Good Morning, Sunrise (detail)
Victor Ekpuk, b. 1964, Nigeria, 2001.
Acrylic on canvas, Collection of the artist.
Victor Ekpuk's art is dedicated to manipulating scripts and graphic symbols. His drawings, paintings and digital images are abuzz with language.
The artist employs invented script as well as signs from Nigeria's ideographic system nsibidi to create richly textured works. In this painting, the spiral is an nsibidi sign meaning journey, but it also suggests the sun and eternity. Ekpuk's strong palette of warm reds, deep blacks, cool blues and whites contributes to the overall sense of animation.
From Inscribing Meaning: Writing and Graphic Systems in Africa Art, Smithsonian.
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju and the AI Collective
Sickness or health?
Ha! The flood does not flow uphill.
What is this evil spirit that throws its shade between me and truth?
I hold my sacred staff against it!
Here is the east
See truth come riding on the rays of the sun.
I had learnt the prayer from my grandfather, who had been a dibia, a master of ancient spirituality and a diviner, in Igboland. His presence carried the quiet authority of one who had walked through forests both visible and unseen. He had passed it to me the way old men pass powerful things to the young: carefully, with instruction.
He instructed me to withdraw into silence.
To sit in a quiet place.
To close my eyes if I wished.
To chant the prayer inwardly, or read it slowly and deliberately.
And ask forgiveness for the falsehoods I had entertained or engaged in.
I was in a relationship that I now realized was akin to being led round a maze of corridors leading nowhere, twisting into darkness, some dimly lit, giving false impressions of guidance, but were only illusions, opening into nothing.
A maze that had revealed itself, slowly and then unmistakably. Not the kind with a solution hidden at its center — not a puzzle, not a game — but one centred in the sweetness of possibilities built on nothing. Corridors that curved into other corridors. Rooms that opened onto more rooms. Some passages dimly lit, which was almost worse than the dark ones, because the dim light gave the impression of guidance without actually providing any. You could see just enough to keep walking. Just enough to believe you were getting somewhere.
I was not getting somewhere. I had not been getting somewhere for a long time.
I needed to hear that last part of my grandfather's instructions most of all.
Now it was my turn to wander.
What we do to others has a memory.I needed to be free of this paralyzing fate, burning time, birthing nothing.
I followed the instructions, committing myself to truth, calling on truth.
And immediately, something shifted.
Not dramatically — but the way a door shifts when someone on the other side finally leans away from it. A burden, lifting. A breath, returning.
Was it grace? Release? The first clear breath after years of half-lies?
In that moment, I understood: truth does not negotiate with shadows. Like the sun, it simply arrives—and everything false recoils or burns away.
I stayed very still, feeling the maze — if not dissolving, then at least losing its certainty. Its walls, which had seemed so permanent, so structural, were revealed for what they had always been: constructed things. Built things. And what is built can, with enough light and enough honesty, be taken apart.
Had the prayer done its work?
The maze beginning to dissolve?
I did not know yet. But something had shifted. And for now, the shifting was enough.
How may indigenous African spiritualities be adapted for use in a manner that is both easily accessible and inspiring, elevated and practical, addressing both ultimate issues and immediate challenges, doing these in a manner demonstrating timeless power and yet grounded in daily realities, profound, flexible and portable?
This piece is one approach to that question.
It might also have been reprinted in Poetic Heritage: Igbo Traditional Verse, Compiled and Translated by Donatus Nwoga and Romanus Egudu. I have recalled the poem from memory since I don't currently have access to any publication of it.
The story that follows the poem is composed by me and slightly edited with the help of ChatGPT and Claude AI. The title of the entire piece comes partly from Grok AI, which describes its Igbo cultural reference thus- " This invokes the Igbo solar deity/symbol of clarity and truth—Anyanwụ—as the core force in your prayer, while nodding to your grandfather's dibia heritage and the labyrinth metaphor.'' The images in the body of the essay are AI generated.
Narrative Version of the Story and Poem by ChatGPT, Slightly Edited with Input by Claude AI:
The Prayer of the Rising Sun
"What shall it be today?" my grandfather asked without looking at me.
We were seated beneath the udala tree behind his compound in Igboland. Evening was dissolving into that soft indigo hour when birds grow quiet and unseen things begin to stir.
"Sickness or health?
Death or life?"
He drew lines in the sand with his staff.
"Ha," he said softly. "The flood does not flow uphill."
I did not answer him.
I had come because my heart was in confusion. There was sweetness in my relationship — laughter, shared dreams, warmth. But beneath it lay a current of unease, something unclean that I could neither name nor dismiss.
Sugar in the mouth.
Ash beneath the tongue.
Grandfather finally turned his gaze toward me. His eyes were not accusatory. They were patient — as if he had been expecting this moment long before I had.
"What spirit stands between you and truth?" he asked.
I hesitated.
"I don't know."
He lifted his staff and struck it lightly on the ground.
"You know."
Silence thickened between us.
"I feel lost," I admitted. "It is as if I am walking through corridors that lead nowhere. There are lights, but they are dim. They promise direction but return me to the same place."
He nodded slowly.
"A maze," he said.
"Yes."
"And have you ever built such a maze for someone else?"
The question pierced.
I looked down at my hands.
"Yes."
He did not smile. He did not frown. He only breathed.
"My son," he said gently, "when you construct corridors of confusion for others, do not be surprised when your own path becomes narrow and dark. The world does not punish. It reflects."
The wind moved through the udala leaves like a whispered agreement.
"What shall I do?" I asked.
He leaned back against the tree trunk and closed his eyes briefly, as if listening to something deeper than our conversation.
"You must pray," he said.
"I do pray."
He shook his head slightly.
"You speak words. You have not invoked truth."
He then began to chant softly:
"What shall it be today?
Sickness or health?
Death or life?"
His voice was low but carried weight.
"Ha! The flood does not flow uphill."
He opened his eyes and fixed them on mine.
"When confusion covers your sight, ask: what shadow stands between me and truth? Raise your sacred staff against it."
"I don't have a sacred staff," I said faintly.
He smiled for the first time.
"You do. Every human being does. It is called conscience."
He continued:
"Here is the East.
There is the West.
Here the sun rises.
See truth come riding on the rays of the sun."
He placed his hand on my shoulder.
"You must go somewhere quiet. Sit. Close your eyes if you wish. Chant these words. Or read them. But do not rush."
"And then?"
"Visualize the sun," he said. "Not the gentle morning sun. The fierce one at midday. Let it blaze above you. Let it burn every lie you have told others. Let it burn every lie you have told yourself."
The words unsettled me.
"What if it burns too much?" I asked.
"Then it burns what should not remain."
We sat in silence for a while.
"Commit yourself to truth," he added. "And ask forgiveness — not only from others, but from your own spirit."
Days later, I followed his instructions.
I found a quiet room. Closed the windows. Sat comfortably on the floor.
"What shall it be today?" I whispered.
Sickness or health?
Death or life?
My voice trembled.
Ha! The flood does not flow uphill.
"What shadow stands between me and truth?"
Images began to rise unbidden: conversations half-meant, promises shaded with uncertainty, gestures that implied more than I was willing to give.
I felt heat in my chest.
"I hold my sacred staff against it."
Here is the East.
There is the West.
Here the sun rises.
I imagined the sun above me — brilliant, merciless.
At first it was only imagination.
Then something shifted.
The heat intensified in my mind until it felt almost physical. I saw corridors — twisting, dimly lit passages. I saw myself leading someone through them. I saw myself wandering through another built by someone else.
And then the light expanded.
It poured into the maze.
Walls began dissolving.
False promises evaporated like mist.
Excuses burned.
Self-deceptions cracked open.
I felt exposed. Vulnerable.
"I commit myself to truth," I said aloud.
The words felt heavier than any vow I had made in love.
"I ask forgiveness."
For the first time in months, I felt something lift.
Not joy exactly.
Relief.
As though a garment soaked in rain had slipped from my shoulders.
Air returned to my lungs.
The maze was not entirely gone. But I could see the sky above it now.
When I returned to my grandfather weeks later, he looked at me once and nodded.
"You have seen the sun," he said.
"Yes."
"And?"
"It burns," I replied.
He laughed softly.
"Yes. But it also shows the way."
We sat together without speaking.
The evening light stretched across the earth, and somewhere beyond the trees, the next dawn was already preparing to rise.
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