---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: toyin adepoju <toyin.adepoju@googlemail.com>
Date: 12 July 2010 00:03
Subject: TRAVELLING,HIDDEN BEYOND TIME AND SUFFERING
To: adunniwenger@yahoogroups.co.uk
From: toyin adepoju <toyin.adepoju@googlemail.com>
Date: 12 July 2010 00:03
Subject: TRAVELLING,HIDDEN BEYOND TIME AND SUFFERING
To: adunniwenger@yahoogroups.co.uk
Here I am,one with the water;I think and feel like the river,my blood flows like the river,to the rhythm of its waves,otherwise the trees and the animals wouldn't be such allies.
I am here in the trees,in the river,in my creative phase not only when I am here physically,but forever,even when I happen to be travelling-hidden beyond time and suffering,in the Spiritual Entities which,beceause they are Real in many ways,present ever new features.I feel sheltered with them -in them- beceause I am so very fond of trees and running water - and all the gods of the world are trees and animals long,long before they entrust their sancrosanct magnificence to a human figure.
Susanne Wenger from Adunni: A Portrait of Susanne Wenger by Rolf Brockmann and Gerd Hotter.Machart:Hamburg,1994.Back cover.
The lyrical Wenger,evoking a mystical identification with nature,far from her native Austria, in the Osun forest in Osogbo,Nigeria which she made her home for more than fifty years.I love these lines because of their evocation of a mode of being both transcendental and materially grounded in a manner that conveys both lyricism and power.Transcendental because it describes an awareness of being that integrates the human being with inanimate natural forms,concluding that such forms are the primary embodiments of the divine,well before the human image which has become all over the world the most prominent representative of divinity.
These lines are a demonstration of what I describe as animistic mysticism,a form of nature mysticism in which the mystic relates themselves with ultimate realities through an understanding of natural forms as sentient agents,as conscious beings with which they interact.This is different from the non-animistic nature mysticism of such writers as the English poet Wordsworth whom I understand does not understand individual natural forms as demonstrating sentience but responds to natural forms as wholes that inspire powerful impressions in him.Wenger,on the other hand,speaks of natural forms in relation to spiritual entities,as gods.
Its possible this interpretation of Wenger is too one sided and perhaps she is better understood in terms of both the diffuse nature mysticism of Wordsworth and the identification of specific forms of nature with sentience that emerges in animism.Perhaps ,if I understood Wordsworth better,particularly as he reveals himself in his most extensive work, the autobiographical Prelude,I might be less likely to describe him in such a unipolar manner.
These lines are a demonstration of what I describe as animistic mysticism,a form of nature mysticism in which the mystic relates themselves with ultimate realities through an understanding of natural forms as sentient agents,as conscious beings with which they interact.This is different from the non-animistic nature mysticism of such writers as the English poet Wordsworth whom I understand does not understand individual natural forms as demonstrating sentience but responds to natural forms as wholes that inspire powerful impressions in him.Wenger,on the other hand,speaks of natural forms in relation to spiritual entities,as gods.
Its possible this interpretation of Wenger is too one sided and perhaps she is better understood in terms of both the diffuse nature mysticism of Wordsworth and the identification of specific forms of nature with sentience that emerges in animism.Perhaps ,if I understood Wordsworth better,particularly as he reveals himself in his most extensive work, the autobiographical Prelude,I might be less likely to describe him in such a unipolar manner.
thanks
toyin
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