Understanding and Shaping Life through Studying and Creating Yoruba Poetry of Laughter, Delight and Wonder

[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

1. Mobilize Cosmic Force in Nature to Empower Your Life and Pursue Your Goals through Ofo, Yoruba Poetry of Incantations

Would you like to learn to use affirmations that draw on the cosmic force that pervades nature in energizing your life and pursuing your goals?

Masters of verbal art among the Yoruba of West Africa developed powerful systems for this purpose, ancient methods this course will teach you how to understand and use.

Mobilizing patterns in nature through powerful imagery, they directed ase, creative, cosmic force, for the achievement of specific goals.

You can do the same too, with the guidance of this course.

The course will be taught in English.

2. Studying and Creating Ese Ifa, Literature of Laughter and Worship,  Adventure and Delight

Some people, somewhere, laugh at their gods.

Yet they worship them.

No humans, no gods, they say.

Earth existed before the gods, they assert.

In this world, no one fights to defend any god or belief.

The sheer beauty of the celebration of nature in this world, the delightful variety in their depictions of the divine, funny and sublime, are glorious.

This is the world of ese ifa, one of the world's great bodies of literature.

It comes from the Yoruba people of West Africa.

Encounter this ancient and magnificent tradition and learn how to create such literature as those inspired masters.

No literary background is required.

The course shall be taught in English.

3.Forest as Cosmos

 Learning from and Constructing Ijala, Yoruba Poetry of Hunters

Poised to bring down the magnificent beast, I yet marvelled at it's amazing grace within such brute power.

Hidden in the forest, lying flat with my gun pointing at at the baboon, I seemed to be doing him homage.

Is the life of a hunter a life for a thinking man?

This is a description from "Salute to the Baboon," a poem of Ijala, poetry of hunters from the Yoruba of West Africa, with a reflection on it's implications.

Wole Soyinka describes Ijala as celebrating the deity Ogun, as well as "animal and plant life, the relationships of growing things and the insights of man into the secrets of the universe.'

Abiola Irele depicts Ijala as expressing the world of the hunter seen as a navigation of the forest, peopled by animal and spirit powers, reflecting the variety and complexity of the cosmos.

Learn how to draw upon such rich insights, ancient yet ever fresh, in an increasingly complex world, as the world of work replaces the forest, the daily commute the navigations of the hunter, lockdown isolation replaces his long hours waiting for animals to appear.

You will learn how to understand this art and use it in making sense of your life, shaping it's meaning and outcomes.

The seminar will be conducted in English.

All interested parties may contact me for directions at to how to take advantage of these courses.