Seeker of Mysteries: A Journey of Twenty Years from Benin-City to Ijebu Ode in Search of Sacred Space: Part 1
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
Arboreal sonorities, music of trees, in Itoro sacred grounds, Ijebu-Ode
Picture of tree hollow by myself
Abstract
An exploration of sacred spaces, within an autobiographical context, in Ijebu-Ode, particularly those of the classical African spirituality of the Yoruba, in relation to Islam and Christianity in Ijebu-Ode and pre-Christian nature spirituality in England.
The Anglo-US writer T. S. Eliot states in ''Little Gidding'' "We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time''.
Where did I start?
Nigeria.
Where did I go to?
England.
What happened when I returned to Nigeria?
I realized the precarious state of the jewels I had left behind in my search for knowledge among those whose own jewels are well cared for while mine are in danger.
I had visited Avebury and Glastonbury, sites of pre-Christian spirituality in England, and experienced the magic of those places, locations that have become global tourist attractions, about which books upon books are continually being written, inspiring consistently expanding systems of knowledge.
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Picture by James Dobeson evoking the spatial atmospherics of the Avebury complex of standing stones, its original uses more speculated upon than definitively known, but generally understood to be monuments of pre-Christian spirituality.
Image source: ''Avebury'', The National Trust.
Image AbovePicture dramatizing the magnificent spatial dynamics of Glastonbury, the remains of a church tower at its apex indicating a Christian function but the artificial mound on which the tower rests suggesting an even older and perhaps spiritual significance, perhaps from an Earth venerating spirituality.
Picture by blue sky in my pocket.
Image sources: Getty Images; Clive Anset, ''Glastonbury, Somerset: The place where the Holy Grail came to Britain'', and more.
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The profoundly suggestive mists of the Glastonbury landscape, subsuming its glorious expanse in evocations of silence and mystery, a catalyst for Marion Zimmer Bradley's novel The Mists of Avalon, uniquely unifying centuries of imaginative creativity and reflection on the significance of Glastonbury and its relationship with a central legend of kingship and magic in Europe, the legend of king Arthur. In Bradley's novel those mists conceal the entrance to the magical realm of Avalon.
Picture by David Clapp.
Image sources: Getty Images, Clive Anset, ''Glastonbury, Somerset: The place where the Holy Grail came to Britain'', and more.
I had prayed and worshipped in churches centuries old, and others less aged, immersed myself in the numinous, the sense of the ineffable and mysteriously uplifting at places like St. Benet's church Cambridge, where daily prayer has been ongoing for centuries, and engaged with the glorious ancient churches of the various Cambridge colleges.
Places of succour in difficult times, testimonies to the enduring power of human creativity attested by magnificent architecture even in the face of the dwindling of worshippers within the move of many in the West away from traditional Christian spirituality.
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Illustrated map of Cambridge by Tom Wooley indicating Cambridge as an environment dedicated to learning, represented by Kings College, Cambridge, and to leisure, suggested by its various places for eating, drinking and listening to music, amidst streets in the city centre demonstrating a uniquely memorable character, such as the richly multicultural Mill Road, also a haven of excellent second hand bookshops, an ensemble of possibilities unified by the image of the cyclist, using a means of transport central to Cambridge, a means of movement both practical and facilitating visual and auditory connection with the surrounding space.
Image source:Pinterest.
What was the state of the Ogba forest in Benin-City when I returned after almost twenty years, a place where an angel seemed to dwell, given the exalted and profoundly uplifting atmosphere of that location?
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A map by Akugbe Collins Oviasogie incidentally evoking for me my walks across a good part of Benin and its outskirts, explorations marked by discoveries of bookshops transformative for me in taking me deeper into a sophisticated, globally ranging, multidisciplinary world of knowledge and by encounters with human and non-human culture bearers represented by spiritual masters and inspiring natural sacred spaces and humanly created shrines.
Image source: Oviasogie A.C. (2018). ''Assessing Noise Levels, Land Use Diversity and Wellbeing in Selected Neighbourhoods of Benin City, Nigeria''. Master of Philosophy Thesis. Submitted to Department of Architecture, Federal University of Technology Akure, Nigeria, used in Akugbe Collins Oviasogie, ''Neighbourhood Spatial Pattern and Noise Disturbance in Benin City, Nigeria'', Journal of Engineering Research and Reports12(4): 37-46, 2020.
The Ogba forest had ceased to exist, having become a housing estate, the river rising gloriously to the surface in the forest depths after a long underground journey had become a dirty rivulet.
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Picture from Okomu National Park, Ovia South-West Local Government Area of Edo State in Nigeria by Liesel81 at Tripadvisor.
Can all the knowledge possible from all the learning opportunities enabled by Cambridge's wonderful network of world class libraries, bookshops, seminars, talks and conferences replace the inspirational force of that awesome space, the Ogba forest, embodying ''an invisible but majestic presence that inspires both dread and fascination and constitutes the non-rational essence of vital religion'', as described by Rodoph Otto and defined by Webster's dictionary, a wonder of existence destroyed to make way for the two legged creature who dominates the earth?
But without the knowledge gained from exposure to the civilization represented by Cambridge in the scope of that civilization's cultural sensitivity and breadth of development of knowledge, how much would I understand of the value of those jewels back home and how to protect and project them?
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Collage by myself of the Faulks gate at the entrance to the Cambridge Centre of Mathematical Sciences, top left; bike park at the Betty and Gordon Moore Library inside the Centre, bottom left; and, interior of the library, right.
My accidental discovery of this library, complemented by my exposure to scientific and other knowledge cultures at the University of Cambridge as a resident of the city, opened my eyes to the possibilities of correlating classical African and particularly Yoruba origin Orisa cosmology with science in working towards a comprehensive grasp of the cosmos, as suggested by Abiola Irele of the figure of the orisha, the deity Eshu in ''The African Scholar'', an achievement that would be correlative with what Fritjof Capra did with Asian cosmologies in The Tao of Physics, as I narrate in ''A Salute to the Elephant : Abiola Irele at the Intersection of Disciplines'' and ''Abiola Irele and Negritude Aesthetics:Rhythm as a Metaphysical Principle:Transcultural and Scientific Implications''.
The picture of a man walking, top left, and behind whom is the knot image depicting an achievement in the mathematical field of knots is used here in evoking physical and cognitive mobility, of the body in walking, and of the mind, in creating, synergies strategic for me in my discovery of and reflections on inspiring spaces.
The men and their bicycles in the bicycle park in the bottom left image suggest for me the rear door of the library, near the bicycle park, from where I first entered the library, the nondescript leading to the wonderful, as well as mobilities of body and of mind implicated in my discovery of that library.
The centre right image indicates the inspiring ambience of the library.
Image sources: Faulkes Gatehouse, ''Mathematical Gates (Faulkes Gatehouse)'', Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences. Men at bike park from library Instagram account. Image of library interior, from library Twitter/X account.
By daybreak on the 27th of April 2024, I had spent hours from the previous night studying the nomad philosophy of European thinker Rossi Braidotti.
I was moved by her emphasis on the potential mobility of thinking, of reflection as better appreciated as a never ending process rather than as a quest for immutable knowledge, a sense of motion within ceaseless epistemic homelessness in tension with a sense of stability giving strength to that perpetual motion.
This perspective was helping me understand my life as a perpetual wayfarer in the world of learning, an orientation mirrored by my love of walking, walking highlighted by Braidotti as a major stimulant to generating thinking, its dynamism analogous to the unending transmutations of reflection, walking being the primary means through which I discovered the tree glories of Benin, wonders now largely much less visible than they were twenty years ago, with some even decimated.