Transition of a Friend :Ecological and Ecospiritual Fraternities

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

                                                              Transition of a Friend

 

                                              Ecological and Ecospiritual Fraternities 

 

                                
                                                                                 

                                                                        My Friend and I

                                                                   Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

Yesterday, at about 4.30 pm, my friend transitioned from a life of a hundred years or more.

It’s a high possibility that his sister will soon follow, cut down to prevent her going the way of her brother and harming people and things even more than her brother has done.

One of the trunks of the double stemmed  iroko tree on Amore St. off Toyin St. Ikeja, Lagos, came crashing down without warning into the compound of St. Leo's Church, opposite the tree's former location, smashing cars, slightly injuring someone,  but happily, causing no fatalities.

                                                                                                

I share in these videos my response to this event at the site where the tree fell, involving a fellow creature of nature whom I have long taken as a friend and the area around whom I have been paying to be kept clean. 

                                                                                         

Video 1

Video 2

Video 3

[Michael Afolayan]

Oluwatoyin: I love your videos and the accompanying narratives. I'm amazed that the fence was able to receive the massive fall of the Iroko tree without crumbling. I think you should look at the spiritual aspect of the Iroko tree's benignity. In our work ot translating Odumosu's Iwe Iwosan to the English language, we constantly ran into the sacred value of the Iroko tree. We wrote in our "Introduction," . . . .Only a longtime resident of the lands would know which trees to protect and why. One species, known as ìrókò [Chlorophora excelsa], was especially important not just for spiritual reasons, but therapeutic ones as well. (Its leaves, bark, shoots, soil, pulp, fungi, and interior “stone” appear in nearly a hundred remedies in Ìwé Ìwòsàn.) It looks like a giant spirit fallen in Lagos. Did you talk to the Oba of Lagos about it? I hope it's no bad omen o. Happy Father's Day weekend!

MOA

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[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Very great thanks Prof Afolayan.

Ill see what I can do.

Im preparing right now to do a memorial at the site of the iroko which i shall also post here.

Is that translation published yet?

I brought home a root from the tree which im thinking of how to use.

I want to have the trunk cut from the middle to the roots and take it home for use as a shrine but dont know if I would have the space for it.

Will post further developments.

Great thanks

Toyin

Toyon

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[Michael Afolayan]

Oluwatoyin: 

Our book is with the University of Wisconsin-Madison Press, and we are hoping it will be out in a not-too-distant future. Stay tuned!

Whatever you are able to take from the Iroko tree as memorabilia would be great. You don't need a whole middle trunk of the mammoth wood (you might need a trailer to carry that); you just need something to remind you of the fun you've had hanging out under the natural shade it provided and the inspiration cum sweet aroma it exhumed from day to day. It's a simple memorial. A small nature's corner in your library would suffice. If I were you, I would collect a few of its leaves (the Yoruba would say take 7), a small chunk of the bark, a small branch, a portion of the tap root, a strand of one of the regular roots, a little quantity of the soil dug from the tap root. If it's the flowering season and you found some flowers, pick them up and dry them. The babalawos would tell you that every shrub that grows under the Iroko tree is sacred; therefore, take some of the plants that grew under the tree. Your library would love the addition!

Lucky tree; it fell in Lagos, where sawmillers hardly exist. If it were to be in Osogbo or Ile-Ife, the whole trunk would disappear before the morning hours of the day it fell. Trust me, that trunk of Iroko could fetch more than a million Naira! You don't find that kind in the forests any longer; they've all been harvested.

As a side comment, it might interest you to know that the father of Professor Wande Abimbola, the Awise Awo Agbaye, is by the name Iroko. His last son, too, I believe, is also by the name Iroko.

Good luck to you!

MOA

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[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Very great thanks for the wisdom nuggets, Prof Afolayan.

Will chew on them and work on implementing them, even if in adapted form.

Could you share the name of your book?

Great thanks

Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju 

Thanks

Toy8n

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