Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems
"Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge"
"Embodiment Of" by Joseph Eze, contemporary artist whose work is inspired by classical Nigerian arts and their influence on post-classical Nigerian imaginative expression
I was seated in my study in Eholo Street, Benin-City, surrounded by my library, my eyes closed in contemplation of the Ogba forest not far from my home, as I marvelled at the coruscation of energy generating the atmosphere of the vegetative space.
Then it happened.
I saw a face.
Proud, in the lift of her head, a calm downward focus in her partly closed eyelids, the pupils drowned in shadow, as around her floated various natural and abstract forms, within a pervasive background of deep black.
Turtles swam in and around her body.
Plants stood in the same space as her neck and face, a neck and upper body made up of pure black, with no solidity, only the shape of a human body; plants, fish and other animals on her cheeks and forehead, as if they were one with her, as around her constellated turtles, lizards, plants, abstract wave forms and the expression fixed in space to her left "Embodiment of".
I was gripped by fear and awe.
A force, both compelling and distancing, emanated from her.
Is she Mother Superior, Arcana Mystica, Assimilator of Cosmos, the Infinite Cosmic Wealth Outside the Seed, the tortoise her emblem?
Do I withdraw into myself to seek the One, as the tortoise withdraws into its shell, its carapace a network that constitutes its universe?
Look deeply into my eyes, my form bristling with life in its profusion, see into and behind the image into its throbbing essence, came waves of power from this mystic sight.
As life forms blend with human form within a sea dark with meaning, the perceiver is penetrated by the perceived, the cosmos is consumed by flames, its ashes distilled to be placed at the doorstep of your feet.
Deep within the nexus of energy hidden in the bowels of the forest, you come face to face with me, beyond space, as mind is freed from body and reconstituted at a remote distance beyond where your body is located, an intersection at hand's reach but otherwise unreachable because in a different dimension.
With these words hammering with a force both melodious and searing within me, I opened my eyes to find myself in my study.
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