The Tree, the Bird and Her Sixteen Bird Companions : Foundations of Opa Ọsanyin Philosophy, Mysticism and Magic 3 : Invocation of ÀwọnÌyá Wa and Àwọn Odù Ifá through Opa Ọsanyin
Abstract
This is an invocation meant to take the practitioner into the world of Àwọn Ìyá Wa, Our Mothers Arcane, creative and destructive generative powers and Odù Ifá, embodiments of all cosmic and human possibilities.
The invocation does this through the inspiration of Ọpa Ọsanyin, a staff perceived as embodying the power of Ọsanyin, deity of the spiritual and biological power of plants, as these ideas are understood in Yorùbá origin Òrìsà cosmology.
The invocation is composed of twelve stanzas incorporating my own words and quotations from various texts, sources presented below the poem along with a broader introduction and interpretation of the stanzas.
This work builds on
the immediately preceding essay in this series, ''The Tree, the Bird and Her Sixteen
Bird Companions: Foundations of Opa Ọsanyin Philosophy and Mysticism 2'', which itself takes forward Part 1 of the series.
The Opa Ọsanyin Philosophy and Mysticism series are themselves a distillation from the detailed explorations of Opa Ọsanyin symbolism, ''The Cosmos in a Staff: The Glory of Opa Ọsanyin."
The entire sequence of Ọpa
Ọsanyin essays are published, among other platforms, at the blog Ọpa Ọsanyin Philosophy, Mysticism and Magic.
Philosophy is understood, in this context, as the critical exploration of ideas about the meaning of existence. Mysticism is perceived as the theory and practice of gaining intimate relationship with this meaning. Magic is portrayed in the sense of the universe as shaped by mysterious and often inspiring qualities, relationship with which may enable the cultivation of unconventional abilities.
In this essay, all these values are subsumed in the concept of àṣẹ, pervasive cosmic force as understood in Òrìsà cosmology. The idea is engaged with as a source of inspiration, a launching platform for exploration of varied but correlative ideas. It is not employed primarily as a belief that a person needs to hold to appreciate or take advantage of the ideas expressed.
It is helpful, after reading or reciting each stanza of the invocation, to pause in silence. The silence concentrates the force of what one has affirmed through the invocation, facilitating its calling upon the depths of the self and its resonance with whatever qualities of the cosmos this affirmation resonates with, the self becoming a space where the echo from one's affirmations returns enriched through touching those aspects of existence being called upon, powers best related with through silence, a zone embracing values that integrate and go beyond language.
Invocation
Projecting as the universe its sixteen powers of manifestation, withdrawing these into itself and projecting them again in a continuous cycle, the cosmos is continually created by the Self as cosmic core and the self as one perambulating through space and time, the totality and the individual experience of that totality, the chattering of birds on the tree of life indistinguishable and unintelligible but clarified and luminously meaningful in their individuality and unity the further I climb the pole of Ọsanyin, where sixteen birds congregate around the central bird, my brethren of the avian universe, the mothers dreaded and yet venerated, the wombs of totality where time and space converge with infinity, the convergence I seek in the flame like undulation in which all the birds are fused as one, Àwọn Ìyá Wa, Àwọn Odù Ifá, I bend the knee in veneration and supplication, as I seek entrance into your sacred grove, the conclave of insight and transformation.
Covens of occult deliberators, assemblies of the mysterious feminine ones, maternal and yet destructive, enigmatic and fearsome, available for invocation from within their alliance with powerful forces of the forest, wombs of possibility at one with the inscrutable core that is Olodumare, the calabash from which each moment is born ....O mothers, dreaded and yet venerated, kind and cruel, illuminating and inscrutable, we call upon you at this nexus of space and time...
Birds at rest on trees and in motion from trees
birds evoking the voice of nature
the mobility of the cosmic force enabling being and becoming
the laws of nature and means of transcending them
birds moving unencumbered by gravity
avian personalities embodying these associations
within the intersection of cosmic creativity and spatio-temporal possibility
that is Odù Ifá in her sixteen primary identities.
Matrices of insight into the intersections of dimensions
guides to the roots and possibilities of phenomena
embodiments of the convergence of the mystery that is life and human form
within the privileged identity carrying this manifestation with the help of her inseminative counterpart
the human female and her male companion
her womb the calabash of totalistic possibility representing the union of earth and sky
matter and spirit
ayé and orun
through which roams pervasive cosmic force
a force enabling creation and destruction
good and evil
human categories reshaped within the cosmic gaze
human and cosmic perspectives we struggle to understand and harmonize
in the journey between the primal home beyond space and time and the home that is time and space
the totalistic identity of this complex being Ọsanyin
the cosmos as perceived from within the humble presence and yet potent force of the universe of plants
reaching from plants in living rooms from Buenos Aires to Ouagadougou
to the depths of the remotest forests where live peoples yet uncontacted by the rest of humanity
potencies embodied by even the smallest plant
such as Benghalensis, a small, indestructible, trailing plant
associated with the sayings from the Ghanaian Akan and Twi languages
Nyame Nwu Na M’awu
“Could Nyame, the Supreme Being, die, I would die”
Onyankopon nkuni wo na odasani kum wo a,wunwu da,
“Unless you die of Nyankapon , let living man kill you, and you will not perish.”
Fonio
the smallest seed
which fell to the earth and spread the consciousness of the creator to all
the smallest and the greatest
embodiment of the creative spirit
the giver of life
the gentleness of being
the entwined fragility of life and death
a weak, easily broken plant, yet strong enough to bend in the wind without breaking.
Leaf, bush and plant
every plant thing on this world
earth and stone that is this planet
its brother and sister planets
the stars, and beyond them more stars, and beyond and beyond...to depths beyond depths
where the great galaxies float like clouds or scatter like crowds...
scattering from one common point to the ultimate edges of time and distance
in which there are many lives...in their birth and their growing...
chance or purpose that makes a path for all life in time and space
going further and deeper, beyond all distance and imagination
to trees like
towers in forests long ago.
The tops of trees a wonderful summit where the mothers mysterious and majestic perch
Introduction
Ọpa Ọsanyin as Cosmological Form of Universal Appeal
The invocation demonstrates the potential for interpreting Ọpa Ọsanyin in cosmological terms, in relation to ideas about the structure, dynamism and meaning of the cosmos. It does this through a blend of visual description, ideational expression and imagistic and lyrical force. These take the invocation beyond its originating cultural context into an imaginative dramatization of humanity's peering into the unknown, seeking to map the utmost possibilities of cosmos and human self.
This imaginative journey is centred, in this context, in the commonplace image of birds on a tree, represented by a pole on which birds are poised, that being the structure of Ọpa Ọsanyin. This invocation demonstrates the far reaching evocative possibilities of this structure.
Sources
The invocation is composed of twelve stanzas representing my own words and quotations from various texts.
''Olodumare, the calabash from which each moment is born '' is adapted from Shloma Rosenberg's ''Olorun-God in the Lukumi Faith,'' a diaspora variant of Orisa spirituality, at his site Mystic Curio. Accessed 11/8/2020.
From ''Benghalensis'' to “Unless you die of Nyankapon'' in stanza 4 quote two sayings from the Ghanaian Akan and Twi languages in J. B. Danquah's The Akan Concept of God.
Stanza 5 quotes and adapts Owen Burnham's African Wisdom.
Stanza 6 does the same for US author Gordon Dickson's science fiction story ''Twig'' from The Best of Gordon Dickson, while the last line comes from English author J.R.R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion.
Apart from "
where the mothers mysterious and majestic perch,'' the rest of stanza 7, all of
stanza 10, and lines 1-4 and 6-16 of stanza 12 are quotations from the Barakat
Gallery website summations on
Yorùbá staffs, and particularly Ọpa Ọsanyin .
Interpretation of Stanzas
Stanza One
The first stanza interprets Ọpa Ọsanyin in mystical terms, in relation to a quest to perceive the multiplicity of cosmic possibility in terms of its unity of meaning.
These varieties and convergences are referenced as ''the chattering of birds on the tree of life indistinguishable and unintelligible but clarified and luminously meaningful in their individuality and unity the further I climb the pole of Ọsanyin,'' a climb that depicts physical motion in terms of growth in knowledge.
The image of birds on a tree is further developed in cosmological terms through their identification with Àwọn Ìyá Wa and Àwọn Odù Ifá, described as ''the mothers dreaded and yet venerated, wombs of totality where time and space converge with infinity.''
Àwọn Ìyá Wa, Our (Arcane) Mothers, are feminine personalities who may be described as representing the creative and destructive capacities of the universe. Àwọn Odù Ifá are expressions of Odù, an archetype of Àwọn Ìyá Wa.
Odù integrates cosmic and individual processes depicted by Odù Ifá, the primary organizational categories and active agents of the Yorùbá origin Ifá system of knowledge.
This description of
Odù Ifá
adapts the ideas of babalawo, adept in the esoteric knowledge of Ifa, Joseph Ohomina, which I discuss in ''Cosmological Permutations : Joseph Ohomina’s
Ifá Philosophy and the Quest for the Unity of Being'' ( Blogger, LinkedIn, Facebook).
The idea of the convergence of time and space with infinity alludes to the divinatory process in Ifa, in which the wisdom of Odù , a wisdom that is both cosmic and human, is brought to bear on human concerns.
This conjunction is pursued through the use of the knowledge matrices, the information system that is Odù Ifá, facilitating the effort to understand, navigate and direct human life.
This process of cognitive convergence may be seen as visualized by vertical and horizontal lines drawn within a circle constituted by some designs of opon ifa, the Ifa divination tray.
The vertical line, in this framework, may symbolize the movement from the past into the present and the future.
The circle could suggest infinity. The point at which the line stretching horizontally from the circle to intersect with the vertical line, and moving on from that intersection to touch the circle's circumference at the opposite end could indicate the present as well as the convergence of the temporal and the infinite in the present through the divinatory process.
The insights emerging from this conjunctive process are known as Odù Ifá, entities perceived as both structures of knowledge, methods of organizing and expressing information and conscious personalities. They are the ''names'' or essential identities of all possibilities of existence, as described by Ohomina. The patterns constituted by these ''names'' indicate the insight into the subject investigated by the diviner during divination.
The birds of Ọpa Ọsanyin are thus depicted as representing both Àwọn Ìyá Wa and Àwọn Odù Ifá, feminine personalities embodying cosmic possibility and its human expressions.
The bird image is used in suggesting transcendence of the laws of nature as conventionally understood, the way that birds seem to overcome gravity through flight. This is an interpretation of the traditional association of Àwọn Ìyá Wa with transformation into birds or with motion of their spirits outside their bodies akin to the unfettered motion of birds through space.
Odù Ifá may also be
conjoined with the bird image because they are expressions of
Odù, an
archetypal feminine principle embodying the creative and destructive
possibilities of a power associated with the feminine and represented by a bird
in a calabash ( Lawal, The Gelede Spectacle, ).
This power may itself be understood in terms of an intensification of àṣẹ pervasive cosmic force which inheres in all phenomena, enabling existence and change. This force is described as amplified in women on account of their ability to integrate the mystery of life and biological forms in their wombs, thereby enabling human life on Earth. The cultivation of this force beyond conventional activities is described as unlocking hidden possibilities of existence, one of these possibilities being the ability to move one's spirit, one's mobile but non-physical essence, through physical and spiritual space.
The symbol symmetry realized by the image of a bird in a calabash may suggest motion across the cosmic totality represented by the sphericality of a calabash, the calabash image being correlative with Igba Iwa, the Calabash of Existence, the cosmos understood in terms of a calabash in Òrìsà cosmology, as described by Lawal ( "Èjìwàpò: The Dialectics of Twoness in Yoruba Art and Culture, 2008), a perspective amplified by Shloma Rosenberg in relation to Olodumare, the supreme reality, understood as ''One who owns the realm of never-ending possibilities.''
Rosenberg describes the units of the name Olódùmarè as constituted by ''olo--owner, odu--repository of possibility, mare--from Oshumare, the serpent of infinity,'' constituting the identification of Olodumare as ''architect of continuous creation...the repository of possibility and circumstance from which each moment is born... the receptacle for Odu... the constellations of possibilities that contain all events past, present and future'' ( "Olorun-God in the Lukumi Faith [ a variant of Orisa spirituality])
The structural coherence of a calabash may suggests cosmic unity. Its sphericality could evoke timelessness and eternity. Its depth may signify the foundations of being and depth of insight into those foundations.
It may therefore be seen as an analogue of opon ifa, which may evoke similar ideas though its circularity of circumference surrounding an empty centre akin to the bottom of a calabash, an empty centre where the Odù Ifá configurations emerge during the Ifa divination process.
These possibilities of metaphysical
and epistemic symbolism, of ideas of cosmic structure and its understanding,
are correlative with the image of the calabash in classical Zulu thought, as
described by Mazisi Kunene in Anthem of the Decades, suggesting interpretive
possibilities of the related Yorùbá origin Òrìsà
In the Zulu context, ''the
rounded calabash of symbolic cosmic power,'' evokes ''the capacity to conceptualise the totality of life at once,'' a kind of awareness akin to ''the
chameleon’s all round vision.'' This cognitive expansion is gained through
the integration of the ''precision mind which analyses and reorganises
the details of the material environment [and] the cosmic mind
[which]synthesizes fragments of information to create a universally significant
body of knowledge.''
''At the highest point of reasoning, significant units of information [merge] with universal concepts [as] the cosmic mind grinds its 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.''
These
depictions of aspiration to a cognitive grasp of cosmic unity are suggested in
the invocation by the understanding of the correlative individuality and unity
of meaning represented by the voices of birds on a tree as well as by the fusion
of the birds into a single bird.
These images are derived from varieties of use of bird images in Yorùbá staffs, which range from the bird constellations of Ọpa Ọsanyin to the depiction of the staff as culminating in a flame like undulation suggesting a bird through associations between the dynamism of fire and that of a bird in flight.
These ideas are subsumed in terms of an image derived from one version of Ọpa Ọsanyin being a constellation of sixteen birds grouped in relation to a central bird, the number sixteen suggesting the number of the primary Odù Ifá and their associations with Odù.
I further interpret this numerical symbolism in terms of qualities of the source of the cosmos expressed as the character of the cosmos and qualities of the human self projected as the character of individual life.
Cosmic self and human self are thus depicted as convergent, with the source of cosmos existing and active within and beyond space and time and the human self likewise existing within and beyond time and space.
These are interpretations of Òrìsà cosmology on the concept of superordinate Ori, the ultimate source of cosmic existence and individual ori, the core of individual existence.
These are expressions referencing ori, the head, the centre of control of the embodied human, as metaphoric for the spiritual centre and embodiment of ultimate possibility of cosmos and human self, also known as ori, as these ideas are depicted, though not elaborated upon, in ''Ayajo Asuwada,'', an Ifa poem quoted by Akinsola Akiwowo in '' Contributions to the Sociology of Knowledge from an African Oral Poetry''( 1986).
Stanza Two
This stanza develops a cosmological depiction of Àwọn Ìyá Wa, conjuncting images of the uncanny with the cosmic, dramatizing the paradoxical depictions of these figures as the aspirant requests entry into their assembly.
The phrase ''available for invocation from within their alliance with powerful forces of the forest,'' evokes their association with Osanyin. This is inspired by conjunctions between the biological and occult powers of plants and human feminine generative powers as concentrations of àṣẹ, creative, pervasive cosmic force emanating from Olodumare, the supreme reality and creator of the universe in Orisa cosmology.
"wombs of possibility" suggests the potential for existence and expression enabled by àṣẹ. The reference to Olodumare, as ''the calabash from which each moment is born'' adapts that formulation from Rosenberg in suggesting relationships between an ultimate generative source, represented by Olodumare, as receptacle for Odù, as described by Rosenberg.
Odù, understood as foundational source of temporal possibility within the complex that is Olodumare, is thus associated with generative force in nature and in human beings, particularly women, as represented by Àwọn Ìyá Wa.
Thus, various aspects of the cosmic tapestry are unified in terms of Àwọn Ìyá Wa, whose paradoxical composition by such opposites represented by their characterization as ''maternal and yet destructive,'' ''kind and cruel,'' suggests a synthesis of the seemingly contradictory qualities of human and cosmic possibility held in balance by an ultimate, mysterious unity.
Hence Àwọn Ìyá Wa are described as ''illuminating and inscrutable,'' representing the human struggle to make sense of the contradictions of existence while harnessing those paradoxes for human benefit.
Stanzas Three to Six
This stanza further develops the bird motif, correlating bird song with nature's voice, avian flight with the mobility of cosmic force and the aerial elevation of birds seemingly above gravity, gravity representing the laws of nature.
These associations are subsumed in the image of Odù Ifá, in their sixteen numbered primary organizational structure as conjunctions of cosmic and spatio-temporal possibility.
Those cosmological associations are further developed in stanza four, correlated with the human female, associations focused within the world of plants represented by Ọsanyin.
These values are consummated in the evocation of conjunctions between human and divine immortality by plants. These correlations are further developed in stanza five and expanded in stanza six in terms of questions of ultimate cosmic purpose against the background of the immensity and dynamism of the cosmos.
Stanzas Seven to Twelve
These stanzas build the image of birds congregating in trees and in flight from trees, associated with Àwọn Ìyá Wa, and which this invocation develops as evocative of expansion of human capacity through cultivation of àṣẹ, pervasive cosmic force.
The stanzas do this by using descriptions of various bird images in versions of Ọpa Ọsanyin. This process culminates in evoking associations between cosmic mystery and depth and the mysterious interior of the forest, conjunctions further integrated by the evocative values of Ọpa Ọsanyin.
Forms of Reality
Do the powers called upon by the invocation exist part from the beliefs of those who identify with them? Beliefs the ideational scope of which are elaborated upon by the invocation through drawing on various sources beyond the immediacies of that belief system?
I don't know.
I find the invocation inspiring though, as evoking known qualities of the cosmos which may be seen as represented by the personifications imaged by Àwọn Ìyá Wa, the feminine embodiment of the creative and destructive capacity of àṣẹ, pervasive cosmic force, Àwọn Odù Ifá, the expression of this force in terms of the identities of all possibilities of existence, integrated within the values associated with Ọsanyin, deity of the spiritual and biological power of plants.
Those definitions, except for that of Ọsanyin, are interpretations of the traditional conceptions. They are therefore convergent with these conceptions without being identical with them and other interpretations. This style of exposition represents my contribution to refining and harmonizing the ideational universe of Òrìsà cosmology.
Can one actually be drawn into a world represented by these figures, through this invocation?
Perhaps. A lot is possible through faith, which this invocation is a means of mobilizing and focusing.
The faith in terms of which the invocation is composed is imaginative rather than fixed. It is playful rather than dogmatic.
It operates on the understanding that spiritualities represent human gropings after inadequately understood realities which exist apart from the human mind or are constructs of the intersection of human mind and cosmos. It is inspired by the understanding that these complexities make the spiritual inaccessible to being fixed by human effort.
Developing Àwọn Ìyá Wa and Aje Spiritualities at the Intersection of Ogboni and Ifa
This invocation, in tandem with my other essays on Ọpa Ọsanyin, is foundational in my contribution to developing Yoruba origin Àwọn Ìyá Wa and Aje spirituality, existing at the convergence of the divine and the human feminine, deeply tantalizing in its possibilities but challenged by contradictory but rich ideas. This initiative is complemented by my work on Ogboni, a Yorùbá origin esoteric order centred on the veneration of Earth as universal mother, represented by her children, the human male and female couple.
Ogboni are creators of powerful artistic expressions of the feminine as a maternal and occult force, in relation to the spiritual power of nature, the same universe of ideas dramatized by Àwọn Ìyá Wa and Aje conceptions.
The Ogboni depictions, however, develop these perspectives in ways that suggest a more harmonious development of the human and the daemonic, the latter being spiritual forces beyond human classification and control, the maternal and the occult, the creative and the destructive, than is evident in the conventional lore of Àwọn Ìyá Wa and Aje.
These efforts are also complemented by my work on Odù Ifá and its roots in Odù, a feminine principle understood as the archetype of Àwọn Ìyá Wa and Aje.
Amplifying this centrality is the understanding of Odù as foundational to the conjunction of cosmic and human existence that the Yorùbá origin Ifá system of knowledge aspires to.
I provide a brief survey of a few other initiatives developing Àwọn Ìyá Wa and Aje spiritualities in ''Womb Wisdom to Cosmic Wisdom: Women and African Spiritualities in Africa and the Diaspora,'' in The Palgrave Handbook of African Women's Studies, ed. Olajumoke Yacob-Haliso and Toyin Falola T (2019).
I expect these initiatives will continue to grow on account of the huge potential of the traditional ideas.
An Invitation
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