history, similar to Jesus in the development of Christianity. I am not comparing the two religions, I am merely drawing an analogy for those who don’t know, or are not familiar with the Yoruba tradition.
In the Orisa tradition it is said that Orunmila was the only other energy present when Olodumare, the Supreme Being, created the Universe. ‘He’ is the only other being besides God/Olodumare who knows the past, the present and the future.
Orunmila in his lifetime on this earth, now several thousand years ago, was a traveller. He spent many years travelling the known world, learning and teaching. (It is said Jesus did the same; but you need to search ancient texts for that info, the European Bible has exorcised that info.)
He is the Orisa that owns divination, he is the Orisa who controls destiny, he is the Orisa of wisdom and of intelligence. His children, people like me, are protected from a short life span… he looks out for us especially. It is also said that we are naturally psychic.
Osun is Orunmila’s favorite wife; and they work very closely together. Osun is the Orisa of knowledge and we all know, knowledge without wisdom is meaningless and wisdom without knowledge is useless.
When it was happening I swear I had no idea what it meant. Baba told me only that I should marry someone who was ’spiritually okay’ and that it meant I could cook for priests, share food with any Orisa, and eat with my elders.
There was a special part of the ceremony that dealt with making me this wife of Orunmila.
Baba didn’t go into extreme detail, so for me, to gain knowledge (Osun in my life), I started combing the Internet for info. I found very little. I found only one book available that was specifically devoted to Apetebii, of course, available at Amazon. I added it to my ‘must buy’ soon list.
My life is funny though. When I send a call out into the Universe, I do get responses.
About a week after my investigations turned up the title and author of this book, I went to the Senegalese Ballet that was in Trinidad around Emancipation Day.
I was getting ready to go, and in the foyez downstairs, my sister Ayoka was there selling some books.
We greeted each other, and I was skirting the crowd of people around her table and was about to step off, when, guess what? There it was! I slipped my hand through the bodies and plucked it off the table.
I went to pay and to my dismay I was forty dollars short. I then left my bag at Ayoka’s stall and went search for the ATM they said was just outside. After fifteen minutes of looking for this mythical ATM, walking the stretch of the Savannah, the whole of Queen’s Park West, I decided to walk the ten minutes to Park Street because this ATM just wasn’t revealing it’s location.
The whole time I was walking, I was praying and asking Baba Ifa (Orunmila’s other name) to protect me, to watch over me as I walked, and to accept the walk as a sacrifice. I’m there praying, Baba Ifa, don’t let anybody teef me of the street please. At 10:30 PM, and in Port of Spain, it’s quite possible. Kidnapping is a real serious problem in Trinidad. I think it’s funny now, but I was DETERMINED not to leave the Savannah without the book that night. I suppose it’s a good thing I don’t have any money.
In retrospect, I doubt it was merely compulsion, but more like Spirit directing me. I just let it take over, guide my steps, and protect me.
After getting back to the Savannah and purchasing the book (AT LAST), I went home and devoured it. I got nothing from the first reading. The language in the book was a little strange; obviously written by someone not completely comfortable with the English language and not in possesion of either a good editor or one that had a definitive command of English. So it wasn’t until the fourth reading that the message truly began to filter through.
Apetebii must marry a priest, what’s more, it has to be an Ifa priest. It also speaks to what Baba had told me: that for me to have children, we (my husband and I) must appease his Ifa with a female goat.
So I wrote Baba and email and asked him about it. He replied saying that yes, it was true. What’s more, that I had to marry a knowledgeable priest. I wrote back a little worried, where am I going to find an Ifa priest in Trinidad? Hell, there are hardly any men following the Yoruba tradition in Trinidad, far less a knowledgeable one!
I told him, that I didn’t think I could marry an old man. I know myself, no old man can keep up with me like that. I also didn’t want some prudish man to try to control me, I needed someone who had similar ambitions and drive, imagination and sexual inhibition. (I didn’t tell it to Baba like that, but words to that effect.)
He reassured me. He said I would find the husband of my choice, and that all will go well for me afterward. He told me my husband would return my love, and I would have children.
So there.
Now the thing is for me, I had always known no ordinary man was going to get me. I knew it had to be a man with intelligence, spiritual grounding and someone who was going to love me completely. For my Baba’s divination to echo these things, is starting to restore a certain faith in my knowledge of self, damaged my recent dealings with men, Sweet Thing in particular.
What I am beginning to realise is that this path is going to call me to real spiritual work. My role in the Orisa community is to support the priest and help him to do his work, and even to do work in his absence. Because Orunmila is my Father, it may mean me becoming what is called Iyanifa, or some other initiation as a priest.
This is something coming to grips with is strange. I can see how I can do it, but not from this particular point I am at.
So this is my destiny. No amount of turning away, or ignoring it will turn it away from me or me from it.
My current abject loneliness can sometimes crush me, but my husband is coming, and with him comes my true wealth, children. I knew it all along, and to find reassurance that this pain of being alone will end and fulfilment is coming to me.
I guess what is freaking me out more than anything is that I still have to wait, and to continue to wait until the path reveals itself. I’ve already w
aited so long, and I want to have children before my time gets short and I get to old to either keep up with them. The thing is, the waiting could be as long as another year, because I hardly think a babalawo is going to just appear, although I don’t put it past the Universe.
Besides, my current state is none too conducive to relationship building. I’m still working hard to build a relationship with myself. That’s the fact I have come to realise for myself.
Next year, I am meant to go to Nigeria to be initiated to Osun. I suppose that will be the only time I will be in the right place for me and my husband to meet. Being in Trinidad is limiting, but that is my current path of growth.
So, the waiting continues, whether I like it or not.

Officially Pissed Off! Ah Want Meh Money!

Dennis Goedegebuure — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 20:11:30 +0000

Allyuh remember my passing experience working with my cousin’s friend doing street patrol for this night club, right?

Well it’s been a week and a half since the last night I worked, and this guy has not paid me. Worse, I think he’s ducking me.

I called him a little while ago, and he sounded like he was faking coughing fits and shit. He’s been not picking up, not returning calls for more than a week now, and he was supposed to pay me last weekend.

I have a feeling he’s sticking because last weekend I told him I couldn’t work the street patrol, it was too tiring and I was starting my new job this week. He seemed pissed off when I told him, but I didn’t think he’d fuck me up. He knows/knew I needed that money to see me through this week. I expressly told him that I needed the money by the beginning of this week, and he has pretty much giving me a story and bullshitted his way out of paying me.

Now, this man has some money and other problems, and I can so see him keeping my money to pay x bill or y bill, rather than paying me. I can just so see it. He’s pugnacious enough to do it, and a dyed in the wool, card carrying, dues paying reprobate.

The end result is that I do not have enough money to get to work tomorrow. Literally, I am in a bit of a pickle. I’ve spoken to my team manager and we’re trying work out something, but I still have to wait a little longer and I still have to get here tomorrow.

BOLLOCKS! Why are people so wicked? Why is it that they torture without impunity? Damn fucking asshole!
I’m again worrying about money, and from the bottom of my feet to the crown of my head I am SICK of it! Especially when somebody who claims to be my friend is fucking me up so blatantly and nastily. (Although by now I should be used to it: in recent times so many friends have turned out not to friends but actually haters in disguise.)
I KNOW he was faking them coughs!

(Can you see the irony: Working for SERIOUS money, but don’t have enough of it to get to work. That is like a Greek tragedy.)

BlogRush referral power

Dennis Goedegebuure — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 06:33:06 +0000

The BlogRush referrals can contribute significantly to your bottom line of credits in the tool. The ultimate goal off course is to grow your own traffic. But the holy grail is to have your referral credits grow beyond the credits you earn with your own traffic.

Why? Because this will mean that you have good blogs in your referral network. The harder they work to get more traffic, the more you will benefit from their hard work.

So, make sure you have new blogs signing up for the BlogRush tool once in a while, and hope that your referral traffic will grow and grow and grow….

So why don’t you sign up for BlogRush, and get more traffic to your site…

Technorati tags: BlogRush

Widget for Blogger can get you 150+ visitors

Dennis Goedegebuure — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 11:10:00 +0000

My little test with the keywords Widget for Blogger in the title has brought more than 150 visitors to this blog in the period of 8 days.

What is the secret: having the terms in the title and/or tags, will trigger a link in the sidebar on a blog with high traffic numbers.

Question off course is how ethical this is? I’m not writing about a widget for Blogger, and only doing this as an experiment. But still it is funny how you can trigger a bigger number of visitors.

Imagine that I would like to sell this site. I can easily inflate up the number of unique visitors just before the sale. (Not that this blog is worth a lot… )

Now imagine that you can find multiple of these opportunities. This way you can grow the number of visitors significantly in a short time, showing a ‘healthy’ increase.

Technorati tags: widget for blogger, blog traffic

Scoble’s Plug-Ins & Toolbars

Dennis Goedegebuure — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 20:47:23 +0000

What kind of toolbars and plug-ins does Robert Scoble uses?

That question is now easy to answer. due to his post on his blog with the screen shot of his blog traffic, you can see which toolbars and plug-ins are installed.

Is the Plug in for Co-comment. A really handy tool that tracks your comments you make on different places on the Internet.

I actually don’t know this one, so I’m wondering who can tell me which plug in this is?

This must be the Facebook toolbar. We all read how big a fan Robert is of Facebook, so this does not surprise me.

My guess is, that this is shortcuts to his Google reader.

Are these the only plug-ins Robert is using?

So to give full disclosure, I’m pasting a screen shot of my browser here, so you can see which plug-ins and toolbars I’m using:

I’m also using coComment

Then I’m using Twitbin, which is a plug-in that displays all your twitters in a sidebar. You can twitter from the sidebar and read all the tweeds from your contacts in the same sidebar. Pretty cool application.

The above toolbar is an SEO toolbar. It can give you a number of cool functionalities which you can use to determine the SEO friendliness of a particular page.

Below that is the StumbleUpon toolbar, which is one of my favorite applications. I love StumbleUpon for discovering new sites.

Maybe redundant, but I still use the Google Toolbar. mainly to get related searches for a particular keyword.

This is the Firefox SEO plugin. It can give you all sort of information when you look at the SERP’s of Google and Yahoo or others.

This plug-in allows you to take a screendump of the full page. So not only the part you can see in the window. really helpful when you need to present certain plans for your site.

Greasemonkey plug-in. Again a lot of SEO tools in one plug-in, and really helpful.

Last one is the Adsense revenue plug-in. This shows your current adsense revenue on your account. Wow, already $0.71 today

So the question is: what kind of software and applications do you use in combination with your browser?

Top 10 lists and contests

Dennis Goedegebuure — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 03:05:40 +0000

More and more I’m getting crazy with all the top 10 lists and contests how to become a better blogger and how to get more traffic. It is about time this technique is getting obsolete and we are getting back to writing really good content.

You can either totally ignore these techniques and go your own way, or you can be a lemming and get some traction for a short time. I think it is clear that I choose not to go for following the big crowd.

I keep this blog as a resource tool to focus my thinking. In the mean time, if somebody likes it, that’s great. The objective is to get readers who stick for the long run, not being triggered by a short top 10 list and decided to add the blog to their RSS list based on that one post. Usually they will remove the feed from their list in a couple of weeks.

One of the blogs that I continue to read is the blog of Robert Scoble. Love him or hate him, the man is not focused on getting as much readers as he can with these list type of posts. He is expressing his thoughts, which a lot of people find valuable.

I wonder where the blogs that became popular will be in a couple of months. As soon as the writer is out of top 10 lists, what will they turn to?

Technorati Tags: Top 10, Blogging

Grow your traffic through "Widget for Blogger"

Dennis Goedegebuure — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 07:30:26 +0000

Assessmyblog just found out recently that he got a large amount of traffic through a top 100 Technorati blog.

The author found out that the traffic came through a link that is displayed in the sidebar in an automatically refreshed widget. Apparently the keyword the link is triggered for is Widget for Blogger.

Now, I don’t run my blog on Blogger but on Typepad. But I’m interested if it will work with this post as well. So let’s see in a couple of days.

Technorati tags: Widget for Blogger

End of the month…Roundup?

Dennis Goedegebuure — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 05:02:00 +0000

The more blogs you read, the more things jump in your mind that either you can copy as a best practice, or things you are not going to copy.

One of these things that I’m not going to copy is a round up post with the most popular post of that month. Why is this? If I missed your most popular post, your blog must be not that interesting for me. If it was I would have been reading all it’s posts for the whole months. Even if I would have missed one, I would have a chance of picking up the post in my RSS reader.

I usually don’t read these, and will not copy the habit of these end of the month round up posts, for now…

Technorati tags: Roundup, end of the month

BlogRush – How I use Blogrush to find new content

Dennis Goedegebuure — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 17:46:24 +0000

Since the launch of BlogRush, the tool has been reviewed many times. All these reviewers hope that new bloggers are subscribing through their referral code, so they can reap the benefit from their review in terms of more credits. Credits means more traffic in the future. (So if you have not signup for BlogRush yet, do so through this link)

I start to see more and more BlogRush widgets on blogs that I usually read. And I found myself the last two days more and more reading the headlines in the widget. I even found very good content behind the interesting headlines.

I will start using BlogRush more in the same way as I use StumbleUpon, for finding good content that will be worth it to give some link love to.

Would you like to have more link love from BlogRush? There are a couple of ways to get more traffic to your blog through BlogRush:

Sign up for BlogRush and actively promote the tool. for every blog that signs up through your referral code, you will earn credits. This is going 10 layers deep.
Write quality content. More and more quality becomes important. Your blog needs to stand out in the crowd. And the blogosphere is more and more over crowded. Not only for search engines content is important, your users will only sign up for your RSS feed if your content is worth it to read again and again and again.
Write catching inviting headlines. As BlogRush is only displaying your headline, and there are 4 others displayed next to you, your headline needs to stand out.

There are so many guides and top 10 lists on the Internet to be found on getting more traffic to your blog by adding more quality to your blog.

I see BlogRush not only as a great tool to get more traffic or readers, but also more and more to find good quality content and new blogs to read.

How do you use BlogRush?

Technorati tags: Blogrush

How can you start better blogging

Dennis Goedegebuure — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 17:25:00 +0000

I just found a great piece of advice through the BlogRush at the side of my blog. JakelDaily brings you a top ten list of simple techniques how to build trust.

Trust is generally an exercise in creating a site environment in which readers respond well to and are willing to pass along your site details to others. To present a case that visitor find beneficial and trustworthy you need to follow some simple common sense techniques..

Site trust gives visitors real value and that