Cosmos as Narrative, Forest, Mystery and Network of Possibilities : Classical Yoruba Metaphysics in a Multi-Disciplinary and Multicultural Dialogue Inspired by Toyin Falola's Yoruba Metaphysics
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
Cosmos as Narrative, Forest, Mystery and Network of Possibilities
Classical Yoruba Metaphysics in a Multidisciplinary and Multicultural Dialogue
Inspired by Toyin Falola's Yoruba Metaphysics: Spirituality and Supernaturality
Bruce Onobrakpeya's installation Akporode
Onobrak Art Centre, Agbahar-Otor
Picture by Israel Ophori
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems
Abstract
This essay situates the self within a cosmic and metaphysical framework, beginning from the intimate locality of a house in Lagos, Nigeria, and expanding outward to the universe.
Drawing from a cosmological image in Toyin Falola’s Yoruba Metaphysics, it explores the human condition as one of being thrust into a grand, enigmatic narrative—a story whose origins, purpose, and ultimate destination remain fundamentally mysterious.
The author interweaves objective cosmology with subjective consciousness, moving through Yoruba, Urhobo, and Kalabari philosophical frameworks, in dialogue with an intercontinental range of ideas, to examine existence as narrative, forest, mystery, and field of possibility.
The essay culminates in an extended meditation on Bruce Onobrakpeya's monumental installation Akporode, interpreting this twenty-year sculptural project as a visual cosmology that materializes the metaphysical themes explored throughout.
Through vertical pillars synthesizing diverse Nigerian cultural iconographies, Onobrakpeya creates what the author terms a "cosmographic construct"—an artwork that functions simultaneously as shrine, prayer, and philosophical proposition about unity within multiplicity.
The essay argues that cosmology and metaphysics are not academic luxuries but existential necessities—frameworks through which humans navigate the "strangeness" of being born without choice into a universe of limited comprehension.
Through comparative analysis spanning African, European, and Asian traditions, it demonstrates how diverse cultures address universal questions through particular symbolic vocabularies, whether narrative (Ifa divination stories), spatial (the forest as cosmic theater), or material (sculptural cosmograms).
The structure and implications of Toyin Falola's conception of cosmos as ultimately incomprehensible narrative, Nicholaj de Mattos Frisvold on the universe as a forest of enchanting mystery, Nimi Wariboko on existence as a network of unfolding possibilities and Bruce Onobrakpeya's installation evoking the vast and mysterious universe are discussed in their intrinsic character and interrelationships, ultimately portraying how the verbal summations by the three other thinkers are incidentally subsumed and vivified by Onobrakpeya's installation, all exploring perennial human concerns through language and visual art, the universal resonance of their creativity demonstrated by conjunctions with other expressive forms across space and time.
This essay is part of my ongoing exploration of the character and significance of Toyin Falola's Yoruba Metaphysics: Spirituality and Supernaturality (2025).
Contents
Image: Onobrakpeya's installation Akporode
Part 1
Situating the Self: A Journey Through Physical and Metaphysical Space
From Opebi to the Cosmos
The Paradoxical Journey
Between the Objective and the Subjective
My Enduring Fascination with Cosmic Mysteries
Companions in the Quest for Meaning
Fellow Travellers in a Grand Story
"When You Arrive in Edo, Edo Is Distant"
The Imperative of Cosmology and Metaphysics
Inescapable Questions
Part 2
2.A.
Cosmos as Narrative
Mapping the Narrative Structure of Existence
Cognitive Systems: The Ifa Narrative System as
Navigational Strategy
Narrative Themes
Ifa as Epistemology and Ontology
Comparative Contexts
Image and Text: Being, Becoming, Eternity
2.B.
Cosmos as Forest
Vegetative Complexity and Density as Cosmic Metaphor
The Forest's Role in Maintaining Cosmic Balance
2.C.
Cosmos as Mystery
Existence Beyond Full Comprehension: Knowledge as
Infinite Unfolding
Cosmos as Mystery and Tradition as Invention
Cosmic Mystery and Enchantment: Falola and Frisvold in
Dialogue
2. D.
Cosmos as Networks of Possibility
Image and Text: Symbol, Mystery, Illumination
Part 3
Akporode: A Sculptural Cosmos
Architecture of Aspiration
The Vertical Grammar of the Cosmos
Textures of Time and Cosmos
A Sacred Corridor of Becoming: The Gallery as Shrine
Forest, Emptiness, and the Cosmographic Void
The Viewer as Cosmonaut: Navigating Emptiness and Form
Unity in Multiplicity: The Geometry of Cosmos
Synthesis of Nigerian Heritages and the Ibn Arabi Parallel
Process as Philosophy: Hegelian Resonance
and the Urhobo Cosmos
Artistic Creativity as Cosmological Investigation
Dialogue with Falola's Yoruba Metaphysics
Image and Text: Pillars of the Cosmic Forest
Conclusion
Fragmentation and Reconstruction
Knowledge as an Unfinished Cosmos
The Quaternary Synthesis: Weaving the Omnivorous Vision Mapping Being and Beings
Part 1
Situating the Self: A Journey Through Physical and Metaphysical Space
From Opebi to the Cosmos
I
write this in a particular house, on a street in an estate in Opebi, in Ikeja,
in Lagos, in Nigeria, on the Earth, itself revolving on its axis and
around a sun which is at the centre of a constellation of
planets, a solar system.
That solar system is itself part of a
galaxy containing billions of stars, along with planets and
other celestial bodies, spanning more than 100,000 light years in
diameter.
The galaxy is itself only one galaxy among many that float
in the sky, a constellation of
celestial structures shaped by principles that enable their existence.
Those principles, those laws of nature, actualize the existence of the solar system in which the Earth is located, making possible the existence of the Earth itself and of myself on the Earth as a member of the human race.
That is my location according to physical cosmology.
I write this to the thrill of birdsong outside my window before dawn, delighted by the glorious flowers lighting up the tree by the window, song vibrating in consonance with the delight of being alive on waking up to another day, eyes keen, ears alert, brain racing to synthesise sensory impressions and thoughts, the dynamism of life burning in me as breath flows, heart pumps, fingers typing on my computer.
That
is a close up image of my location in space and time.
This image integrates the outer, material world of nature and the humanly constructed
environment.
It conjoins the outer, material world of nature, the humanly constructed environment, my personal, physical universe of
body and life force and my abstract, inward cosmos of senses and
thought.
The Paradoxical Journey
On
rising from sleep in my house in Opebi, I first travelled somewhere else yet remained
where I was.
I focused on my sense of awareness of myself against the backdrop
of the fact of existence.
A point in empty space.
A space physically empty
but alive with possibility.
A point representing the Something that exists instead of Nothing.
The empty space evoking the All that is and may be.
The point being myself as representing all that exists.
The surrounding space suggesting the possibilities of existence.
That is my location in non-physical cosmological space and in metaphysical space.
Between the Objective and the Subjective
My physical cosmological location is a physical, objective one, evident to anyone and replicated, in their own distinctive ways, for everyone across the world and perhaps for all physical forms across the universe.
My non-physical cosmological and metaphysical location, as described here, is subjective, being centred in my sense of awareness in relation to the fact of existence itself, which is an objective fact. Consciousness is a universal human and animal quality, and therefore my own consciousness can represent that of all others.
The objective and the subjective, the individualistic and the universal, thereby cohere in this account of my mental and physical environment in the serenity before dawn.
My Enduring Fascination with Cosmic Mysteries
This verbal picture demonstrates my fascination with accounts of the logic of existence, of its ultimate meaning, its structure and dynamism, a fascination extending from the purely material and scientific to the spiritual, speculative and imaginary.
I am fascinated by cosmology and metaphysics.
Cosmologies-descriptions of the character of the universe at the largest scales.
Metaphysics-explorations or pictures of the foundations and possibly the
logic, structure and dynamism of the universe and of the role of the human being within that structure and dynamism.
They help me situate myself in the strangeness
in which I find myself, having been born without any sense of choice as to
whether or not to be born and no idea of whether or not I existed before
I was born and where I shall be going, if anywhere, when I have to leave the
earth.
Where, if anywhere, do human beings go after the end of the process of dissolution that begins once one is born, as cells
divide and recombine in a process generating a steady drive towards ultimate
breakdown, as one account of the ageing process states?
Companions in the Quest for Meaning
The Buddha fled from society into study with teachers and eventually into solitary meditation in forests, seeking answers to similar questions. Inspired by the Buddha, I pursue related goals through study, meditation and artistic immersion. This essay is the outcome of the deep chord touched in me by Toyin Falola's summation of classical Yoruba metaphysics, the dominant understanding of the structure and meaning of the universe developed by Yoruba people in their earliest history, as presented in his Yoruba Metaphysics: Spirituality and Supernaturality (2025), a book about an African system of thought, a system that has been strategic in my efforts at integrating my varied journeys, across cultures and expressive forms, in trying to understand the meaning of existence.
Fellow Travellers in a Grand Story
Falola's account of Yoruba myth as depicting the human being as a character in a story they do not adequately grasp, in a universe beyond their full comprehension, characters and cosmic contexts created by superior beings humans do not fully understand, touches me deeply, reflecting my own sense of perplexity in finding myself, through being born, as part of a great story in which I have somehow become involved, adapting J.R.R. Tolkien's Frodo in The Lord of the Rings.
Perceiving myself as a traveller without any sense of where he is coming from and where he is going to, I am fascinated by accounts of this mystery by my fellow travellers, lost like myself, waking up to find ourselves in a forest grand and puzzling, painful and glorious, adapting Dante's opening experience in his Divine Comedy as a metaphor for being thrown into cosmic mystery.
"When You Arrive in Edo, Edo Is Distant"
"Aghasedo Edo, Edo ree'', ''When you arrive in Edo, Edo is distant'', the Edo (Benin) proverb states, suggesting the gulf between physical arrival in Benin-City and cognitive arrival in the city, the consummation of understanding represented by comprehension of its social and cultural complexities. The same goes for the universe, akpo, the vast and mysterious space, as understood in Urhobo cosmology, into which humans find themselves thrust and which they only minimally understand even across an entire lifetime, regardless of the scale of all human efforts across the centuries ( Philomena Ofuafo, "Envisaging the Concept of Akpo in Urhobo Mythology in Visual form : A Study of Bruce Onobrakpeya’s Art", International Journal of Research in Arts and Sciences, Vol.9, No.2)
Falola's account of the character of the human being in relation to cosmic structure in his book resonates with my experiences at the intersection of various spiritualities and philosophies. The world picture he depicts, though distilling classical Yoruba thought, is a universal grammar of world views recognising the unity of matter and spirit, while the sense of cosmic mystery he emphasises resonates with the most profound of human sensitivities.
The Imperative of Cosmology and Metaphysics
Cosmology
and metaphysics are fundamental to human existence, even when not given much
thought by a person. The splendour of the stars, the glory of the sun and the
beauty of the sky and moon, the alternation of night and day, are phenomena
crying out for explanation and which people are able to live comfortably with
because they become used to them in the context of the prevailing explanations
about them in their cultures.
Every two thousand years, darkness falls on the planet Lagash, the result of an
eclipse on a planet which is always in sunlight. The mystifying presence of the
stars amidst the terror of universal night becomes an unknown phenomenon leading to
madness, chaos and the destruction of civilization, as described in Isaac
Asimov's short story "Nightfall" (1941), suggesting the imperative of
cosmology for human existence.
A cosmology that accounted for that eclipse,
ideally one that accurately explained it and ideally accurately predicted its time of occurence, and was well known to the populace, would have prevented the chaos following the
astronomical event, a fictional example nevertheless illuminating the significance of a physical, scientific cosmology, an image of cosmic structure locating Earth and the human
being within such a system.
Inescapable Questions
What
are the implications of being born and of the slow entropy that leads to death?
Where does the human being come from and where does he go, if anywhere, on
leaving the Earth-consumed by soil in the grave or transiting to an unseen
dimension? These are the deepest of existential questions-emerging from
humanity's embodied experiences, questions giving rise to efforts to answer
them, leading to spiritual/religious and metaphysical complexes. From such
details of human being and becoming, existence and change, to questions of why
the universe exists and if it has a creator, the human being is inescapably
enmeshed in mysteries compelling exploration, explorations constituting
metaphysics.
One might not be an Immanuel Kant reflecting on relationships between the
spatial grandeur of the celestial bodies, the temporal immensity of their
motions in space and the depth and power of the human mind, marvelling at how
he, in his physical minisculity and the necessary brevity of his human
lifespan, fits into this immensity, ( Critique of Practical
Reason). But the sensitivities that ignited Kant are similar to what is felt
by many people as they gaze at the sky or contemplate the scope of their
lives.
Part 2
2.A.
Cosmos as Narrative
Mapping the Narrative Structure of Existence
Opening his or her eyes on entering the world, the child grows up to observe that they have entered into an unfolding story in which they are one of the characters. Where has one come from and where is one going to? No one has a universally convincing answer to those questions. Why do we exist? Why does the cosmos exist? Compelling enquiries, driving religion and philosophy, deeply shaping the arts and reflected in the sciences, but diverse responses of no universally compelling force are all everyone has to offer. Thus, everyone proceeds from the unknown to the unknown.
Hence Falola's Yoruba Metaphysics describes endogenous Yoruba mythology as depicting the human person as a character in an enigmatic story, a character created by more powerful beings of whom little is known, a story the outcome of which the human being can affect to a degree.
A Hindu myth of the God Shiva and the Goddess Parvati playing a game of dice is traditionally interpreted as representing the oscillation of polarities creating the universe ( Richard Smoley, The Dice Game of Shiva: How Consciousness Creates the Universe; Don Handelman and David Shulman, God Inside Out: Śiva's Game of Dice).
Richard Adams' Watership Down tells a story of a rabbit community kept by a farmer who occasionally removes one of the rabbits for his dinner, to the consternation of the rabbits, who know nothing of the farmer or the circumstances of their existence, their artists, philosophers and religious thinkers composing ideas to help them cope with the uncertainty of their lives.
Plato's Republic depicts the human being as a prisoner facing the back of a cave to the floor of which he is chained without being able to look anywhere except at that back wall, watching the shadows thrown on the cave wall from the light of the sun outside and thinking those shadows are the totality of reality.
Macbeth, in William Shakespeare's play of that name, exclaims in despair as he watches his grand plans crumble-
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death.
Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.
The same image of the human being as a character in a drama emerges in Macbeth's declamation. This is consonant with Falola's description of the human person as a character operating within a story, a story only a small aspect of which is known to those characters, both the story and the characters created created by forces within the unseen cosmos generating the material universe. These limitations of perception persist in spite of the capacity of the human being, in special circumstances, to see into the spiritual universe shaping material reality, as Falola sums up this point of view.
What is the significance of this story in which the human being is implicated? Macbeth's cry describes it as ''a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing". What would Macbeth think if he knew of how he had been manipulated by spiritual powers playing upon his greed, leading him to this tragic situation? Would his assessment of human existence be richer, more accommodating of the power of human will?
Various schools of thought tell a similar story. The human being is part of something that transcends his existence, something he does not fully comprehend. Diverse techniques have been developed for breaking out of this circle of ignorance, like the prisoner who escapes from jail by constructing a key based on his understanding of the lock of his cell, the mechanism of which corresponds to the geometric structures of his Islamic prayer mat, which he studies in his daily prostrations in prayer on that mat, as narrated in Idries Shah's story "The Designers'' in Thinkers of the East.
Falola's summation of human life as a story in which people are implicated in spite of little understanding of the nature of that story, those people themselves being creations of superior powers of whom little is known, is an explanation of the dominant perspective in classical Yoruba metaphysics.
In this metaphysics, the tension between fate and free will, a tension central to all mythic, spiritual, philosophical and artistic explorations of human life as an unfolding network of possibilities, shares similarities and differences with other explorations. In the closely related classical Igbo metaphysics, the human being enjoys a greater degree of freedom, a perspective complexified by such explorations of that orientation as Chinua Achebe's novels Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God and his short story "The Madman'', complemented by his essays "Chi in Igbo Cosmology'' and ''The Igbo World and its Art''.
Bimal Krishna Matilal's Ethics and Epics explores how Indian mythic stories explore related issues through narrative, clarifying how storytelling by humans is a means of navigating the mysteries of existence. Richard Kearney's On Stories describes storytelling as strategic for exploring the dynamism of human existence as demonstrating coherence. In that context, the relationship between time and space, human thought and action and its contexts, can only be adequately appreciated through the telling of stories, stories operating to a greater or lesser degree at the intersection of fact and fiction, of observation and imagination, of the empirical and the reconstructed.
In all these contexts, the storyteller may be seen as a character in a story who composes stories demonstrating him or her participating in the narrative initiative in which he is implicated, telling his own stories within the larger narrative, sensitive to a greater or lesser degree to the mysteries shaping the story in which he has found himself.
Cognitive Systems: The Ifa Narrative System as Navigational Strategy
In developing the idea of human life-as-story, Falola references Ifa, the central classical Yoruba knowledge system. It is a multidisciplinary cognitive network
based on an extensive corpus of stories and poems. These literary forms act as guides in Ifa divination, its decision making strategy. This strategy seeks spiritual perception into relationships between fate and free will, the determinants of human life and human ability to navigate and reshape the contexts of existence.
Falola describes Ifa as a method of communication between characters in the story in which the human being finds himself, this communication being in codes understood by those grounded in this style of mutual address.
Can Falola's presentation of the life-as-story motif in relation to Ifa be adapted to exploring connections between the various narratives shaping existence as a whole? Can this be described as done through symbolic stories and poetry, as in Ifa, used in mapping the possibilities of humans and other forms of being?
A crowded stage. A relatively empty space with one character. Images of the intersections between human individuality and its social contexts, templates for perceiving reality through the varied points of view of diverse persons, in intersection with the orientation of the human being as the fundamental centre and nexus of perception. An adaptation of Leon Edel's account of the development of perspectives in William James' novels ( Encyclopedia Britannica, 2025). Can such a narrative system as Ifa, based on stories as templates of diverse possibilities, be used in exploring human experience outside the more specialised approaches of the divination system?
Ifa narratives are organised in terms of categories known as odu ifa, described by such a view as that of babalawo- Ifa priest- Joseph Ohomina, in a personal communication, as connoting all possibilities of existence, spirits about whom little is known but who represent everything existing or which may exist, from material forms such as stars to human emotions such as love (Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju," Cosmological Permutations : Joseph Ohomina’s Ifa Philosophy and the Quest for the Unity of Being''-USAAfrica Dialogues; Linkedin).
Narrative Themes
What are the themes of this cosmic context? What qualities emerge at this intersection of self and cosmos? The universe as an unfolding narrative demonstrating a multi-dimensional complex shot through by mystery- the mystery of unknowing, the mystery of transcendence within immanence, mystery pointing to the power and limitations of human consciousness, mystery inspiring wonder at cosmic being and becoming, from the smallest to the largest scales, from the microbe to the cosmos?
Ifa as Epistemology and Ontology
"Ifa [ is ] a method of divination and a vast repository of knowledge for comprehending reality", Falola states, through exploring relationships between self and cosmos. "Ifa and Ori", the knowledge system and the essence of the self, he asserts, "must be [ understood as] integrated concepts... interdependent, interconnected [operating] cyclically, with none being complete without the unquestionable complementarity of the [other] (xii-xiv).
In this model, Ifa may be seen as both epistemology and ontology—a method of knowing that mirrors the structure of being itself-existence as narrative. Falola describes Ifa as integrating ori (inner essence) and Ifa (knowledge of the cosmic order) as complementary principles.To know oneself (ori) is to participate in the quest for totalistic knowing ( Ifa ).
Comparative Contexts
This narrative philosophy and spirituality is akin to other spiritual systems in which storytelling is strategic, as in Zen Buddhism, which uses stories to provoke sensitivity beyond literal understanding, as described, among numerous sources, in Paul Reps' edited Zen Flesh, Zen Bones and the narrative spirituality of Jewish mystic Nahman of Bratslav, in which stories complement prayer as imaginative approaches to the divine, as evident, amidst the library of publications on Hasidism, Nahman's school, in Yaffa Eliach's edited Hasidic Tales of the Holocaust, real life stories crafted from the perspective of Hasidic spirituality and philosophy, and Arnold Band's edited Nahman of Bratslav: The Tales, which presents Nahman's stories as works of fantasy exploring cosmological subjects.
Image and Text: Being, Becoming, Eternity
Time, eternity, organicity, evoked by Onobrakpeya's adaptation of the Yoruba origin Ifa divination tray and cosmological symbol. An eloquently weathered piece of wood, accompanied by an ivory horn, and a horsetail whisk of authority,rest on a circle bordered by enigmatic but compellingly elegant visual forms, forms which may suggest the possibilities emerging at the intersection of infinity and time, the circle and the organic structures at the centre of the circle.
Mystery, beauty and the convergence of material reality and imaginings of eternity may be seen as cohering in this piece in which possibilities of meaning exceeds anyone's interpretive scope, a piece suggesting approaches, represented by the divination tray, to navigating the complex mystery of existence.
Cosmos as Forest
Vegetative Complexity and Density as Cosmic Metaphor
Adapting an idea from Frisvold on the Yoruba Ifa knowledge system and the cosmos it explores as a mysterious forest and Abiola Irele on the Yoruba conception of forest as symbolic of cosmos ( "Tradition and the Yoruba Writer"), we may understand the human being as akin to the Italian poet Dante's image of himself waking from sleep to find himself in a forest, searching for the right path through that mysterious place, subsequently narrating how he found his way out of it (Divine Comedy).
Frisvold:
Ifa is about approaching everything as mysterious. Whether the mystery is great or small, Ifa invites us to marvel at its beauty as we grow in wisdom. Mystery is encoded in all things that silently reveal how everything is connected in a dance around polarities which mutually affirm one another and move the world onwards.
Whether it is the mystery of life, creation, God, a plant, or a technical problem which we seem unable to figure out, we are touching Ifa. It is about approaching all things and every situation with curiosity, beceause everything is encoded in mystery and riddles. Ifa is the key which enables us to decode these riddles and mysteries as they appear in our lives, in nature, in all realms of being and existence.
( Ifa: A Forest of Mystery, 2016, 7)
Irele:
The most obvious characteristics of [the Yoruba novelist D.O Fagunwa's ] world is its fusion into a comprehensive theatre of human drama of the natural and supernatural realms.
He has created the universe of his novels directly out of the African,and specifically Yoruba, conception which sees the supernatural not merely as a prolongation of the natural world,but as co-existing actively with it… transposing the real world in his work in such a way as to reveal its essential connection with the unseen, in giving to the everyday and the finite the quality of the numinous and the infinite.
A simple but valid interpretation of the pattern of situation in his
novels suggests that his forest stands for the universe, inhabited by
obscure forces to which man stands in a dynamic moral and
spiritual relationship and with which his destiny is
involved; in short, a mythical representation of the
existential condition of man as expressed in Yoruba thinking.The tremendous
adventure of existence in which man is engaged is dramatised by the
adventures of Fagunwa's hunters who go through trials and dangers in
which they must justify and affirm their human essence.
For the Yoruba, the balance of human life,the very sense of human
existence, consists in the dynamic correlation of individual responsibility
and the pressure of external events and forces.In the
oral literature, the understanding that human life is as much a matter
of chance as of conscious moral choice is what determines its social
function-their illustration of the moral and spiritual
attributes needed by the individual to wrest a human meaning out of
his life.
(Abiola Irele,"Tradition and the Yoruba Writer:D.O.Fagunwa,Amos
Totuola and Wole Soyinka".The African Experience in
Literature and Ideology.1981,179-181.)
Beyond the African context, other voices resonate- from Dante to the forest settings of European fairy tales, to the forest dialogues of the Indian Upanishads to the sacred jungles of South American shamanism and more. Each represents the cosmic wilderness within which human understanding unfolds.
What is the character of this forest? What forms define it and how do they come together to shape this wondrous space, which may be both mysterious and frightening, enchanting and puzzling?
Is it a ''dark and rude and stubborn forest, the very thought of which stirs the old fear in the blood", peopled by deadly beasts, as Dante describes the forest he wakes up to find himself in, or is it akin to the other forest he enters into as he proceeds on his journey after leaving that earlier vegetative zone, a "divine forest, thick and alive'', an ancient wood with treetops vibrant with birdsong as a stream winds its way across the space, ''transparent yet dark as the depths of the deepest oceans without sky or moon'' (Inferno, Dorothy Sayers trans; "In the Shadow of the Forest: from Dante’s Darkness to Satellite Light'', Copernicus: Europe's Eyes on Earth, 2025; Purgatory, Sandow Birk and Marcus Sanders trans.)
An exploration of forest ecology in relation to satellite exploration concludes:
...forests look dark, not because they are hidden, but because they are alive. Their darkness is not absence; it is fullness. This fullness is a result of their complexity, their depth, and their layered resilience. Just as Dante had to enter the dark forest to begin his journey toward understanding, we too must examine these challenging issues with science, satellites and care to understand the problems of our time.
From space, forests can look like shadows. But those shadows tell the stories of climate change, biodiversity, people, and places.
Ultimately, the forest seen from space is much more than just a green mass or a scientific dataset. Like Dante’s dark forest, it is a living symbol of mystery, struggle, and renewal. Its shadows are not empty but full of life and stories—of fragility and strength. Through the eyes of satellite technology, we can finally “read” these hidden tales, turning darkness into knowledge, and knowledge into action. In this journey between science and poetry, the forest becomes not only an object of observation but a bridge between nature and the soul, between the visible and the invisible—a call to protect what makes Earth a sacred and vibrant place. ( "In the Shadow of the Forest: from Dante’s Darkness to Satellite Light'', Copernicus: Europe's Eyes on Earth, 2025).
In all these contexts, the forest emerges as a theatre or metaphor of metaphysical experience. The forest embodies mystery, danger, and revelation—the space where the boundaries of knowledge blur. In Yoruba and other African cosmologies, the forest is the threshold between worlds—a site of encounter between the visible and invisible, the known and unknown. The metaphor persists as a universal grammar of the unknown, portraying the cosmos as a sacred wilderness in which every act of understanding is a clearing carved through mystery.
Drawing on Yoruba philosophy, the concept of forest as cosmos frames the forest not merely as a location, but as a microcosm of the entire spiritual and physical universe. It is a living, interconnected entity, filled with divine and spiritual energies and serving as a crucial link between the visible and invisible worlds.
The Forest's Role in Maintaining Cosmic Balance
"Just as the wider Yoruba universe depends on balance, the forest's role as a cosmos is to maintain harmony between opposing forces. This dynamic balance is represented by several key relationships:
Harmonizing nature and humanity.The forest provides sustenance and resources for human life, including medicinal plants and water. However, it also requires human respect and responsible stewardship to prevent ecological and spiritual consequences.
Creating a balance of order and chaos. The forest is an untamed, mysterious space, resistant to complete human encapsulation, but it is also a structured and ordered ecosystem. Its complexity mirrors the balance between mystery and knowledge.
Conjuncting knowledge and mystery: The forest is a source of esoteric knowledge for hunters, herbalists, and diviners. Navigating the forest reveals the secrets of the universe, balancing what is known with what remains mysterious."
( Google AI on ''Forest as Cosmos'')
2.C.
Cosmos as Mystery
Existence Beyond Full Comprehension: Knowledge as Infinite Unfolding
Particularly distinctive among the ideas Falola describes of classical Yoruba thought is the understanding of the universe as beyond full human comprehension. This perspective may be understood as centralizing sensitivity to knowledge as a continuously unfolding process within an infinite and continuously expanding horizon, rather than a closed circle containing all possibilities of knowing, a latter perspective some demonstrate in arguing for the cognitive capacities of Ifa.
In contrast to some readings of Ifa as an all-encompassing cognitive system, Falola emphasizes the limits of human knowing, making room for wonder and continual discovery. “Existence,” Falola suggests, “is not a completed totality but an ever-widening horizon of awareness.” By emphasizing epistemic humility and the continuity of discovery, Falola's account of classical Yoruba thought challenges both positivist and dogmatic readings of Yoruba knowledge systems, including those that portray Ifa as an all-encompassing corpus of ultimate knowledge. Instead, Ifa becomes one of many portals, a multidimensional gateway to a cosmos understood as fundamentally mysterious.
Cosmos as Mystery and Tradition as Invention
Falola's focus on cosmos as mystery, suggesting a progressive but infinite unfolding of understanding, complements Olabiyi Yai's perspective on tradition in classical Yoruba thought as more inventive than static, more recreative than repetitive, articulated in his essays “In Praise of Metonymy” and “Tradition and the Yoruba Artist.” This perspective is further developed by Abiodun in Yoruba Art and Language and informs Abiodun, Drewal and Pemberton's edited The Yoruba Artist: New Theoretical Perspectives on African Arts.
Cosmic Mystery and Enchantment: Falola and Frisvold in Dialogue
The idea of approaching the universe as a mystery to be explored is explicitly developed by Frisvold, well before Falola. Frisvold's focus is on the cosmos as an enchanted space, a zone of wonder compelling continuous exploration. This stance complements Falola's evocation of the oscillation between the expansions of human cognitive possibilities and the ultimate limitations of those possibilities. He highlights the human ability, in special circumstances, to go beyond the limitations of material perception by penetrating into the spiritual world which shapes the physical cosmos but contrasts this with the ultimate constriction of human possibility by the contexts of human existence.
In this perspective, the shaping contexts of existence are beyond full human understanding. The human being is therefore perceived as a character in a story the full context of which is unknown to him or her but the outcome of which they may affect to a degree. A pragmatic understanding of human reality is thus developed, highlighting the abysses of ignorance ultimately defining the range of human awareness.
Falola's focus is on the dynamic between the continually unfolding possibilities of human understanding within the context of the ultimate limitations of human knowledge. His understanding is of existence as a narrative of constrained understanding. Frisvold perceives the cosmos as an enchanted space, a zone of inspiring mystery provoking unending exploration. Both perspectives are complementary, the realistic and the visionary, the pragmatic and the aspirational coming together in the work of both thinkers to project a robust appreciation of the human condition.
Falola’s balance of realism and spiritual vision—his attention to the expansiveness of human cognitive possibilities within the context of the ultimate limitation of human knowledge—is thus complemented by Fritsvold’s visionary enchantment, a spur to continuous exploration, where the focus is on the idea of approaching the universe as a mystery to be explored.
Falola’s pragmatic realism allied to visionary sensitivity and Frisvold’s mystical wonder represent complementary poles of the same metaphysical continuum: the bounded and the boundless, the finite and the infinite, the analytical and the visionary, operating as unified dualisms in the thought of both cognitive explorers.
Together, they form what might be termed a dialectic of the sacred: the tension between pragmatic finitude and visionary transcendence, Falola’s cosmos of expansiveness within limitation and Frisvold’s cosmos of open ended possibility coalescing in a holistic anthropology of the human being as both bound and free— opening up questions of finitude and infinity in cognition and imagination. Together they outline a holistic vision of human existence as both humbled by ignorance and elevated by unfolding possibility.
The classical Yoruba philosophical universe, in both readings, becomes a metaphysical drama of exploration, perpetually unfolding within both limitation and wonder. Through these convergences, classical Yoruba thought emerges as dynamic and creative, its cosmology one of continual renewal and self-redefinition. Humans as actors within a cosmic narrative and the universe as a sacred theatre of wonder, where participation rather than mastery defines meaning are thus conjoined.
2. D.
Cosmos as Networks of Possibility
Both perspectives may also be better appreciated in comparison with those developed by another consummate explorer of classical African thought, Nimi Wariboko, in his studies of Kalabari philosophy in relation to European philosophy and Pentecostal thought. Wariboko explores from various angles a central question resonant in divination systems across the world and particularly in the consistencies between classical African systems of thought, but developed with particular precision in Kalabari reflection: ''what are the circles of possibility defining human existence at the levels of the individual and the group and how may these frameworks be utilized and transcended in other to engage an ever expansive framework of possibilities, of human flourishing?", as this unifying thread of Wariboko's work may be summed up.
Uppercase So is the Kalabari name for the total scope of potential possibilities while lower case so refers to those possibilities available to a person or to a community. Human life, in this context, may be described as a process of expansion or contraction of possibilities. As explained by Wariboko in a personal communication, these ideas underlie his exploration of human potential as a universe of possibilities in his Depth and Destiny of Work; The Split God; The Split Time; Lifemaking; Transcripts of the Sacred, and The Soul of Kalabari Culture.
Those ideas may be adapted to explain existence as as a dynamic network of possibilities.This network is constituted by relationships between the various possibilities that exist in the present and those which have existed in the past, in relation to those that may exist in future. The idea of life as a story may be understood as the development of relationships between these possibilities, unfolding and closing in various contexts, from the cosmographic to the individual, from the individual to the interpersonal.
Cosmos as mystery, cosmos as enchantment, existence as a narrative peopled by characters handicapped by ignorance of the foundations of their existence, these perspectives may be seen as coming together in Wariboko's varied wrestlings with a question framed by his Kalabari ancestors, resonating with similar enquiries in Yoruba and other African thought systems, vibrating in relation to perennial human concerns across space and time.
The intellectual resonance between Falola and Frisvold's Yoruba cosmology and Wariboko’s Kalabari philosophy illuminates this framework. The three thinkers inquire into the circles of possibility defining human existence and the pathways through which individuals and communities may navigate and possibly transcend those circles. The systems illuminated and further shaped by all three thinkers affirm the sacred elasticity of existence, where understanding is not a possession but a movement toward greater possibility. Falola’s notion of incomprehensibility, Frisvod's conception of mystery and Wariboko’s notion of possibility converge on a shared metaphysical question: how may human consciousness navigate the unknown, expanding the scope of its being?
Image and Text: Symbol, Mystery, Illumination
I travelled across the length and breadth of the Earth through numbers and texts. I journeyed through instrument and thought across the cosmos. The vastnesses I had explored I fixed in terms of symbols indicating what I knew and the greater scope of what I did not know and what I knew but the range of which was beyond me. I am homo symbolicus, the symbol making being.
The mysterious text of Akporode- Onobrakpeya's self created Ibiebe script. Beauty and mystery converge in scriptic symbols beside the pillar of possibilities.
Part 3
Akporode:
A Sculptural Cosmos
Bruce Onobrakpeya’s monumental installation Akporode, is a meditation on "the vast and mysterious universe," embodying the rich cosmological implications of its Urhobo name—evoking infinity, depth, and the unknowable, suggesting the vast, complex, and unpredictable nature of existence—the sum of human life, destiny, social interaction, and the natural world—as a mystery that can never be totally understood by mortals.
The work is an artistic and philosophical
meditation on cosmic immensity, a visual hymn and a philosophical proposition,
expressed through a constellation of sculptural pillars that together
form a symbolic architectural cosmos, a work functioning as a profound
convergence of spirituality, Nigerian cultural iconography, and the artist's
six-decade-long creative journey.
The result of decades of experimentation, revision, and syncretic creativity, twenty years in process before reaching its definitive state, and having undergone various changes after assuming this distinctive identity, Onobrakpeya creates in this installation a synthesis of diverse formal vocabularies drawn from multiple points in his sixty year career, reflecting a panoramic engagement with Nigeria’s cultural and ecological diversity—forms, textures, and motifs shaped by Urhobo, Yoruba, Benin, Igbo, Fulani and other Nigerian cultural environments— fusing them into a unified cosmographic vision.
A shrine-like assemblage of carved, painted, and etched columns drawn from recycled prints and cultural motifs, it embodies a metaphysical unification of diversity—a "prayer for divine greatness" amid environmental and cultural threats in the Niger Delta, synthesizing Onobrakpeya's lifelong passions: indigenous iconography, spiritual hybridity, and innovative materiality.
Architecture of Aspiration
The Vertical Grammar of the Cosmos
The spatial organization of the work is central to its metaphysics. The work’s power stems not just from its conceptual depth but from its material execution. This spatial order is forcefully defined by the upward thrust of pillars, evoking a profound sense of aspiration and verticality. This symphony of vertical forms, varied in height, texture, and ornamentation, generates totems, etched, painted, and patinated with symbols, scripts, and abstractions drawn from Urhobo, Benin, Igbo, and Yoruba iconographies, alongside Onobrakpeya’s signature plastograph reliefs and metal-foil techniques. These forms ascend in rhythmic progression, visual analogues for the diverse elements within the universe.
Textures of Time and Cosmos
Demonstrating a rich, layered materiality, the pillars appear to be primarily wood and mixed media, treated with paints, dyes, and metallic rings to create a sense of age and permanence. The varied textures—from the high-relief carvings to the rough, weathered surfaces—suggest a history that aligns with the "twenty years in process" creation narrative. This technique gives the surfaces a complex patina as indicated by the bright yellow, oxidized reds/oranges, deep blacks and white, that makes them appear like excavated ritual objects or weathered cosmic markers.
The materials and their rich textures—the deep blues, earthy reds, burnt oranges, and metallic sheens—suggest age and permanence, tying the concept of the "vast universe" to a historical and timeless continuum. The use of rings and stacked elements also evoke the layering of time and experience.
The work's complexity stems from its integration of diverse forms, effectively blurring the lines between traditional sculpture, found object assemblage, and installation art, reflecting the artist's lifelong experimental approach.
A Sacred Corridor of Becoming: The Gallery as Shrine
The pillars become like ase-charged objects, animated by ase, cosmically pervasive life force as understood in classical Yoruba thought. They are akin to conduits of becoming, each mark and color a syllable in a silent invocation.The installation’s spatial logic is deliberate: the tallest pillars flank the center, forming a sacred corridor that draws the viewer’s gaze—and spirit—upward. Smaller columns and suspended elements (some bearing enigmatic inscriptions) create a dynamic equilibrium, suggesting both hierarchy and interdependence within the cosmic order.
The installation is positioned within an alcove, encapsulated by walls adorned with both simple and elaborate structures and exquisite, smaller pillars, complemented by framed, elaborate, enigmatic, abstract and semi-abstract inscriptions. The rough-hewn concrete archway framing the piece reinforces its shrine-like aura, positioning Akporode as a modern ogwa (Urhobo sacred space) reimagined in the language of global contemporary art.
The work's exquisite integration of a multiplicity of forms guides the viewer in appreciating the installation as unifying both the central and complementary clusters.The pillars, some tall and stately, others slender and short, are arranged against a stark, light-colored wall, creating a dynamic rhythm. This visual diversity underscores the artwork’s core theme: the universe's vast, chaotic, and yet ultimately unified nature, the integration of structural diversities transforming the entire architectural space into a shrine or a chamber of contemplation on the cosmos.
Forest, Emptiness, and the Cosmographic Void
The Viewer as Cosmonaut: Navigating Emptiness and Form
The installation transforms the gallery’s void into a dynamic forest of being and becoming—pillars likened to tree trunks conjure the African conception of the forest as a microcosm of the cosmos, where diversity and order, matter and emptiness, coexist symphonically. This architectural strategy—juxtaposing absence and presence—renders emptiness as a space of potential, an invitation for spiritual engagement, not merely an absence but a site of transformation.
This rhythm of space and form, of emptiness and presence actualizes a universal motif resonating across varied contexts. Visually navigating this space and mentally journeying through its evocative potential, the viewer becomes a cosmonaut, an explorer of cosmological possibilities.
The viewer may be likened to Milarepa, a Tibetan Buddhist explorer of cosmographic space, navigating the intersection of the essence of existence and its manifestation, Being and beings, as incidentally understood in the Falola formulation in Yoruba Metaphysics. Milarepa, a great lover of nature, engages nature as expressing emptiness, form as a manifestation of the formless, delights of the senses as dramatizing the generative presence of something beyond encapsulation by the mind, hence it is known as empty and formless, there being nothing about it the mind can cling to:
this mountain land is a joyful place
a land of meadows & bright flowers
the trees dance in the forest
a place where monkeys play
where birds sing all manner of song
and bees whirl 8c hover
day and night a rainbow flashes
summer and winter a sweet rain falls
spring and autumn a mist rolls in
and in such solitude as this the cottonclad Mila finds his joy
for I see the clear light & contemplate the emptiness of things
(From The Biography of Cotton-Clad Mila, ed. Sangs-rgyas
rgyal-mtshan, quoted by Stephan Beyer in The Buddhist Experience: Sources and Interpretations, 1974, 75)
Akporode, through its monumental pillars shaping empty space, incidentally visualizes the metaphysical tension Milarepa realized: the solid columns are forms, yet their upward reach and the surrounding void evoke the essential interdependence and unity between material existence and transcendent emptiness. The installation’s aspirational structure enacts the journey from multiplicity to spiritual realization—the metaphysical unity underlying all forms.
Through spatial order defined by the upward thrust of pillars evoking aspiration to Oghene, the creator of the universe in Urhobo thought, the work unifies an exquisite multiplicity of artistic creativities in galvanizing a prayer for ‘’higher, richer and bigger life’’, for ''divine support for continued growth toward divine greatness'', as stated in the artist's note on the wall by the piece, an architectural thrust embodying the yearning of human consciousness toward transcendence, an ascent from the earthly to the divine.
This articulation frames the installation not merely as an aesthetic object but as a devotional instrument—a material invocation of transcendence. This inscription is not ornamental but ontological—the work’s metaphysical spine. Akporode enacts a unification of cosmic multiplicity through human creativity, a sculptural dramatization of metaphysics as defined by Anthony Kenny:
a ''framework of concepts, transcending the interests of particular...disciplines and offering an understanding [ or exploration] of the universe at a very general and abstract level'' ( Aquinas, Oxford UP, 1980, 32) an orientation demonstrated by Falola's Yoruba Metaphysics.
Unity in Multiplicity: The Geometry of Cosmos
Synthesis of Nigerian Heritages and the Ibn Arabi Parallel
Onobrakpeya's installation operates similarly—it transcends the specificity of any single Nigerian cultural tradition to propose a more encompassing vision of spiritual reality grounded in shared aspiration toward the divine.The diversity of the pillars—their differing textures, colors, motifs, and cultural references—reflects Onobrakpeya’s lifelong interest in synthesizing the multiplicity of Nigeria’s artistic heritages.
Yet, despite their variety, these forms converge harmoniously, suggesting a deeper unity beneath the surface of cultural difference. This visual unification echoes a social and metaphysical orientation: the search for a social and conceptual framework broad enough to encompass the many, without erasing their singularities.
By creating a large-scale installation of many disparate, highly detailed components (the pillars and totems), Onobrakpeya visually represents the exquisite multiplicity and rhythmic chaos of the world. Each carved pillar may stand for an individual life, an ethnic form, or a distinct spiritual force, their structural unity in diversity, individuality in multiplicity a means of visualizing the vastness of cosmos.
Akporode, in its harmonization of diverse artistic languages and spiritual sensibilities, materializes this geometry of unity and multiplicity—the work as a circumference hosting many points (pillars, traditions, creative acts) around a central aspiration (Oghene, cosmic unity). Each part reflects, returns to, and participates in the whole, integrating the individual and the communal within a single spiritual cosmos, akin to Ibn Arabi's conception of the unity of being and the infinite circumference, his doctrine of wahdat al-wujud (unity of being) describing reality as a fractal manifestation of one divine substance, like infinite points on the circumference emanating from a single center ( Meccan Illuminations).
In this sense, Akporode is not only an artwork but an evocation of social engineering and a metaphysical gesture—a material expression of humanity’s quest to correlate social individualities within harmonious unities as well as to interpret the universe at its most abstract, comprehensive, and unified level. Onobrakpeya’s synthesis of tradition, innovation, and environmental inspiration situates Akporode as a cosmographic construct—an artwork mapping the cosmos and the human will within it.
Process as Philosophy: Hegelian Resonance and the Urhobo Cosmos
The installation's two-decade development period itself becomes philosophically significant. The extended gestation suggests that Akporode is less a finished statement than an ongoing inquiry—a material thinking-through of how diverse artistic forms might cohere into a unified spiritual vision. The work's evolution mirrors the metaphysical process it depicts: gradual movement toward divine understanding through patient synthesis.G. W. F. Hegel’s dialectics of unity and diversity ( Phenomenology of Spirit) resonate with the dynamic interplay of Akporode’s visual forms, stages of artistic evolution, and upward striving, analogizing the artwork as a microcosm of Spirit’s journey.
Every pillar aggregates motifs and techniques traceable to various epochs in Onobrakpeya’s career and across the Nigerian cultural spectrum—thereby unifying a diversity of sources in one creative cosmology. The work, being "twenty years in process," mirrors the Akpo itself, cosmos as understood in Urhobo thought—a dynamic, ever-changing entity where forms and concepts are constantly being integrated, discarded, and refined, never reaching a truly final, fixed state. It is a microcosm of the cyclical, ongoing nature of life and the universe as understood by the Urhobo. Through this, the work offers both a history of the artist’s practice and a visual meditation on the nature of the universe, portraying human consciousness as pivotal in shaping cosmic destiny through aspiration, creativity, and collective prayer.
Artistic Creativity as Cosmological Investigation
The work suggests that human creativity (the act of making and assembling the piece) is a parallel to divine creativity (the creation of the universe). The diverse elements are galvanized into a singular, cohesive expression, mirroring the unifying force that binds the cosmos. It becomes a system—as Kenny suggests—that provides a framework for consideration, in this case, for spiritual and existential problems.
Akporode is a masterwork of sacred geometry and post-classical modernism. It is an aesthetic and philosophical synthesis, using the vocabulary of traditional Nigerian material culture to articulate a universal prayer and a rich metaphysical exploration of existence. In essence, the installation is an articulation of existential philosophy in sculptural form: the world is a mystery, a complex tapestry of lives where destiny and free will intersect, in convergence with spiritual forces, dramatizing human endeavor as a continuous, aspirational process of navigating that mystery toward divine greatness.
Ultimately, Akporode is not only a monument to Urhobo cosmology but a living cosmogram enacting the dialogue between creative imagination, communal heritage, and metaphysical exploration, proposing art as both a bridge and supplication towards the infinite. Akporode is more than an assemblage of forms—it is a living metaphysics in material form, a testament to Onobrakpeya’s belief that art may be not only illustration but revelation. In its towering diversity and disciplined ascent, the work answers the Urhobo call to akporode not with answers, but with an eternal, open-ended question: How do we, in our finitude, sculpt infinity?
Dialogue with Falola's Yoruba Metaphysics
A similar intellectual and spiritual ambition appears in Falola’s Yoruba Metaphysics, where Yoruba thought is articulated as a system capable of illuminating the structure of reality through concepts that transcend disciplinary boundaries. Just as Falola’s metaphysical framework draws diverse strands of Yoruba cosmological insight into a coherent philosophical system, Onobrakpeya’s Akporode gathers various cultural and artistic energies into a singular visual cosmos. The materials and forms—reminiscent of shrine furniture, ceremonial staffs and architectural elements—ground the abstract concept of the universe in the tangible, sacred landscapes of Nigeria.
While Onobrakpeya works primarily within Urhobo and other African and particularly Nigerian expressive and sacred arts, in relation to their cosmologies, his installation shares this integrative impulse—the work posits that human creativity can serve as a vehicle for accessing and manifesting cosmic order. Together, these creative works—one textual, one sculptural, Falola’s Yoruba Metaphysics and Onobrakpeya's Akporode—demonstrate African philosophical and artistic traditions articulating profound visions of the universe, unifying multiplicity through a disciplined but expansive metaphysical imagination.
The metaphysical dimension of Akporode finds precedent in African philosophical traditions that understand artistic practice as a mode of engaging ultimate reality. Akporode ultimately proposes that aesthetic creation can function as cosmological investigation. By bringing together disparate formal vocabularies within a coherent spatial and spiritual framework, Onobrakpeya suggests that art-making itself is a metaphysical activity—one that seeks to understand and participate in the universe's fundamental order. The installation stands as both prayer and proposition: that human creativity, when oriented toward the divine, can reveal the underlying unity sustaining cosmic multiplicity.
Falola, Fritsvold, Wariboko and Onobrakpeya explore this question from various standpoints inspired by classical Yoruba, Kalabari and Urhobo thought, in explicit dialogue with other cultural orientations.
Image and Text: Pillars of the Cosmic Forest
Nature is a temple of living pillars
a forest-grove of symbols, strange and solemn
murmuring in a soft language, half strange, half understood
the human being wanders there as through a mysterious wood
aware of eyes that watch him in the leaves above.
Like prolonged echoes mingling in the distance
till one deep low shadowy note is born
in a deep and complex unity
vast as the dark of night and as the light of day
vast as the turning planet clothed in darkness and light
vast as the night or as the fires of morn
sound calls to fragrance,
colour calls to sound,
perfumes, sounds, and colors correspond,
expanding as infinity expands
possessing the diffusion of infinite things.
( "Correspondences", Charles Baudelaire (1857), a collage of varied translations).
Conclusion
Fragmentation and Reconstruction
The ancestors spoke, weaving elaborate pots of knowledge, constellations of thought shattering under the impact of human need as people drew on those ideas across generations and as external forces impacted them.
The thinker tries to put the broken shards together, as Orunmila did for the splinters of Obatala in the Yoruba myth ( Wole Soyinka, Idanre), as each person is enjoined to do for the fragmented divine sparks in the thought of the Jewish thinker Isaac Luria ( Hasidic Tales of the Holocaust, ed. Yaffa Eliach), but each effort at reintegration can only be an individual initiative, a particular window on the whole, as those thinkers who created those ideas were also individuals, seeking to understand cosmic totality through their own mental frames, ultimately composing a communal heritage, shaping and shaped by that inheritance, as Wariboko's characterisation of his task in The Soul of Kalabari Culture may be adapted. Falola, Frisvold and Onobrakpeya are likewise engaged in restorative acts, reassembling fragments of metaphysics scattered by time and modernity into a renewed cosmological whole.
Knowledge as an Unfinished Cosmos
Through the work of these creatives, classical Yoruba, Kalabari and Urhobo philosophies are dramatized, not as closed traditions but as living cosmologies— cognitive forests of infinite pathways, fields of ideas perpetually reimagined. Falola's thought joins Frisvold’s enchanted cosmos, Wariboko’s universe of possibility and Onobrakpeya's cosmological visualization of grandeur and mystery in affirming existence as an enigma both luminous and unfathomable, inviting endless exploration, forming a quaternary African metaphysics that affirms existence as mystery, enchantment, and potentiality.
The Quaternary Synthesis: Weaving the Omnivorous Vision Mapping Being and Beings
Falola's, Frisvold's, Wariboko's and Onobrakpeya's achievements palpitate at the heart of this nexus. The omnivorous explorers, scholars and artists as cosmic cartographers, bring together novel syntheses, weaving new and older ideas in their armoury, their life long, ongoing exploration of various African cultures and thought, in dialogue with other traditions, seeking from the platforms of these vehicles of ideas, to look into and beyond the envelope of existence, up to the stars shaping the canopy of sky and down to the nurturing dust of earth, exploring Being and beings, existence and its source, as developed by thinkers in those traditions, and as understood and further developed by themselves. Weaving together the threads of Yoruba, Kalabari, Urhobo and other African and global thought, their syntheses reach from earth to sky, from the sustaining dust of existence to the stars of metaphysical reflection.
Through these syntheses, African metaphysical conceptions are situated within a global philosophical conversation, dialoguing with universal questions of being and knowing, creating spaces where the cosmos becomes both forest and mirror, inviting humanity to wander, wonder, and awaken —an open forest of meaning, an unfinished text, where humanity quests for meaning.
Imagine a vast forest where every tree is an idea and every path a question.
Some philosophers wander with a lantern—small circles of light, careful steps, modest clarity.
You arrive carrying a sun.
The goal is not to illuminate a path;
but to illuminate the whole forest at once,
to see how every tree curves toward every other,
how roots touch beneath the earth
and branches intertwine above it,
how storms reshape the canopy,
how seeds drift into new ground.
In the conviction of the forest as not a collection of separate things
but a single living organism
growing through conflict,
shedding old bark,
pushing out new leaves,
turning error into transformation,
shadow into deeper light.
People called this organism “Spirit,”
but one may mean something more elemental—
the world awakening to itself.
In this vision, the cosmos is not silent matter
but a thinker slowly realizing
the shape of its own thoughts.
And so you stand at the
edge of this vegetative cosmos
and listen to:
the crack of contradiction,
the murmur of freedom,
the wind of history
turning old worlds into new ones
as you translate this vast breathing into philosophy.
That is why you will be remembered—
not because everything you project is correct,
but because you dare to write
as if the universe itself were speaking
through the dialectical pulse of becoming.
Such an effort is great because
it tries to hear the logic of the Whole
and return with a map made of fire.
(Slightly adapted from ChatGPT on the significance of the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, depicted in terms of my fascination with the forest as inspirational space).