Self Initiation into the Universal Ògbóni Philosophy and Spirituality: Reworking Classical African Esoteric Systems : 1

 

This is the first part of a ritual for relating oneself to the foundational spiritual powers and ethical vision of the Earth and humanity centred Yorùbá origin Ògbóni esoteric order.

The ritual is based on an understanding of Ògbóni developed from scholarly research on the esoteric school.

This foundation is developed in terms of the grounding of Ògbóni within classical Yorùbá philosophy and spirituality. These conjunctions are further correlated with philosophical, religious and artistic expressions from Africa, Asia and the West.

This is the first initiatory text of a new school of Ògbóni I am developing, the Universal Ògbóni Philosophy and Spirituality.

The goal of this new school of thought and action is that of publicly demonstrating how to take advantage of the contemporary and timeless significance of Ògbóni thought and culture.

These values are evident to me even as a non-member of conventional Ògbóni who prefers to work out an individualistic approach to Ògbóni thought and culture rather than join an Ògbóni group.

The logic of the ritual, the sources and reasons for the choices of elements included and why they are used the way they are, is presented in the footnotes.

Opening Invocation of Ògbóni, Ilè, Earth and Olódùmarè, Creator and Ultimate Sustainer of Existence

Declare:

I call upon you who embody the wisdom of Ògbóni[1]

in the past, the present and the future.[2]

Visualize[3]

two men and two women

representing those who embody Ògbóni wisdom

in the past, present and future

appear in front of you

and walk to stand on your left, right,

and slightly to your left and right

laying their hands on top of your head

bonding with you as you aspire to the wisdom they personify

transmitting it to you.

Image Above

Edan ògbóni couple, central Ògbóni spirit vessel and symbol, representing Earth, in terms of the unity of men and women, her children.

Continue with declaration:

Venerators of she on whom we walk

whose air we breathe

whose water we drink

from whose body we eat.

Venerators of the mother of the human couple

who make life possible.

Venerators of the family so generated across space and time

her power keeping us aloft within the cosmic void.[4A]

Venerators of the integrator

of our most intimate material existence

with the unplumbable depths of ultimacy

infinitely distant yet achingly intimate.[4B]

May I become that wisdom you embody.

Image Above

Reverence, devotion, total unveiling of self in nakedness, yet dramatizing a quiet majesty, are projected by this profile view of Ògbóni Onile sculpture representing the female identity of Ilè, Earth, in her character as Owner of Earth, the Earth constituting the land on which is built the Ògbóni ilédi, the Ògbóni sacred house of congregation representing the community, the house of which she is the owner as the matrix of Ogboni existence, its venerational centre.

Image from Femi Akinsanya Art Collection.

Touching your finger to your forehead,[5]state:

I call upon, Ilè, Earth, universal mother.[6]

Touching your finger to your heart, affirm:

I call upon Olódùmarè

ultimate creator[7]

owner of the odú calabash from which each moment is born

Odú

mother of all living beings

whose sixteen children shape the rhythm of cosmos.[8]

Touching your finger to your right shoulder, assert:

I call upon the unity of humanity.

Touching your finger to your left shoulder, proclaim:

I call upon the Ògbóni trinity.[9]

Placing your palms together, entreat:

May we be one.

Image Above

The Ògbóni Trinity, composed of Ilé, Earth, centre, flanked by the human male and female couple signifying humanity, framed by a black circle evoking the unplumbable depth of Olódùmarè, creator and ultimate sustainer of existence

Conception and collage by Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

Relax your hands and request:

Look into my heart

search my motives.[10]

May I embody Olódùmarè,

transcendent and immanent,

everywhere, yet beyond all.

May I embody

the power in the multifarious glory of Earth,

stable and dynamic,

rooted yet always in motion.

May I embody

the creativity and unity of humanity.

May I embody the Ògbóni trinity.[11]

Wisdom, love and power

radiating from me to touch all beings

as deeply as possible

as long as being exists.[12]

Àse.[13]

Image Above

Ògbóni in Action

A selection of images emphasizing what is described as the oldest understanding of Ògbóni as a society of elders, in age and achievement, as depicted by Lawal ( ) as well as the solemnity and occult aura of the group, reinforced and enlivened by the symbolism of its culture of dance as depicted by Margaret Thompson Drewal ( ) .

Top left: Ògbóni elder and babalawo-adept in the esoteric knowledge of the Yoruba origin Ifa system of knowledge, Kolawole Ositola, indicating crossroads symbolism, evoking intersection of spirit and matter, on opon ifa, Ifa divination tray, from Henry John Drewal et al, Yoruba: Nine Centuries of African Art and Thought. Top middle: Face of a man likely to be an Ògbóni initiate looking at two edan ògbóni, central Ògbóni symbols; Top right: Ògbóni initiate wearing edan as mark of membership; Middle left: Ògbóni officers in performance, from Henry John Drewal et al; Middle center: Ògbóni elders in conclave, from Henry John Drewal et al; Lower centre : Susanne Wenger, Ògbóni initiate, third from left, with Ògbóni members. Lower right: Ògbóni member in pose indicating supplication and reverence, from Henry John Drewal et al.

[1] Ògbóni is a Yorùbá origin esoteric order centred in the veneration of Earth and of human beings as children of Earth, within the context of Olodumare, creator of the universe. This definition is derived from a combination of the conventional descriptions of Ògbóni in such works as the richest overview of Ògbóni known to me, Babatunde Lawal’s “À Yà Gbó, À Yà Tó: New Perspectives on Edan Ògbóni,” African Arts, Vol. 28, No. 1, 1995, 36-49+98-100 and what I name the Ògbóni cosmogram.

This is a symbol structure evoking human existence in its terrestrial and cosmic contexts, buried under the earth of the Ilédi, the Ògbóni sacred meeting house, to represent the presence of Ilè, Earth as depicted in Dennis Williams’ “The Iconology of the Yorùbá 'Edan Ògbóni’ " (Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, Vol. 34, No. 2, 1964. 139-166;142) and elaborated on by myself in “Ògbóni: From Myth to Physics: Yorùbá Esotericism at the Matrix of Disciplines.”

[2] An effort to relate oneself with the most creative elements in a centuries old tradition, understood as fundamentally sublime, but which has also demonstrated inhumane activities, as evident in Peter Morton-Williams’ "The Yorùbá Ogboni Cult in Oyo," (Africa, Vol. 30, No. 4, 1960, 362-374; 370) a tradition which might also have been abused by some of its practitioners, as suggested by its controversial history.

This invocation of Ògbóni members across time and space is based on the globally widespread belief in various spiritualities that members of the same faith constitute a spiritual family that may influence each other across and beyond temporal, spatial, terrestrial and spiritual limitations. Thus, Christians reference the Body of Christ. The Christian Catholic Church, the Communion of Saints. Classical African spiritualities, ancestors constituted by family ancestors and ancestors in relation to various bodies of spiritual belief and practice beyond the family.

Hinduism is described as emphasizing the need for a guru, understood as both teacher and embodiment of the spiritual wisdom and discipline they represent, a guru who may be alive on Earth or alive in another dimension, including that beyond death, having transitioned from Earth ( Ernst Furlinger , “Lokayàtrà: A Pilgrimage in Two Cultures,” Sàmarasya Studies in Indian Arts, Philosophy, and Interreligious Dialogue. Ed. Sadananda Das and Ernst Furlinger. D.K.Printworld. New Delhi 2005, xvii- xxxiv; xxi).

Along similar lines, an approach to divination in the Yorùbá origin Ifá system of knowledge, for example, is described as that of opening the divinatory process by calling upon previous diviners, bringing “them to the consultation in the world from the otherworld”, an “invocation temporarily making manifest an otherworldly reality” ( Henry John Drewal et al, Yorùbá : Nine Centuries of African Art and Thought. New York: The Centre for African Art, 1989; 23, 25).

Other representative demonstrations of such beliefs include Tibetan Buddhist hermit and poet Jetsun Milarepa calling on his guru, “I pay homage to my Guru, the gracious one/ I pray you to vouchsafe me your grace-waves/Pray help me the mendicant, happily to meditate” (The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa. Translated and Annotated by Garma C.C. Chang. Boston: Shambala Publications, 1962; 77). In one collection of his poetry, Milarepa begins each song recording his experiences with a salutation to his guru ( Tibet’s Great Yogi Milarepa. Trans. Kazi Dawa-Samdop. Ed. W.Y. Evans-Wentz. London: Oxford UP, 1969 ).

He also calls on the assembly of gurus of his Kargyutpa spiritual family, “Vouchsafe your grace waves, O Gurus” ( Evans-Wentz). He visualizes the assembly of gurus in the song
“Pray bless me, all Gurus in my lineage,” declaring “Sitting…the Gurus/ Of the Succession are on my head…like a string of jewels-/Blessed and Joyful is my mind( Chang, 655).

Chang explains the concept of waves of grace the hermit requests from his gurus:

The “Waves of Grace [ Milarepa calls for from the gurus of his school are] the blessing power that emanates from Gurus of a Succession. This blessing power, or grace-wave, is considered to be one of the determining factors of a yogi’s success in his devotion. The speed of his accomplishment is said to depend largely on the intensity and amount of the grace-waves that he is capable of receiving from his Guru ( Chang, 56).

Other representative examples include writers operating across belief systems, as Wole Soyinka’s “I call you forth, all, upon/ Terraces of light. Let the dark/ Withdraw” ( “I Anoint My Flesh,” A Shuttle in the Crypt. London: Rex Collings/Methuen, 1986, 19 ) and Nimi Wariboko’s classical African and Pentecostal Christian inspired “ I…acknowledge all my teachers, past and present…who helped to form and inspire me…I [also] focus on the not-yet born…the distant sound of the footsteps of coming generations…whose coming is expected and whose joy in inheriting and encountering works and ideas left for them by their own deeply excites me. I acknowledge here the inspiration I received from the generations of Africans and Pentecostals who are coming after me ( The Split God: Pentecostalism and Critical Theory. Albany: SUNY Press, 2018. ix-x).

Soyinka’s evocation of a related idea in the Yorùbá context, evoking entry into the world of the ancestors, may be understood as distilling the essence of this conception across various faith orientations:

“Is there now a streak of light at the end of the passage, a light I dare not look upon? Does it reveal whose voices we often heard, whose touches we often felt, whose wisdoms come suddenly to the mind when the wisest have shaken their heads and murmured; It cannot be done?” ( Death and the Kings Horseman. London: Methuen, 1984.186).

The most expansive use of the idea of a community of influence across dimensions known to me is Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, a fictional epic grounded in a European medieval Christian world view, and integrating Greco-Roman culture within a comprehensive sweep of the cultural and social contexts of the poet’s time and place.

It is based on the idea of a community of people departed from life on Earth who act as inspiration and guides to a person living on Earth, leading to his being guided in a journey across the cosmos by representatives of these figures, a journey culminating in a vision of the structure and dynamism of existence.

Translations from Dante’s 13th century Italian to English and scholarship in English on Dante constitute an industry. I find the Penguin Classics translations by Dorothy Sayers and Barbara Reynolds as projecting both the gravitas and playfulness of Dante, illuminated by rich explanations ( The Divine Comedy. Vol. 1 : Hell. Tans. Dorothy Sayers. London: Penguin, 1949; Vol.2 : Purgatory. Tans. Dorothy Sayers. Harmondsworth: Penguin 1980; Vol.3: Paradise. Trans. Dorothy Sayers and Barbara Reynolds. London: Penguin, 1988).

The interpretation of Dante’s poem as a metaphor of human possibility takes its ground from the “Letter to Can Grande della Scala” attributed to him and superbly contextualized in relation to the Western interpretive tradition in The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. Ed. David Richter. Boston: Bedford Books, 1989, 118-121. Works like Christian Moevs’ The Metaphysics of Dante’s Comedy (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005) explore the philosophical implications of this fictional work which is constructed as a spiritual and philosophical journey.

[3] An application of the idea from Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Western esotericism, classical African spiritualities, and other traditions, that imaginative forms may act as a matrix for spiritual force.

The non-African traditions referenced here employ both purely mental forms and physical forms. The African traditions known to me employ only physical forms, which may be concrete, as in sculpture, graphic, as in two-dimensional visual art or performative, as in dance, or a combination of the concrete and the performative, as in mask ritual theatre, a genre of masquerade. The physical forms are imaginative because they signify something that is not physical.

The unifying logic of the relationship between spirit and form represented by these practices could be that spirit, being understood as a form of sentience not limited to physicality, could be drawn by the intention of those acting in relation to the mental and physical imaginative forms, a communication between human and non-human mind facilitated through the imaginative form.

Along similar lines, a physical shrine is seen as playing a related role in Yorùbá spirituality. This understanding is described by Ifá babalawo-adept in the esoteric knowledge of Ifá- and Ògbóni adept Kolawole Ositola:

“A shrine is where a Yorùbá deity "sits," that is, where the spirit of the deity, which is an active force, may reside. … Because it resides at that place, the spirit must be continually fed and nourished through sacrifice. …If a person neglects his shrine, that is, if he does not offer it food-however little-the spirits will leave. Ositola stresses that it is the idea and the intention behind the gift that counts, not the size. Therefore, when a shrine is neglected, ‘all you are seeing are the images. The person has relegated the deities to idols, ordinary images.’”

( Margaret Thompson Drewal and Henry John Drewal, “An Ifá Diviner's Shrine in Ijebuland,” African Arts, Vol. 16, No. 2, 1983. 60-67+99-100. 64 ),

A similar idea is richly thought succinctly developed by Susanne Wenger in relation to her work with her team at the Oṣun forest in Òṣogbo, Yorubaland:

“Wine ferments only in the barrel; so sacred force ripens, secluded in the heart of matter. Our shrines and sculptures…Like winebarrels…seclude the god’s identity so it can once again ferment into some primal manifestation [the] shrines, walls and sacred art [act as] a bridge between gods and the human perceptive imagination, in order to create themselves anew in the image of anyone’s own spiritual demands.”

(with Gert Chesi in A Life with the Gods in their Yorùbá Homeland. Wörgl: Perlinger Verlag, 1983; 138) and which I examine at some length in “Ògbóni :From Myth to Physics: Yorùbá Esotericism at the Intersection of Disciplines.”

[ 4A] From “Venerators of she on whom we walk” to “infinitely distant yet achingly intimate” are my descriptions of Ile, Earth, described by several sources as the centre of Ògbóni veneration.
The richest exploration of this known to me is Babatunde Lawal’s “À Yà Gbó, À Yà Tó: New Perspectives on Edan Ògbóni,” African Arts, Vol. 28, No. 1, 1995, 36-49+98-100, where he examines the scope of this idea, both in terms of Earth and in relation to humanity as expressed in the male and female couple represented in edan ògbóni, a central spiritual vessel and symbolic instrument of Ògbóni, demonstrating the cosmological implications of the Ile, Earth/humanity conjunction, a discussion complemented by majestic photographs of Ògbóni metal sculpture, through which he articulates how these ideas are visualised.
Lawal’s article complements superbly Dennis Williams’ very rich “The Iconology of the Yorùbá 'Edan Ògbóni’ " (1964) , a masterpiece on the unity of Ògbóni art and ritual.

Ògbóni centralisation of Earth, in my view, makes Ògbóni foundational to Yorùbá philosophy of nature, a matrix for the Earth grounded though extra-terrestrially related character of classical Yorùbá thought within the context of the Yorùbá expression “aye loja, orun nile,” ”aye, the world, is a marketplace, orun, the zone of ultimate origins, is home,” a dialectic of the material and spiritual in the Yorùbá context I discuss in

A unifying picture of Ògbóni in relation to Yorùbá philosophy of nature may be developed by correlating Ògbóni elder Kolawole Ositola on Ògbóni as an intergenerational quest for wisdom(Margaret Thompson Drewal, Yorùbá Ritual: Performers, Play, Agency. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1992, 32-38) with accounts of nature understood as a matrix for such quests in Yorùbá thought, such as stated by Abiola Irele on the philosophy of Ijala poetry, the poetry of Yorùbá hunters (“Tradition and the Yorùbá Writer : D. O. Fagunwa, Amos Tutuola and Wole Soyinka,” The African Experience in Literature and Ideology ) and Wole Soyinka’s summation on the same subject (Myth, Literature and the African World. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1976, 28), complemented by other accounts of philosophy of nature in the Yorùbá context, as in Soyinka’s depiction of nature in the concluding poem of The Credo of Being and Nothingness ( Ibadan: Spectrum, 1991, 34), Ulli Beier, The Return of the Gods : The Sacred Art of Susanne Wenger as well as all books written by Wenger, such as A Life with the Gods in their Yorùbá Homeland, The Sacred Groves of Osogboand The Timeless Mind of the Sacred and the superb interview of Wenger, Adunni: A Portrait of Susanne Wenger by Rolf Brockmann and Gerd Hotter.

[4B] Ilé, Earth, in Yorùbá cosmology, in congruence with other animist African and non-African cosmologies, may be understood as correlating spirit and matter, the world of ultimate origins, orun, where Olodumare, the ultimate creator, is focused, and the material universe, a conjunction represented in graphic terms by the image of the crossroads, and its abstraction in the picture of an intersecting horizontal and vertical line, central symbols in continental and Diaspora African spiritualities.

This image is represented, with particular vividness by the conjunction, in Orisa and the Diaspora religion, Voodoo, of the crossroads with the deity Esu, representing the interrelation of various domains of existence, ( Roger Desmangles,“The Origins of the Christian Cross in Vodun,” Solimar Otero, “Èṣù at the Transatlantic Crossroads: Locations of Crossing Over,” Yorùbá God, Power and Imaginative Frontiers. Ed. Toyin Falola. Durham: Carolina Academic Press, 2013, 191-213 ).

Norma Rosen is most acute in describing the deployment of this symbolism of intersecting lines in evoking the demarcation and unification of physical and spiritual space, temporality and infinity in Benin-City Olokun worship ( “Chalk Iconography in Olokun Worship” ).

Relationships between this image of intersecting lines, evoking spatio-temporal intersections within physical and spiritual space, with infinity, evoked by the circle within which such an intersection may be drawn, are demonstrated both in Rosen’s account and in Marcus Ifalola Sanchez’ interpretation of the circular symbolism of the opon ifa, the Ifa divination board, at the centre of which the intersecting lines may be drawn, as this process is described by Henry John Drewal et al and as interpreted by Sanchez.

[5] Adapted from Christian Sign of the Cross. A simple but effective method of creating sacred space around oneself by identifying oneself with particular spiritual identities at various points of one’s body. The Western esoteric Ritual of the Pentagram develops an expanded form of the same sign while the Hindu Sri Devi Khadgamala Stotram uses the same strategy of identifying oneself with deity by touching different parts of one’s body.

It can also be used as a means of protection against spiritual attack and bad dreams.

An underlying theory of such identifications of self with spiritual identities is the belief that the aspirant is imaginatively enacting a reality underlying their existence but which is not readily perceptible, a reality the symbolic gestures help to bring one closer to perceiving.

[6] Ile, Earth is described by several sources as the centre of Ògbóni veneration.

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Ògbóni in Action

[7] This text was first composed in terms of the idea of Olódùmarè as ultimate creator in Yorùbá cosmology, an idea derived from Bolaji Idowu’s Olodumare: God in Yorùbá Belief (1962) which presents Olodumare as conventionally depicted as male in imaginative terms, though transcendent of gender.

Encountering Adeyinka Bello’s seemingly contrastive characterization of the female deity, Odu, in Yorùbá cosmology as the “mother of all living beings” (“The Role of ‘Iyanifa’ in Ifa Divinatory System Among the Yoruba”, Unpublished text, ) helped me integrate the disparate accounts of a female divinity acting as foundational creator.

This feminine creator is represented by symbols evident in Ògbóni and Ifa. These symbols are white chalk, red camwood dust, mud and charcoal. They are described as the contents of the interior of Igba Odu, the Calabash of Existence representing Odu, the female principle in Ifa. In the context of Igba Odu, they stand for the four primary Odu Ifa, active agents and organisational symbols of Ifa:

Bascom quotes Johnson as describing the Igba Odu as a structure composed of a fractal sequence:

The Igbadu is a covered calabash,containing two small vessels made from coconut shells, cut, each into two pieces in the middle, and which holds besides something unknown to the uninitiated, one a little mud, another a little charcoal, and another a little chalk, and another some camwood, all of which are intended to represent certain divine attributes and which, with the vessels containing them, represent the four principal Odus[multi-ontological organizational forms and sentient, empowering agents in Ifa] - Eji Ogbe, Oyekun Meji, Ibara Meji, and Edi Meji - and this calabash is deposited in a specially and well prepared wooden box called Apere.

The box is regarded as very sacred and as an emblem of Divinty, and is also worshipped. It is never opened except on very special and important occasions, as when a serious dispute perhaps a serious difference is to be settled, and not without washed hands and the offering of blood to it...and the room where it is deposited is considered so sacred that no woman or uninitiated person may enter into it, and the door opening into it is generally beautified with chalk and charcoal colouring, giving it a spotted appearance.

Bascom quotes Epega as emphasising the dangerous numinousity of the calabash:

Epega (1931:16)refers to the “Igba Odu” (Odu Calabash) or, as it also called, Igba Iwa,(the Calabash or Container of Existence)...In this calabash wonder-working charms are stored by a great babalawo who gives directions as to how it is to be worshipped, with the strict warning, of course, that it that it should never be opened expect the devotee is exceedingly grieved and therefore anxious to leave this world. Igba Iwa is so made as not to be easily opened.

Dennis Williams develops these ideas further in his elucidation of the concept of the archetype in the interpretation of sacred forms in African art:

This we may regard as the aboriginal material in which the spirit of the orisa, or god, having been first invoked in the cult, assumed spatial identity. This is not a human construct but merely an expression in matter of various attributes of the Orisa-attributes which are thought of as being inherently contained in certain substances, each valued for qualities proper to itself. Thus in the Yoruba Ogboni cult the Ille-the Earth Principle-is localised, buried in the inner sanctuary, indwelling in such substances as chalk, mud, camwood, charcoal and the skulls of various animal sacrifices. These are the ultimate determinants of the sanctification of the shrine: they symbolise the four elements in the Ogboni system-Olorun(the Sky God),Ille (Earth),blood (judgement),and human being, respectively represented by powdered chalk, pure black mud from the river, powdered camwood, and human being powdered charcoal collected from fires on which food has been cooked for members of the cult. ”These substances are gathered together in four calabashes previously used by members.

These natural substances, materialising the concept of the Orisa, or god, are not subject to change or to regional adaptation. Verger has described such substances as ‘objects which transmit from generation to generation those secrets which gave the first priest power over the Orisa: coercive words pronounced at the time of the cult’s establishment, elements which enter its mystical constitution-leaves, earth, animal bones, etc’.[2]Herskovits records that the Dahomean layman, asked about the nature of the vodun, replies: ‘The vodun itself is in the ground. One does not know what it is. It is a power...the force that goes about in the temple’. Such substances, buried in the earth floor or the earth wall of the shrine, are held to contain the spirit of the Orisa; they localise this spirit and render it open to communication and control.

Gleason expounds on the epistemic significance of this symbol:

To ‘see’ Odu [a climatic stage in the initiation of the Ifa priest]is to look in all directions at once, to look back to the moment of one’s own conception, to grasp-from this new perspective-the horizontal plane of existence, the brotherhood of all who tread the earth; below to the realms of the earth-and that of the dead...upward to the stars and the cosmic order exemplified above.

The cosmic and numinous elements of this supreme symbol emerge in the opening of the traditional poem Fatunmbi presents on the origins of the cosmic calabash that is Odu:

Osa Meji is[a] rich, powerful cosmic scream. Ringing bells arrive from the vaults of Heaven. Ifa was consulted for Odu on the day Odu was making the journey from Heaven to Earth....

Ohomina elaborates on the cosmological significance of Odu in terms of her manifestations, understood as multi-ontological forms, being simultaneously sentient agents and hermeneutic and organising principles:

The Odu are the names of spirits whose origin we do not know. We understand only a small fraction of their significance. They are the brains behind the efficacy of whatever we prepare[alluding to all activity of Ifa understood as technologies for activating and directing ase, the power that enables being and becoming,and which, sustaining the calabash of existence, enables all natural processes]. They are the spiritual names of all phenomena, whether abstract or concrete: plants, animals, human beings, the elements, and all kinds of situations. Abstractions such as love, hate, truth and falsehood; concrete forms such as rain, water, land, air and the stars; and situations such as celebrations, conflict and ceremonies, are represented in spiritual terms by the various Odu.

In an ese ifa, an Ifa story, not explicitly related to Igba Odu, these forms are the contents of the four calabashes given to Odu in her identity as Iya Agba, the venerable aged woman living under the earth, the mother of the orisa, the deities, by four of her children, representing a pact she makes with them to that grant wishes to those who approach her in their name.

These symbols are also described as those that define the evocation of Ile, Earth, in Ògbóni iconography. They are depicted as buried under the earth of the iledi, the Ògbóni sacred meeting house, to represent Earth ( ). Their symbolic reach in the iledi configuration is particularly comprehensive, chalk representing Olodumare, mud, Earth, charcoal, the human being and red camwood dust standing for blood. Thus, Earth is depicted as subsuming both Olodumare and the human being, along with other creatures, symbolised by both Earth and blood.

The identical character of these symbols, in relation to female spiritual powers, divinities of superlative creative enablement, Odu and Ile Earth, suggests cross fertilization in the creation of these symbols.

This conjunctive identity suggests that these two deities and their symbolic configurations are best appreciated in terms of a unity of identity and symbolic significations, an implicit unity between Ifa and Ògbóni that creates a more powerful ideational complex when explicitly correlated.

These figures, Odu and Ile, in being depicted in the superordinate terms more conventionally attributed to Olodumare in the written literature, suggests the existence of a female centred conception of ultimate creativity.

This feminine orientation parallels those centred around the male characterization of Olodumare, the more prominent one in the written literature, a literature that is itself a process of distillation and synthesis by writers from a more variegated system demonstrated by various oral traditions , as argued by ( Yorùbá Theologians).

The pattern in the characterization of ultimate creativity in written accounts of Yoruba literature may thus be seen as one in which the characterization of this creativity in masculine terms is dominant. The feminine characterization is also evident in this literature but is not prominent.

In this regard, the Yoruba example demonstrates some similarities with the Hindu dialectic between the male Shiva and the female Shakti. Both are at times depicted in art and literature as existing in tandem, in equality of existence or in terms of one as an expression of the other or in terms of one without reference to the other, with the sole feminine or masculine personality described as cosmic originator and sustainer.

In being depicted in terms of equality of existence, they may be portrayed as constituting an undifferentiated unity, as in the sculptural form, in which Shiva constitutes one half of a human form while Shakti constitutes the other half.

A more dynamic representation of this unity is the in which the lingam or phallus of Shiva, understood as a symbol of cosmic creativity, is depicted as embedded in the yoni, female genitalia understood as agent of cosmic creativity, of Shakti.

This equality of being is also evoked in the dice game between Shiva and Shakti, in which the dice are the constituents of existence and the board on which the game is played is the cosmos.

A literary example demonstrating this equality of being is Abhinavagupta’s opening stanza in such works as the Tantraloka, the Tantrasara and the Paratrisika Vivarana with a stanza dramatizing this unity of the masculine and the feminine principles in terms of the union of his father and mother, depicted as incarnation of those metaphysical foundations of existence represented by the dynamism of Shiva and Shakti, with his emergence from this union dramatizing the emergence of cosmic nexus, the heart of existence, from the interplay between these masculine and feminine principles.

While projecting an idea of equality of existence between the masculine and the feminine principles, Abhinavagupta proceeds in the rest of that first chapter of the Tantraloka to depict the feminine principle, Shakti, as an expression of the qualities of the masculine principle, Shiva, “the flame and the heat of the flame,” “power and the possessor of power,” an agent and its reflection in a mirror, being among some of the metaphors he uses to portray this rhythm of identity.

Abhinavagupta’s eventual subtle foregrounding of the masculine principle is complemented by the contrastive foregrounding of the feminine principle in the opening line of the Soundaryalahari, the Billowing Waves of the Ocean of Beauty, a central text of veneration of Tripurasundari, a manifestation of Shakti, as all Hindu Goddesses are understood in Tantric Hinduism as a manifestation of this ultimate feminine principle.

“Without Shakti, Shiva cannot stir” declares this opening line, depicting Shiva as inert in the process of cosmic creativity unless galvanised by Shakti. Within the same text, the cosmos is described as created from the hem of the skirt of Shakti, as she seats on a throne held up by male deities.

The geometric form the Sri Yantra also dramatizes the female privileging equivalent of Abhinavagupta’s strategy of opening some of his texts with a stanza celebrating the harmonious equality of Shiva and Shakti while expounding on this equality in terms of the feminine as subsumed by the masculine.

The four upward facing triangles of the yantra represent the masculine principle Shiva while the five downward facing triangles stand for the feminine principle, Shakti. The entire structure, however, composed of the dot or bindu at the centre, evoking, in one interpretation, the union of Shiva and Shakti in generating the cosmos represented by the intertwined dynamism of the masculine and feminine principles represented by the downward and upward facing triangles, surrounded by concentric circles of unity and four squares indicating the material cosmos in terms of the four directions of space, is described as the the geometric form pf the Goddess Tripurasundari, understood as the cosmos in both its seed form, as potential and the manifestation of this seed form, the dynamic actuality that is the cosmos.

Along similar lines, Olodumare is subsumed within Ile, Earth, in the Ogboni iledi ritual conguration, evoking the character of Ogboni as an Earth centred spirituality, in which all possibilities of being accessible to humanity as the human race exists on Earth are mediated through the enablement of humanity’s terrestrial existence, represented by the intersection of the ultimate and the immediate, of spirit and matter. Earrh as the final authority, as Morton-Williams puts it of Ogboni thought.

“Earth existed before the orisa and the Ogbni cult before kingship,” one Ogboni expression sates, suggesting, in my view, the dimension of Yoruba philosophy that recognizes the preeminence of humanity, enabled by Earth, in the enablement of the existence or recognition of deity, “Without the knowing of divinity by man, can deity survive?”, as Wole Soyinka renders a Yoruba expression presented by Adeleke Adeeko as “Enoyan osi, imale ko si,” which he translates as “No humans, no orisa.”

The approach I adopt in this text in representing ideas of ultimate creativity in relation to Olodumare and the feminine personalities of Odu and Ile a is to begin with the approach that depicts Odu as a dimension of Olodumare, “ the constellation of possibility and circumstance from which each moment is born, ‘’ as described by Shloma Rosenberg, and proceed with a line that depicts her as mother of all living beings, and progressively depicting a more independent image of the feminine principle, culminating in the “ concluding meditation,’’ where Iya Agba is depicted as the creator and sustainer of existence.

The approach of depicting Odu as an aspect of Olodumare parallels the Hindu approach of depicting the female Shakti as an aspect of Shiva, as in the first stanzas of the Soundaryalahari, the Billowing Waves of the Ocean of Beauty, a central text of veneration of Tripurasundari, a manifestation of Shakti, as all Hindu Goddesses are understood in Tantric Hinduism as a manifestation of this ultimate feminine principle.

The complex of depictions of Olodumare, the Yorùbá idea of an ultimate creator, particularly as presented in Bolaji Idowu’s great and possibly unequalled Olodumare: God in Yorùbá Belief ( ) is marked by a relationship between the entertaining and the reverential. This might be a distinctive contribution to the global body of discourse about ultimate being/ultimate reality, which is often marked by an emphasis on efforts to portray the seriousness and awe of the subject.

This quality of classical Yorùbá religious discourse evokes the stories of Zen Buddhism’s very different style of accomplishing a related blend of the playful and the serious, as I discuss in ( Oxford Encyclopaedia of African Thought, 2011).

Idowu’s combination of analytical thoroughness, ideational range and dexterity in marshalling the wealth of Yorùbá oral literature in exploring the subject of Olodumare within the scope of Yorùbá cosmology, is so powerful I am not aware of any effort on the same subject that aspires to that level of achievement.

He employs an interpretation of the relationship between Olodumare and the Orisa, deities, which may have been derived from a depiction of relationship between God and his angels in Christianity, the idea of the Orisa as ministers of Olodumare.

Ulli Beier, however, in The Return of the Gods, employs what may be described as an epistemological approach to interpreting this relationship. He depicts the Orisa as windows, as it were, into the configuration of the cosmos, with each Orisa representing the cosmos as seen from a particular perspective, Olodumare being the summation of all these perspectives, the Orisa understood as being practically infinite, although a few are prominent.

Another particularly rich effort, closer to that of Idowu, is Shloma Rosenberg’s essay on a number of names of Olorun, one of the names of Olodumare, in Lukumi, a diaspora version of Yorùbá Orisa spirituality ( Mystic Cuirio). Rosenberg’s account demonstrates a keen philosophical sensitivity that makes it exciting and memorable.

A different approach from these efforts to interpret the tradition in terms of its metaphysical coherence is provided by Karin Barber’s depiction of the social processes through which these beliefs are constructed, as demonstrated by verbal art, as in “ How Man Makes God in West Africa : Yorùbá Attitudes Towards the Orisa” ( Africa, Vol. 51, No. 3, 1981,724-745) and “ ‘Oríkì’, Women and the Proliferation and Merging of ‘òrìṣà’ “ (Africa, Vol. 60, No. 3, 1990, 313-337).

[8] These are the primary sixteen Odu Ifa, active agents and organizational categories of the Yoruba origin Ifa system of knowledge. Odu may be understood as the matrix from which emerges these figures, understood as human cultural forms expressed as graphic symbols symbolizing literary forms, as well as entities with their own distinctive but correlative identities, “spirits whose origin we do not know and about whose significance we know little, the names of all possibilities of existence” as described in a personal communication by babalawo, adept in the esoteric knowledge of Ifa, Joseph Ohomina, a perspective I discuss in “Cosmological Permutations: Joseph Ohomina’s Ifa Philosophy and the Quest for the Unity of Being.”

This initiation text integrates Ifa and Ogboni, Odu and Ile, Earth, as two expressions of the same identity, Ogboni, venerating Earth, of whom Odu is an identity or Earth an identity of Odu, Odu, possibly understood as a cosmic identity in the Ohomina interpretation, embodying the spiritual names, the essential identities of all phenomena, from the stars to the elements to love and conflict, and Earth as the concretization of these possibilities in terms of the terrestrial plane.

[9] The “Ògbóni trinity” is my formulation of what I understand as the three central values of Ògbóni cosmology-Earth, the human being and Olodumare, as deduced from the visual symbolism of Ogboni art as it resonates with the Ogboni cosmogram, a symbol structure evoking human existence in its terrestrial and cosmic contexts, buried under the earth of the ilédi, the Ògbóni sacred meeting house, to represent the presence of Ile, Earth as depicted in Williams ( 1964, 142) and elaborated on by myself in “Ògbóni: From Myth to Physics: Yorùbá Esotericism at the Matrix of Disciplines.”

[10] Inspired by Dennis Williams’ ( 1964) description of Ògbóni initiation as conducted in total nakedness of the initiate and semi-nakedness, stripped to the waist, of all fellow Ògbóni in attendance, in which the Oluwo, the head of the Ogboni Ilédi, the sacred Ògbóni meeting house, bathes the initiate. This nakedness evokes ideas of total openness to each other and openness to Earth, witness to and ultimate guide in all matters Ògbóni.

As summed up by Evelyn Roache-Selk, the Ògbóni initiate is made to understand that “ Earth and the minions of Earth will see into his guts forever, that nothing can possibly be concealed from their gaze (From the Womb of Earth: An Appreciation of Yorùbá Bronze Art. Washington D.C. : University Press of America, 1978.15).

Williams’ account, from Chief Oṣa, a senior Ògbóni elder in Iwo, is compelling:

“A bath is prepared in the ilédi for the initiate. This is a large urn in which is immersed the new pair of edan which had previously been purified in the blood of a pigeon. The bath is completed by the addition to the water of certain medicinal herbs. The initiate is washed by the Oluwo-head, hands, feet, and genitals-and is then wrapped in a white sheet from the waist downwards. Virtues of every description are invoked upon him by the Oluwo, after which he spends the remainder of the day in prayer, asking for strength and purity.

Later in the day ile is consulted to ascertain whether the rites have been appropriate and the initiate acceptable.

…

If the rite has not been appropriate and the initiate acceptable another must be made, and this could be required by the Oluwo to be more elaborate, calling for a more expensive sacrifice. This emphasis on the acceptability of the initiate and the appropriateness of the rite impresses upon him the need of acquiring the requisite state of purity in his relationship with Earth.

…

During invocation all the protagonists in the Ilédi are nude but for an apron or waistcloth, signifying the immediacy of the relationship meant to exist between man[ humanity] and Earth. All edan are rendered nude.

When the rite has been accepted by Ile as appropriate and the initiate signified as acceptable, a meeting is held in the afternoon at which all cult members dance, the initiate being especially fervent in his dancing, invoking sundry desirable virtues to enter into him and possess him [ or her].

The bath in which he had been purified stands meanwhile in the Ilédi covered with a white sheet which had been part of his ' dowry ' to the Ogboni. The rites of prayer and purification continue for seventeen days, after which the initiate is a member of the Ogboni. The Orisha [ deities] invoked during the ceremony are held to be present for a period of four weeks of four days each. They depart on the morning of the seventeenth day” (145-146 and Note 1, 146).

[11] A formulation of the ideas expressed in the immediately preceding stanza, itself summing up my understanding of the central coordinates of Ògbóni philosophy, as deduced from what I name the Ògbóni cosmogram.

This is complemented by the understanding I have gained from Williams’ and Lawal’s (1995) account of the significance, in relation to Ile, Earth of the male and female edan ògbóni, sculptural forms acting as spirit vessels and central symbolic forms of Ògbóni.

[12] An adaptation of the magnificent summation of the Bodhisattva vow in the Mahayana branch of Buddhism, as declared by Santideva in the Bodhicaryāvātra, “ As long as space abides, as long as the world abides, so long may I abide, destroying the sufferings of the world” ( Trans. By Kate Crosby and Andrew Skilton. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1996, 1055. “Dedication.” Chapter 10. Line 55).

[13] A concluding invocation of creative, cosmic power known as àse in Yorùbá cosmology, emerging from Olodumare, the creator of the universe and imbuing all forms in existence with a distinctive creative force, as described, among other sources, in Henry John Drewal et al, Yorùbá : Nine Centuries of African Art and Thought. New York: The Centre for African Art, 1989,; Rowland Abíọ́dún and Babatunde Lawal.

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