The Migration of the Iroko: Ayo Olukotun Returns Home
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Oluwatoyin Adepoju
Jan 5, 2023, 3:54:43 PM1/5/23
to usaafricadialogue, Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
The Migration of the Iroko
Ayo Olukotun Returns Home
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
''Gracefully, does the mask regain its grove at the end of day
gracefully...''
from Wole Soyinka's Death and the King's Horseman
Some hours before Toyin Falola announced on the USAAfrica Dialogues Series Google group where Ayo Olukotun had often electrified people with his superb writings on the Nigerian condition, that the great writer had died a few minutes before the announcement, it occured to me that Olukotun could be in danger of not surviving after the very sensitive operation he had recently successfully undergone.
Why did I think that, even though I knew little about the operation and about his condition?
Knowledge of his age and the challenges of health that come with age, the potential brittleness of the body as certain negative accelerations emerge once one enters into the world and gather further momentum when certain biological thresholds are crossed, developments that can only be delayed but not arrested?
The cells that make up the body are dividing and recombining every minute, but each time they do so they become a fraction less effective than before, if I recall correctly what a health specialist once told me.
In a colony of rabbits run by a farmer whom the rabbits never see, a rabbit disappears from time to time, a situation inexplicable to the rabbits since they have no idea why that should happen, their universe and field of perception not extending beyond the pen where they live.
Why did I think that, even though I knew little about the operation and about his condition?
Knowledge of his age and the challenges of health that come with age, the potential brittleness of the body as certain negative accelerations emerge once one enters into the world and gather further momentum when certain biological thresholds are crossed, developments that can only be delayed but not arrested?
The cells that make up the body are dividing and recombining every minute, but each time they do so they become a fraction less effective than before, if I recall correctly what a health specialist once told me.
In a colony of rabbits run by a farmer whom the rabbits never see, a rabbit disappears from time to time, a situation inexplicable to the rabbits since they have no idea why that should happen, their universe and field of perception not extending beyond the pen where they live.
In order to cope with this inevitability of tragedy, of recurrent loss of loved ones which may occur at any time, philosophers and artists among the rabbits composed reflections and expressions meant to help this race of beings manage this shadow ever looming over their lives, from what I recall of English writer Richard Adams' novel Watership Down.
A man visits Death and asks, ''what is the secret of eternal life?''
Death is adamant. ''Ask me for anything else'', he urges. ''Women, wealth, long life, children, I will give you, but please spare me from having to answer that question'', he pleads.
A man visits Death and asks, ''what is the secret of eternal life?''
Death is adamant. ''Ask me for anything else'', he urges. ''Women, wealth, long life, children, I will give you, but please spare me from having to answer that question'', he pleads.
The man insists, arguing that all those aspects of existence will pass away. ''What is undying?'' he demands to know, as this story goes in the Indian classic the ''Katha Upanishad.''
On a fateful day, the Reaper of Men arrived at the door of Everyman. ''Get ready, brother, tomorrow you go with me to where all go when their time is up.''
Everyman was frantic. The summons was unrepealable, no appeal would have any value to the messenger. Who could follow him on this terrible journey, he desperately wondered.
He cast around frantically, seeking companionship on the journey from intimate family, to no avail. Close friends, of no use. Everyone was too busy, had something urgent to do that could not be postponed, or simply pointed out to him that they could not go with him beyond a particular point, since those who were not summoned are not allowed beyond such a spot, as legend claimed about such a situation as the one in which he now found himself.
Failing human companionship, what could he take with him to give him comfort on the journey and at the destination to which the journey led? The fateful day having arrived, he was informed by the messenger that no possessions were allowed, as this story may be modified from the English poem ''Everyman.''
''Who, among you deities, can follow his devotee on a distant journey?,'' Orunmila asked his fellow deities. The fierce Ogun, his tunic covered in blood, the magnificent Oshun, magically beautiful mistress of arcane powers, the dreadful Soponna, who resides in devastating diseases, master of suffering, these and more of the deities insisted they could follow their devotee on a distant journey, until they were asked what they would do, if after travelling some distance, they were offered along the road the delicacies most sumptuous to them, the most exquisite soups, the most delicious foods?
''After eating my fill, I will return home joyfully,'' they each declared. ''You cannot follow your devotee on a distant journey,'' Orunmila concludes, in Wande Abimbola's translations of Yoruba oral poetry, Sixteen Great Poems of Ifa.
Some Buddist and Hindu rituals operate on a principle akin to imagining surrendering each part of one's body to the elements until nothing physical remains. Frequenting of cemeteries and cremation grounds is undergone by some schools in these spiritualities to remind one of the inevitability of death and the need for urgency in seeking that meaning that transcends birth and death.
''Everything is on fire'' the Buddha proclaimed, after reaching what he describes as life's ultimate meaning. ''The eyes, the mouth, the nose, the tongue, all are on fire with desire''. ''But everything they desire passeses away. What may not pass away and how can it be found?'' he asked, having been galvanized into these questions by the shock of observing old age, illness and death.
On a fateful day, the Reaper of Men arrived at the door of Everyman. ''Get ready, brother, tomorrow you go with me to where all go when their time is up.''
Everyman was frantic. The summons was unrepealable, no appeal would have any value to the messenger. Who could follow him on this terrible journey, he desperately wondered.
He cast around frantically, seeking companionship on the journey from intimate family, to no avail. Close friends, of no use. Everyone was too busy, had something urgent to do that could not be postponed, or simply pointed out to him that they could not go with him beyond a particular point, since those who were not summoned are not allowed beyond such a spot, as legend claimed about such a situation as the one in which he now found himself.
Failing human companionship, what could he take with him to give him comfort on the journey and at the destination to which the journey led? The fateful day having arrived, he was informed by the messenger that no possessions were allowed, as this story may be modified from the English poem ''Everyman.''
''Who, among you deities, can follow his devotee on a distant journey?,'' Orunmila asked his fellow deities. The fierce Ogun, his tunic covered in blood, the magnificent Oshun, magically beautiful mistress of arcane powers, the dreadful Soponna, who resides in devastating diseases, master of suffering, these and more of the deities insisted they could follow their devotee on a distant journey, until they were asked what they would do, if after travelling some distance, they were offered along the road the delicacies most sumptuous to them, the most exquisite soups, the most delicious foods?
''After eating my fill, I will return home joyfully,'' they each declared. ''You cannot follow your devotee on a distant journey,'' Orunmila concludes, in Wande Abimbola's translations of Yoruba oral poetry, Sixteen Great Poems of Ifa.
Some Buddist and Hindu rituals operate on a principle akin to imagining surrendering each part of one's body to the elements until nothing physical remains. Frequenting of cemeteries and cremation grounds is undergone by some schools in these spiritualities to remind one of the inevitability of death and the need for urgency in seeking that meaning that transcends birth and death.
''Everything is on fire'' the Buddha proclaimed, after reaching what he describes as life's ultimate meaning. ''The eyes, the mouth, the nose, the tongue, all are on fire with desire''. ''But everything they desire passeses away. What may not pass away and how can it be found?'' he asked, having been galvanized into these questions by the shock of observing old age, illness and death.
All that Everyman is able to take with him on the final journey are his good deeds, from my imperfect memory of that account. No other deity, except the deity that is the Self, can follow his devotee on a distant journey, Orummila eventually concludes. At the intersection of the individual self and the Self at the heart of cosmos, immortality is found, beyond the body, beyond time, Death finally responds in the Upanishads.
By the standards of the great sages across time and space represented by the composers of those stories and spiritual disciplines referenced, Olukotun has discharged himself admirably as a member of the human race, empowered by consciousness and physical force but constrained by mortality, penetrating beyond the Earth but unable to decisively answer the question, ''where are we coming from, if any, and where are we going to?''
What can such a creature do? Do his best with the time available to him, time the scope of which is unknown to him.
Some claim, however, that the human being is a traveller from a region unknown to most people, a wayfarer who has forgotten where his journey began, a person who left home for the market only to lose his memory, thinking that the market is the beginning and end of his life, but the home keeps calling, and when the person finishes selling and buying in the market, they return home, as this perspective from classical African thought goes.
Even then, various efforts are made to prolong the time in the market as long as possible. After all, this other fabled home exists for many only in hope, not in knowledge, with the sights, sounds and relationships of the market being what is most accessible to most.
If I had sent a prayer for Olukotun when that thought occurred to me, could that have helped? Could powers responsible for mediating between life and death have reached out for help through my thoughts without my grasping what was going on?
The iroko tree is a traveller between dimensions, between the physical universe and the zone of ultimate origins, the African belief goes, fed by accounts of iroko trees described as disappearing from their known locations only to reappear there after some time.
Seekers after the secrets of such interdimensional journeys would keep vigil at the base of the iroko, hoping to be transported along with the tree, hence the movement of a great achiever, of a bold journeyer in worlds of enterprise,
from the physical world to the world beyond the material universe, came to be known as the migration of the iroko, in this account of African thought concocted by myself from the fame of the iroko as a superlatively powerful entity existing uniquely at the crossroads of matter and spirit.
By the standards of the great sages across time and space represented by the composers of those stories and spiritual disciplines referenced, Olukotun has discharged himself admirably as a member of the human race, empowered by consciousness and physical force but constrained by mortality, penetrating beyond the Earth but unable to decisively answer the question, ''where are we coming from, if any, and where are we going to?''
What can such a creature do? Do his best with the time available to him, time the scope of which is unknown to him.
Some claim, however, that the human being is a traveller from a region unknown to most people, a wayfarer who has forgotten where his journey began, a person who left home for the market only to lose his memory, thinking that the market is the beginning and end of his life, but the home keeps calling, and when the person finishes selling and buying in the market, they return home, as this perspective from classical African thought goes.
Even then, various efforts are made to prolong the time in the market as long as possible. After all, this other fabled home exists for many only in hope, not in knowledge, with the sights, sounds and relationships of the market being what is most accessible to most.
If I had sent a prayer for Olukotun when that thought occurred to me, could that have helped? Could powers responsible for mediating between life and death have reached out for help through my thoughts without my grasping what was going on?
The iroko tree is a traveller between dimensions, between the physical universe and the zone of ultimate origins, the African belief goes, fed by accounts of iroko trees described as disappearing from their known locations only to reappear there after some time.
Seekers after the secrets of such interdimensional journeys would keep vigil at the base of the iroko, hoping to be transported along with the tree, hence the movement of a great achiever, of a bold journeyer in worlds of enterprise,
from the physical world to the world beyond the material universe, came to be known as the migration of the iroko, in this account of African thought concocted by myself from the fame of the iroko as a superlatively powerful entity existing uniquely at the crossroads of matter and spirit.
I saw Olukotun once, some years ago, bustling with life, genial and venerable. His restlessly powerful intellect and compassionate wisdom came alive for me in his writings, as this consummate patriot tried to make sense of the social, economic and political forms of chaos threatening to swallow his country Nigeria, perennially hopeful as he was even in the midst of searing realities.
He has left us behind in the world of space and time but left us a gift-his work, his vision, his palpitating creativity, his call to action to redeem the humanity of his fellow countrymen.
Michael Afolayan
Jan 6, 2023, 3:45:16 AM1/6/23
to usaafricadialogue, Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
Thanks for this write-up, Toyin Adepoju. No doubt, Olukotun made his mark on the sand of time, but even more importantly, he is indelibly cast in the marbles of our hearts. One fact unknown to many is that he used to be one of the most revered student union presidents in our undergraduate time at the then University of Ife. He was articulate, and unrepentantly courageous, fearless in all ramifications. He actually originated the famous slogan, "Aluta continua, victoria ascerta." Both Adegboro and Okeowo looked up to him as student leaders. For me, the most important attribute of his is truthfulness, and you could see this in his columns even to the very last drop of his penmanship. Indeed, his distant journey has begun. May his Ori accompany him.
Again, thanks for reflecting on the man with a renaissance mind! Indeed, as you kindly (and rightly) noted: "Olukotun has left us behind in the world of space and time but left us a
gift-his work, his vision, his palpitating creativity, his call to
action to redeem the humanity of his fellow countrymen."
May his tribe increase among us!
MOA
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Olasupo Laosebikan
Jan 6, 2023, 3:45:30 AM1/6/23
to usaafric...@googlegroups.com
"His restlessly powerful intellect and compassionate wisdom came alive for me in his writings, as this consummate patriot tried to make sense of the social, economic and political forms of chaos threatening to swallow his country Nigeria, perennially hopeful as he was even in the midst of searing realities." Yes. That is so very well put. May our brother continue his teachings in spirit for a "Sane Society." Condolences to all, his family and friends especially
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