Engaging with Mystic Trees and Spaces of Nigeria: Benin City Sacred Grounds as Meditation Spaces : Sights and Aspirations

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

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?

[Olasupo Laosebikan]

Take a look at this Brother Oluwatoyin: "

Overcoming Colonial Thinking to Connect With Life

https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2022/12/12/climate-environment-colonialism?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=YESDaily_20221213&utm_content=YESDaily_20221213%20CID_b1cb210d3d429481c6aec82525cfdbb0&utm_source=CM&utm_term=Read%20the%20story

--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfric...@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDial...@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAGBtzfMf8qrgiSDws4882dL7ZLOoH_R%3DiXPFuZ6N4GUi-Gxu1w%40mail.gmail.com.

[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Not only  Brother Oluwatoyin.

I’m still warming up to the challenge of “ Quasi comedic thought experiment?: make Susan of Nigerian descent and Ngozi of British descent; omit their respective “titles” or honorifics but don’t change their respective skin “colors”; how would the dialog play out?” 

 In framing the imaginary dialogue, I have to keep these values in mind :

“Colonial Thinking” 

“ Colonial Mentality” 

 “Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery” 

all popular slogans. 

There are even those who say that following a “ White Jesus'' is evidence of all three aforementioned slogans.

 I wonder what Gloria in Excelsis has to say about the Black Madonna .

 I also wonder  -  theologically and not biologically speaking - what would have happened if Jesus, said to be “truly God and truly man” had eventually got married to Mary Magdalene and had children and descendants who can now trace their ancestry to him…

[Cornelius Hamelberg]

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…

[Dr. Oohay]

Perhaps, thinkability (the thinkability of anything) has no limits only because the thinking thing never experiences the utmost boundary of any “thing” before Time’s baton falls into the hands of Her other thinking things — and the Sisyphusian-like ism-searching repeats endlessly …. 

https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/9904a50c-73ec-42b5-817f-127cffa79895n%40googlegroups.com

.

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Thanks brother.

What is Tikkun Olam?

Thanks 

Toyin

--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfric...@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDial...@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/7ce88dcf-f11d-400d-9680-e9e74522a97an%40googlegroups.com.

[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Dr Oohay,

The exercise should be interesting, the end result could well attain the status of a literary document worthy of the New York Best Sellers Lists. 

Depending on the context of time and place, the ensuing document or tape recording could in time enter the cannons of revealed scripture  - in this case, what the mystic tree whispered to her friend and disciple Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju, just as in other cases it was what the grass sang to Walt Whitman, what the wind said to  Henry David Thoreau, what the muse dictated to Ralph Waldo Emerson, and long before that, what Archangel Gabriel revealed to Rasulullah,  to Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa saalam.

If only we could dare to put faith in words, including unspoken and unwritten words, then the egotistical quest about our little personal amoebic origins sometime after the beginning of beginningless time doesn’t have to be fully remembered, recollected, recounted or verified on your psychiatrist's couch during any of the regressus ad infinitum sessions. 

As the Prophet of Isalm sallallahu alaihi wa saalam made clear in his Farewell Sermon  on 6th March, 632 , 

“All mankind is from Adam and Eve, an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over black nor does a black have any superiority over a white, except by piety and good action.”

Since I first met Anthony  - an English etymology freak -  just when I just returned from Nigeria ( he was looking for  an African actor  to perform some of his stuff on radio etc at which point I put him in touch with Richard Sseruwagi); from then on, now and then over the years until his departure, the now late Englishman Anthony Swerling , told me a thing or two about dialogues ( he was a prolific writer of dialogues of which I must have read half a dozen) so my own down-to-earth approach to the exercise that I have set myself  and find really exciting because it offers unbounded scope to stage some of the existential angst, is what you proposed - at that Buckingham Palace Garden or Cocktail Party, these two main characters from their first encounter :

“Susan of Nigerian descent and Ngozi of British descent; omit their respective “titles” or honorifics but don’t change their respective skin “colors”; how would the dialog play out?”” 

 Difference and conflict being the essence of drama more dialogue and less monologue and soliloquy  In mind, less of  “ The Cocktail Party”, more “ Waiting for Godot” and throwing some more appendages floating downstream,  John Pepper Clark’s “ The Raft” , time for me to take a short leave of absence…

 Once more: Stephen Rappaport: People on the Other Side

[Harrow, Kenneth]

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

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovde...@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, December 15, 2022 4:28:02 AM
To: USAAfric...@googlegroups.com <USAAfric...@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

 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAGBtzfOKkbs6OBEgipWJMgmTbWmeHP_2rzu2gzL3_4%3Ddtx2t1w%40mail.gmail.com.

[Olasupo Laosebikan]

 

"This moral distinction between natural and unnatural, alive and dead is yet another layer of colonial heritage blocking me from relationship with the environment I inhabit."

Madelaine Ley

 

See: https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2022/12/12/climate-environment-colonialism?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=YESDaily_20221213&utm_content=YESDaily_20221213%20CID_b1cb210d3d429481c6aec82525cfdbb0&utm_source=CM&utm_term=Read%20the%20story

Dec 12, 2022

 

 

Illustration by Mary Long/Adobe Stock

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/9904a50c-73ec-42b5-817f-127cffa79895n%40googlegroups.com.

[Cornelius Hamelberg]

A succinct answer to your question (about Tikkun Olam)

You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/usaafricadialogue/70sDvWnqKX8/unsubscribe.
To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAGBtzfOKkbs6OBEgipWJMgmTbWmeHP_2rzu2gzL3_4%3Ddtx2t1w%40mail.gmail.com.

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

great thanks, Ken.

toyin

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/BL1PR12MB5191BFACAC70607EA4EBA2DFDAE19%40BL1PR12MB5191.namprd12.prod.outlook.com.

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Wow. Thanks for sharing 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAB1u_NCUz0pvxY%2BddpgFvRceMrEMOU1q75_Wxt2D475Qdhdz9A%40mail.gmail.com.

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Thanks Cornelius

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAFYPD-Sn61o1P7npU_KHJLkZ0%3DDPZyC%3DKTtaFYDMjc%3DjfjG4Mg%40mail.gmail.com.