Odu: The Harmonious Complexity that is the Cosmos: Developing Yoruba Origin Orisha Spirituality and Philosophy through a Multicultural and Multi-Disciplinary Synthesis: Reverberations of Ifa Tuntun

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

                            Odu

The Harmonious Complexity that is the Cosmos

Developing Yoruba  Origin Orisha Spirituality and Philosophy through a Multicultural and Multi-Disciplinary Synthesis    

 

Reverberations of Ifa Tuntun

                   

Image collage by myself visualizing the sixteen primary organizational form of odu Ifa.

The odu ifa are here symbolized by Voodoo veves emerging from a gestative core represented by the empty centre of a strikingly configured, elegantly shaped opon ifa, an Ifa divination tray and cosmological symbol.

 Its aesthetic power amplifies its cognitive significance as an instrument for seeking knowledge.

At the top is an exquisitely carved face of Eshu, embodiment of paradox, of the unexpected  and the unity of opposites. of mediation between possibilities of experience, forms of being and modes of knowledge, possibilities  ultimately subsumed in the fire of consciousness.which enables awareness of those possibilities

Eshu 's face is poised at the circumference of a circle on which is depicted what may be understood as the serpent of infinity.

Opon Ifa from The Yoruba Artist Ed. Rowland Abiodun, Henry John Drewal and John Pemberton III.

Voodoo veves from defunct Geocities site.

      

Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju 

                   Compcros 

Comparative Cognitive Processess 

                        and 

                     Systems 

Odu

the harmonious complexity that is the cosmos

the unbounded magnitude of worlds upon worlds and systems of systems

the limitless times of their periodic motions

their beginning and continuation 

the wild sea

the ocean of stars

the intelligence within me

the calabash of infinity

the travellers of eternity

the constellations of possibilities 

that contain all events 

past, present and future

the repository of possibility

and circumstance 

from which each moment is born

architect of continuous creation 

the fire 

that grinds the elements of experience

into a totality of knowledge

erasing the boundaries 

between the past and the present

the living and the dead

the physical and the non-physical

the chameleon’s all-round vision

conceptualising the totality of life at once.

Count the links of the chain: 

worship the triple Fire: 

knowledge, meditation, practice; 

the triple process:

evidence, inference, experience;

the triple duty: 

study, concentration, renunciation; 

understand that everything comes from Spirit, 

that Spirit alone is

sought and found; 

attain everlasting peace; 

mount beyond birth and death.

What is Happening Here?

An interpretation of the Yoruba origin Orisha tradition concept and divine personality Odu in terms of a description of the cosmos and a means of mapping it, through ideas evoking various disciplines and drawn from various cultures.

The poem integrates expressions suggestive of scientific cosmology as well as verbalizations from non-religious poetry, philosophy and religion from various countries.

This trans-disciplinary and multicultural mobilization is generated to further develop perception of Odu, the organizational system of Ifa,  within Yoruba origin Orisha spirituality, and also  also understood as a divine identity in the system.

I move from babalawo- adept in the esoteric knowledge of Ifa- Joseph Ohomina's description of Odu as " Spirits whose origins we do not know and of whom we understand only a small fraction of their significance, the names of all possibilities of existence, abstract and  concrete, actual and  potential", related to the divinatory goals in terms of  which Odu is conventionally understood.

I further interpret Odu as the harmonious complexity that is the cosmos, demonstrating the cosmos as a dynamic cohesion of possibilities which may be approached in intellectual, contemplative and mystical terms.

Odu represents the effort of the human mind to understand the cosmos as a dynamic field of possibilities, in which change is constant within stability.

How many this relationship between change and stability be grasped?

Through intellectual enquiry, involving the study of the material constituents of the universe at all scales, from galaxies to atoms and below, exploring the interactions of matter and energy in relation to space and time shaping cosmic being and becoming as materially understood, the field of scientific cosmology.

Through intellectual exploration that tries to interpret the findings of science and all that is accessible to the mind about the cosmos, the field of intellectually grounded philosophy.

Through imaginative and empathetic thought, that relates with the cosmos in terms of the ideas, emotions and the  imaginative expansion it inspires, particularly evident in the arts.

Through interpretation of the cosmos in terms of purpose and consciousness, as embodying qualities demonstrating it as beyond being a material construct but as also demonstrating qualities of mind akin to and superior to that of human beings, in fact, as being the ultimate source of or enabler of the processes that have led to human consciousness.

All these orientations are suggested by the poem above.

What may be gained from reflection on a poem such as this one?

The lifting of one's mind above the mundane as one contemplates the intersection of totality and immediacy, the cosmos and the specifics of human life, a version of the task of the Ifa diviner in seeking to understand the relationship between spiritual reality and human experience.

The effort to understand how one's experiences as well as the variety of human experience may be understood as aspects of an overarching dynamism, provoking the question of how to better shape outcomes within that flow,.

Motivating aspiration to perceive or experience the unity of existence as a dynamic framework of which one is a part.

Sources:

Stanza One

The first line "the harmonious complexity that is the cosmos" encapsulates all the possibilities described.

The second sequence from " the unbounded magnitude of worlds to "beginning and continuation" is a poetic rendition of scientific cosmology drawn from German philosopher Immanuel Kant's Critique of Practical Reason.

Stanza Two

The sequence after that " the wild sea

the ocean of stars" is an adaptation of a poem by Japanese poet Matsuo Basho correlating the sea and the field of stars in the sky.

The next, "the intelligence within me" is an adaptation from the same Kant passage earlier referenced.

After that, " the calabash of infinity" reworks Shloma Rosenberg 's account of the "Odu" in  "Olodumare",the creator of the universe, as understood in the Lukumi faith derived from Yoruba Orisha spirituality in "Olodumare in the Lukumi Tradition" at his site Mystic Curio.

Following that "the travellers of eternity" is adapted from Basho's opening lines in the book translated as  The Narrow Road to the Deep North.

Stanza Three

From  "constellation of possibilities" to "architect of continuous" is adapted almost verbatim from the same Rosenberg essay previously drawn from.

Stanza Four

From "the fire" to "totality of life at once" is a slight adaptation of Mazisi Kunene on Zulu epistemology, theory of knowledge, in his introduction to his epic poem Anthem of the Decades.

Stanza Five

The second stanza, from "count the links of the chain" to "beyond birth and death" is slightly adapted from the Indian philosophy/Hindu Katha Upanishad from The Ten Principal Upanishads translated by W.B. Years and Sri Purohit Swami.

Methodological Inspiration 

"He was eclectic as regards his sources but he was unique in the crucible treatment with which he amalgamated them into new schemata of striking freshness and power"

On St. Augustine of Hippo in The New Catholic Encyclopedia.

"...a creative contextualism...which, while proceeding from its context, enlarges and extends even as it faithfully explores its initial bearings" (109).

"..the aesthetic matrix is the fount of my own creative inspiration; it influences my critical response to the creation of other cultures and validates selective eclecticism as the right of every productive being, scientist or artist" (329).

Wole Soyinka, Art, Dialogue and Outrage: Essays on Literature and Culture. Ed. Abiola Irele and Biodun Jeyifo,1988.

What is Ifa Tuntun?

Ifa Tuntun, New Ifa, a term created by. Moyo Okediji but variedly interpreted by different people, is a rethinking of traditional Ifa in terms of new orientations, such as the focus on intellectual and contemplative approaches to Ifa represented by the piece above as different from the reliance on physical ritual activity in traditional Ifa.