What Does Orunmila Mean to Me?: Personalizing Systems of Knowledge : Individualizing Yoruba Origin Orisha Cosmology: Insights from Ifa Tuntun

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

What Does Orunmila Mean to Me?: Personalizing Systems of Knowledge: Individualizing Yoruba Origin Orisha Cosmology: Insights from Ifa Tuntun

 

     Orunmila Visualization from Daily Ifa 

https://www.daily-ifa.com/orisha/orunmila/

and tarotyoruba on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/tarotyoruba?igsh=MTFsaWZ1MDNqM2IyZA==

Who, to me,  is Orunmila, the Yoruba origin Orisha tradition deity of ultimate wisdom, whom I discuss in " Orunmila, the Spirit of Ultimate Wisdom in the Yoruba Origin Orisha Tradition : Nature, History, Visualization, Celebration?" at

https://groups.google.com/g/USAAfricaDialogue/c/37vL7mZYhJ4

What personal significance does his image, how he is described, have for me, as a person inspired by the spirituality and philosophies of this culture?

The image of Orunmila embodies for me:

The relationship between past, present and future, encapsulated by eternity,

suggested by the circularity of the opon ifa, the central cosmological symbol of the Ifa system of knowledge and divination he is described as having founded and by the divination process as an enquiry into the intersection of the cosmos with issues arising in human existence in the context of time, shaping what may be, in relation to what is, and what has been.

The unity of imagination and intellect,

of poetry and narrative with critical analysis,  

evoked by the literary corpus, the poetry and stories constituting the central knowledge system of Ifa, and the study they inspire.

The convergence of sculpture, painting and performance with systematic thought, 

as dramatized by the melodic chanting through which Ifa literature is verbalized, by the exquisite rhythms of various Ifa  rituals, by the visual arts strategic to Ifa and the intellectual explorations these creativities  galvanize.

The aspiration to totalistic knowledge

projected by claims about Odu Ifa, the Ifa system of organization, as embodying all possibilities of existence.

The intersection of the singular and the universal 

of time with the timeless

of each moment with the ceaseless flow

of that flow swallowed up in the endless now 

Orunmila is my own name for that hunger 

that has haunted humanity since humans began to think

igniting the desire to understand the totality in which they find themselves

From Albert Einstein to the Buddha, from Isaac Newton to Aristotle, from Leonardo da Vinci to Lao Tzu, from Abhinavagupta to St. Augustine of Hippo, from Ibn Arabi to Jesus Christ, from Toyin Falola to Isaac Asimov, from Hegel to Onobrakpeya, from van Gogh to Owusu-Ankomah, from Dante to Nimi Wariboko...unfoldings of human possibility from Africa to Asia, Asia to Europe, Europe to the Americas and more, seeking infinity in the temporal, totality in the immediate, from religion to science, from art to philosophy, from literature to all configurations of knowledge

across the centuries, as people strive to explore and actualize ultimate human possibility in its broadest and deepest sense, Orunmila is manifest

The Yoruba origin sensitivity to the most expansive of human possibilities 

master of the odu ifa 256

mapping all possibilities of being and becoming 

He takes any name, any form that I choose

He can be anyone that I will

At the intersection of imagination and cosmic possibility he exists

The Orunmila principle

Expressed as the Little Man from Igeti Hill with a Head Full of Wisdom

Yet underlying human intelligence in its ceaseless hunger ever pushing into the unknown 

Commentary

"Without the knowing of divinity by man, can deity survive?" Wole Soyinka asks in his Seven Signposts of Existence, his poetic summary of Orisha cosmology, adapting the Yoruba expression " eniyan o si, orisha o si", " no humans, no orisha", a school of thought privileging human agency in the existence of deities, a stance I adapt in seeing deity concepts as needing to be personalized, adapted to one's individualistic needs and knowledge landscape, one aspect of my approach to the New Ifa, Ifa Tuntun initiative developed by Moyo Okediji but long dramatized by such figures as Wole Soyinka and Susanne Wenger whose dynamic example rooted their depth in the tradition within the cosmopolitan span of their own explorations of reality.