Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Engaging with Mystic Trees and Spaces of Nigeria: Benin City Sacred Grounds as Meditation Spaces : Sights and Aspirations

Tikkun olam means healing of the world. It's meaning in synagogues is works of charity

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From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovdepoju@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, December 15, 2022 4:28:02 AM
To: USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Engaging with Mystic Trees and Spaces of Nigeria: Benin City Sacred Grounds as Meditation Spaces : Sights and Aspirations

 

Thanks brother.

What is Tikkun Olam?

Thanks 

Toyin

On Wed, Dec 14, 2022 at 7:32 PM Cornelius Hamelberg <corneliushamelberg@gmail.com> wrote:

From mystical communion with mystic trees and actually having meaningful conversations with them on so many private occasions, surely they must have told you to be practically, more seriously engaged in saving them from the scourge of deforestation and must have also been expressing concern about climate change and the need for Tikkun Olam at that level…

On Saturday, 10 December 2022 at 20:50:56 UTC+1 ovdepoju wrote:

Engaging with Mystic Trees and Spaces of Nigeria as Meditation Zones : Sights and Aspirations in Benin and Lagos

          Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju 

                     Compcros 

Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos 

             in Search of Knowledge 

                         Abstract

A very brief exploration of the idea of using traditional sacred grounds in Benin-City and Lagos as spaces for meditation. 

All pictures taken by myself between October and November 2022, using an iPhone 6s, edited on an HP laptop to correct image quality reduction resulting from laptop transfer and to emphasize particular qualities of the locations photographed.

The Okha Tree at the Edaiken of Uselu Palace Grounds Opposite Uselu Motor Park on Uselu-Lagos Road 

This tree inspires awe and a powerful sense of the uncanny.

I understand one may walk into the grounds where the tree is although the place is very bushy.

I wish I could request permission to clear the bush at my own expense and meditate on the tree, assimilating it's sense of something both visible and unseen, palpable but beyond reach, a cosmos of its own, a palace of grandeurs both awesome and strange, inducting me into a universe rooted in the world of space and time while transcending it.

               The Grove at Ikpoba Slope 

  On the Left, After the Muslim Prayer Ground

              As One Enters from Inside Benin

A magnificent congregation of trees forbidden to entry except by permission of the Oba of Benin.

The first time I saw this place, even from outside, more than 20 years ago, the sheer concentration of energy, of spiritual power in the grove, accelerated the development of my psychic sight, of vision into depths of existence  beyond the physical, into the energy densities around trees, using "energy" metaphorically but adapting its traditional understanding as the capacity to do work, in this instance catalyzing the extension of the perceptual capacities of people who contemplate such trees or groves.

In October this year, I was able to go close to it, to stand at its edge for the first time, yearning to penetrate the sacred grove.

I came back some days later to see the bush at its edges and the undergrowth had been cleared. 

How I would love to find myself inside that wonderful place.

Whom can I talk to seeking permission to experience these last remaining glories of Benin sacred vegetative spaces?

                      The Grove at Use

"You need to go to Use, to see pristine vegetative Benin sacred space" my friend Etino-Osa Omuemu said to me in October this year.

Use, the place where the Crown Prince of Benin goes to choose the name he will bear as the Oba of Benin.

A constellation of magnificent trees, in grounds forbidden to entry except by the permission of the Edigin N'Use, the ruler of the Use community, a successful method of ecological preservation through designation as sacred space.

The legendary iroko and perhaps other sacred trees are present there.

Can such a place be of value to the public as a meditation zone entered into under specific conditions for preserving the site?

Could I one day be fortunate to enjoy this privilege and share the experience with others?

Iroko Tree on Amore Street, off Toyin Sreet, Ikeja, Lagos.

A wonderful specimen of nature. 

I wondered why it was still standing on a busy street, overlooking St. Leo's Catholic church.

Its an iroko tree, I was told, the tree most famous in connection with spiritual powers in Southern Nigeria.

Really?

How may one explore these claims?, I wondered.

I lie in bed, visualizing and reflecting on these wonders of nature.

Will their mystic presence, powered by my desire,  draw me to themselves, as I have encountered before?

Will I be able to discriminate between good and evil in opportunities offered through relationships with such spiritual powers, an experience I have had before, as I gained entry into strange zones of being, into dialogue with intelligences hidden in plain sight, within trees, groves and forests people pass by daily, yet intelligences unknown to most ?

Can I find elevation, avoiding dehumanization, the two possibilities associated with iroko, from facilitating relationship with the creator of the universe and aiding interaction with powers which may be deadly or beneficent?

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