Transforming Yourself with Ese Ifa, Literature of the Yoruba Origin Ifa System of Knowledge
Theory and Practice in the Metaphysics of Ifa Literature
A Collection of Audio Recordings
Speech is humanity's first demonstration of movement from the purely animal to the human level.
After speech, came literature, a form of verbal expression that creates meaning beyond the immediate point being made.
Verbal music and verbal pictures are the major means by which this kind of expression works, a form of communication later recorded through writing.
One of the world's greatest examples of literature is ese ifa, literature of the Yoruba origin Ifa system of knowledge, vast, intricate and deeply varied in its content.
The literary character of this great collection, however, is inadequately understood by many, in the mistaken notion that the literary, the spiritual and the philosophical are different in sacred literature like ese ifa, when in fact they constitute the same complex.
The product being described here is a sequence of audio recordings exploring the literary value, spiritual power and philosophical significance of examples of ese ifa, demonstrating how one may explore life's deepest possibilities through this unity of verbal imagination and meaning.
The sequence runs as follows:
1. Ori, the Only One Who Can Follow a Devotee on a Distant Journey Without Turning Back
An exploration of the Ifa version of the globally pervasive idea that at the core of the self is someone immortal, embodying the self's ultimate potential.
This subject is dramatized through the image of a group of deities gathered to discuss which of them can follow their devotee on a distant journey.
Memorable imagistic gymnastics, superb word play, musical similarity in variety of sentence structures, are all woven together to deliver a uniquely classical expression of a universal idea, magnificently actualized by the Ifa oral poet.
How to adapt these ideas to oneself, exploring their significance through contemplation and ritual inspired by but going beyond Ifa and its interrelated verbal and visual arts, will be discussed.
2. The Journey of Oro
An entry into the core of Yoruba origin ideas about the power of language and of its literary expression.
It also examines the roots of literary power in the relationship between literature and other forms of imaginative expression.
These ideas are dramatized in the story of the journey to Earth of oro from the mind and actions of Odumare, the creator of the universe.
Oro is the complex of divine knowledge and wisdom expressed through the power of human thought and expression.
Oro roams the world naked but it is dangerous to gaze with naked eyes on oro's incandescent power.
Hence oro is approached through such imaginative creations as visual and verbal art, enabling an indirect engagement with this mysterious majesty, dangerous in it's naked potency but the source of all human thought and expression.
This recording explores the images and musical rhythms through which this celebration of imaginative power is developed.
The use of this creative form as a platform for reflection, meditation and ritual is also discussed, guiding the aspirant in the effort to engage oro and journey through that engagement to the origin of the cosmos from which oro emanates.
This recording is an interpretation and application of Rowland Abiodun's " Verbal and Visual Metaphors in Yoruba Ritualistic Art of Ori" modified as the first chapter of his Yoruba Art and Language: Seeking the African in African Art.
3. The Descent of Asuwa
This is an examination of ''Ayajo Asuwada'' a supreme literary dramatization of the unity of existence.
Dew descends from orun, the space of originating creativity, shaping existence on Earth through the coming together of the various components that constitute the world and the human being, from the hair on the human head to the grass of the savannah to fish in the ocean.
A visualization is developed of the spectrum of possibility actualized as terrestrial unity. From this is built a dramatization of this unity in the cohesion that enables human society. This sequence culminates in an invocation of the divine source of this unity.
The seamless unity in variety of this complex of imaginatively vivid ideations makes this a globally powerful rendition of humanity's loftiest aspirations, rooted in the majesty of the physical world as it reflects human social order.
Methods of reflection and invocation directed at enhancing these forces of creative cohesion in one's life are also presented in this recording.
We salute the landmark work of Akinsola Akiwowo's '' A Theory of Knowledge from an African Oral Poetry'' that introduced this poem to the world, amplified by his other works and those of others who engaged with him, from Babatunde Lawal to Moses Makinde to Olufemi Taiwo and other masters.
May the flame ever blaze.
4. Orunmila and the Imposing, Naked Woman in the Forest
"What powers drive the movement of the world?", the sage Orunmila enquires of the oracle.
"Why are some rich, others poor, what motivates the mysteries of life and death, of terrestrial entry and terrestrial exit, the differing fortunes of humans, the scurrying of the rat and the soaring of the eagle?'' he queries, seeking a unifying principle of existence as so many had done before him and as many will do as long as time exists.
No answer is given but he is directed as to how to find an answer.
He is to prepare a feast of uncooked animal entrails and take them to the deepest part of a forest and, hiding himself, he is to wait there into the depths of night and beyond.
The ensuing encounter will lead him to the answers he seeks, he is told.
He does as instructed, and at the convergence of deepest forest and darkest night, an imposing naked woman emerges and feasts on the sacrifice, asking him to emerge from his hiding place where he is visible to her though in hiding, conversing with him as he struggles to manage terror in this awesome experience.
This story, amplified by myself from its richly pregnant but basic outline, is a meditation on the confluence of mystery and power represented by the feminine principle in Yoruba thought.
The recording explores the unique power generated through this imaginative dramatization, the synthesis of characters, setting and narrative sequence delivering a distinct thrill of the numinous, the union of awe, fascination and repelling otherness, from powers beyond human but compelling to the human.
The recording includes reflection on and invocation of this feminine principle at the root of cosmic and terrestrial possibility, from Ile, Earth, to Odu, cosmic wisdom.
5. Iya Agba Becomes a Calabash
The venerable female, Iya Agba, having grown old, wishes to retire from the world to the peace and silence under the Earth.
She asks her children, the deities, the orisa, to bring her a calabash each, containing something of great value to them, to keep her company.
Obatala, Ogun, Soponna and Oduduwa between them bring a calabash of chalk, of mud, of charcoal and of camwood dust from a tree's bark, as offerings to their mother.
Thus, through a simple story, the oral poet mobilizes commonplace items in developing one of the most far reaching evocations of the human journey from animal to human life represented by the movement from eating food raw to cooking it represented by charcoal as evoking the discovery and use of fire, of the vitality of life enabled by blood and symbolized by red camwood dust, of mud as emblematic of the union of earth and water without which Earth and its life forms would not exist and of white chalk evoking the luminous yet mysterious sources of existence, enabling this convergence of possibilities.
The recording navigates the imaginative creativity through which the oral artist constructs an imagistic and narrative universe that is pivotal to the totality of Yoruba origin Orisa cosmology and its reverberations in the institutions of the central Yoruba institutions Ifa and Ogboni.
This image complex at the heart of these institutions is central to Yoruba contributions to the ancient and perennial struggle to make meaning of existence by examining the implications of the material realities of existence.
These realities are represented in this context by charcoal and its association with cooking, camwood dust in relation to blood, mud referencing earth and water and white chalk dust evoking originating beauty both radiant and mysterious.
Methods of meditation and ritual employing these symbols will be presented in the recording.
These techniques act as a means of orienting oneself in relation to the human journey in space and time and its relationship with spiritual forces comprising cosmic, terrestrial and human being and becoming, existence and development.
Access
For information on access to these recordings see the Blogger post of this initiative.
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