Self Initiation into the Universal Ògbóni Philosophy and Spirituality 3:Invocation of Onile
Abstract
This is the third 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.
Here are part 1 and part 2 of the ritual.
Here are part 1 and part 2 of the ritual.
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.
The images come from various sources online. I will provide the credits later. Great thanks to the creators of the images and those who uploaded them.
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.
The images come from various sources online. I will provide the credits later. Great thanks to the creators of the images and those who uploaded them.
Ritual
Invocation of Onile
representing Ilè, Earth, in the Ògbóni cosmos.
Onile is Owner of Earth and of the Ogboni Ilédi, the Ògbóni sacred meeting house, that rests on that Earth.
She thus represents Earth as well as the gathering of her devotees, the Ògbóni, themselves standing for human community, itself ensconced within the community of being that is the cosmos.[1]
Contemplate
Onile
Absorb the image of wild power in the horns of the Onile sculpture. Contemplate the palpitating yet disciplined beauty defined by the shapes and polish of the bodies. Reflect on the venerational stillness expressed by the crouching and kneeling figures. Note their nakedness, dramatizing total identification with sacred mystery. Observe their holding a votive bowl or making the Ògbóni gesture of esoteric knowledge, thumb hidden in fist.
These are expressions of the scope of the Ògbóni aesthetic, its artistic expression of vision.
They project the Ògbóni stance of awareness, of sensitivity to the mystery of existence, to
…the… profound…elusive phenomenon of the cosmic location of [human being] …the patient, immovable and eternal immensity that surrounds [ us, an] undented vastness…the realm of infinity [evoked by the scope of Earth, its immensity of sky, its unplumbed depths]
[ Wole Soyinka, philosopher of Ògbóni, in Myth, Literature and the African World. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1990, 2, “The Ritual Archetype”).
Then proceed to the invocation that follows.
The invocation organizes the cosmos around Onile, using the Ògbóni cosmogram, a symbol structure evoking human existence in its terrestrial and cosmic contexts.[3]
The cosmogram employs the symbols of chalk, for Olorun, the ultimate creator; mud, for Ilè, Earth; charcoal for human beings; and camwood dust for blood.
These four everyday natural substances, drawn from the pervasive presence and seeming ordinariness of Earth, imply a cosmos of associative possibilities, associations concisely described in the invocation.
These motifs demonstrate the sublimity of the seemingly mundane, the cosmicisation of the everyday, emblematizing the creative powers of the feminine, concealed in human womb or womb of Earth, yet enabling, sustaining and regenerating all, a dynamism demonstrated by human existence.
The symbolic substances are ritually buried in the ground of the Ilédi in order to represent the presence of Earth.
The aspirant in this initiation is enjoined to visualize one of these symbolic forms in each of the four areas of space surrounding themselves, thereby integrating these symbols into their image of their own personal space. [4]
The aspirant thereby adapts the burial of these symbolic forms in the Ilédi to represent Ilè. This visualization and its accompanying invocations thereby make the initiate into an ilédi, a sacred space in which Earth is invoked through symbols signifying human creativity in its terrestrial and cosmic framework.
The cosmogram is amplified in the invocation through alignment with central coordinates of Yoruba origin Orisa cosmology. The coordinates employed here are the names and attributes of four representative orisa, deities. These names and qualities are correlated with four representative names and roles of the odu ifa, agents and organizational forms of Ifa, a Yoruba origin system of knowledge used in mapping and shaping the structure and dynamism of existence.
One of the four elements in the Ògbóni cosmogram, in terms of its symbolic form and what it stands for-white, powdered chalk for Olodumare, charcoal, for the human being, powdered camwood for blood and mud, for Earth- is first referenced, followed by an interpretation of that symbolism, then by orisa and odu ifa correlates, concluding with an evocation of Onile in terms of one of her qualities as developed from various sources.
The ritual therefore integrates Ògbóni and Ifa, two central Yoruba origin systems of knowledge, within the cosmographic shape of Orisa cosmology, organizing this configuration around the person of Ilè, Earth, the most immediate human reality within the context of cosmos.
Edan ogboni, representing the human male and female couple, children of Onile
Imagine
suspended in the air in front of you
points of white light
glowing brighter
as you declare:
grains of white powdered chalk
whiteness of dew
falling from orun, the world of ultimate origins
moulding the earth.[5]
I call upon Olorun
Owner of Orun
zone of ultimate origins
infinite depth, translucent beauty
the sky.
Infinitely distant
yet ever near.
Massive quantities of light
from the original explosion that created the universe
coming together as subatomic particles to shape simple elements
forming stars
collapsing and becoming black holes
imploding on themselves
creating fission reactions
sending huge clouds of complex elements throughout the universe
complex elements that cooled to form the solar system
within the solar system evolving the ecosystem that exists on Earth.[6]
Alasuwada, the creator of togetherness, I invoke you
Onile
I call upon
Obatala, the igniter
from whom existence tumbles[8]
chief of the white cloth
fabric binding the universe together
spark of light animating consciousness
existing in all things on all levels of being.[9]
Onile, male and female couple
I salute Èji Ogbè
opener to all possibilities of existence.[10]
The complementary polarities that define all that is[11]
male and female in unity.
I call upon
Onile
embodiment of the all pervading wisdom structuring the physical cosmos.[12]
The everlastingly rolling pot
seeds of permutation
randomness and structure
change and stability.
I offer you a calabash of earth[13]
We who walk on your body[14]
salute your radiance at dawn and dusk[15]
as you lead us
across the complexity of existence to the simple light
where the logic of our mysterious terrestrial journey is made plain.[16]
Onile
Visualize
in the air behind you
a collection of points of deep black
becoming more intensely dark
as you proclaim:
I call upon Oduduwa
mountain unifying mind, world and cosmos
glowing peak concealing hidden bulk
within earth and sea.[17]
I hail Òyèkú Méjì
consolidator of the doors to air and stars, love and hate,
celebrations and conflict
the identities of all that is.
I call upon Onile
pure black mud
between earth and water
between spirit and matter
between life and death.
Earth, mother of mothers on whose body all life feeds.
The space upon and within which life exists.
The nourishing darkness of the earth in which plants grow.
The terrestrial darkness
where the body begins the process that will lead to its dissolving
into the soil to feed other life at the end of its earthly journey.[18]
I offer you a calabash of water
representing the mirror like wisdom you dramatize[19]
enabling one perceive the essence of reality
in which each existent, organic or inorganic
is rooted
as one studies the universe externally and internally
in order to perceive its true state.
Edan ogboni, representing the human male and female couple, children of Onile
Picture
on your right
a cluster of black points
radiating inwardly with red light
increasing in force
as you assert:
I call upon Ogun the fashioner
Iron
valour, creative energy, industry, hunting, warfare.[20]
Ìwòrì Méjì, I salute you
what are the names of each possibility among the leaves that make up the universe?
How do we see the leaves as the cosmos
the cosmos as the leaves?[21]
You are the answer.
I call upon Onile
charcoal
glowing with fire
fire discovered by humans in the struggle for sustenance
evoking human creativity and sources of energy
from the stars to the human body to those created by human hands.
Power of Earth, distant but compelling
the rugged majesty of great mountains
the destructive beauty of the earthquake and the cyclone
the bone crushing immensities of glorious ocean depths.[22]
I offer you a calabash holding a stone
embodiment
of the all performing wisdom
which gives perseverance
and unerring action in all things.[23]
I offer you a calabash holding a stone
embodiment
of the all performing wisdom
which gives perseverance
and unerring action in all things.[24]
Transparent and radiant
glorious and terrifying
empower my heart!
Female figure, perhaps Onile
Envision
to your left
a collection of red points
expanding in brightness
as you assert:
I call upon Ọbalúayé
purifying fire[25]
Òdí Méjì, honoured one
integrator and distributor
through you we must all pass if we are not to be lost in the forest of the multifarious.[26]
I call upon Onile
shimmering flakes of red, powdered camwood
evoking blood
life force of humans and animals
enabling their existence on Earth
participants in the terrestrial theatre
of which the two-legged ones are both actors and spectators.[27]
You who bring strength to the spirit
turning sorrow to wisdom
inspiring endurance in hope.[28]
I offer you a calabash empty of everything but air
without which humans, animals and plants cannot live
everywhere feeding life to all
yet invisible to sight
representing the pervasive yet discriminating wisdom you emblematize
enabling one to know each thing separately yet all things as one.[29]
The beautiful complexity of the contemplative mind
tranquility incubating dynamism
placid without, potent within
alert calm gestating hidden powers.[30]
Edan ogboni, representing the human male and female couple, children of Onile
[1] An interpretation derived from Lawal, with the cosmic contextualization added by myself.
[2] The frontal, foreground image comes from Barakat Gallery. URL: http://store.barakatgallery.com/product/yoruba-brass-onile-sculpture-of-a-kneeling-woman/
The second image, in side view, is from the Femi Akinsanya Art Collection.URL: https://www.femiakinsanyaartcollection.com/gallery/FAk2009.00034/
[3] As depicted in Williams (1964, 142).
[4] An adaptation of a strategy from the Western esoteric tradition, where I first encountered it in the Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram ( Israel Regardie, The Tree of Life: An Illustrated Study in Magic. Ed. Chic Cicero and Sandra Tabatha Cicero. St. Paul: Llewellyn, 2001. 239-247; described, in greater detail, along with the Invoking Ritual of the Pentagram and the hexagram ritual in Regardie’s edited The Original Account of the Teachings, Rites and Ceremonies of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. 6th ed.. St. Paul: Llewellyn, 2003. 280-299 ) and later in the Middle Pillar Ritual, the planting of the symbols of the cosmographic Tree of life in the space around the aspirant, the (, Golden Dawn. Ed Regardie. 89-91) and in Hinduism, in the Sri Devi Khadgamala Strotram ritual ( the most detailed English version known to me being that by the Shakti Saddhana school).
These rituals imaginatively actualise the understanding of the individual as a microcosm of the cosmos by enjoining the practitioner to visualise cosmic symbols as positioned within their personal space, as in Pentagram and Hexagram rituals, or themselves as embodiments of deity, as in the Khadgamala and the Western Assumption of God Form (Regardie, The Tree of Life. 2001.253-261. Also known in Buddhism as Deity Yoga. In the Buddhist and Hindu contexts, this imaginative identification is understood as an enactment of a reality conventionally inaccessible to the human mind but which the meditation facilitates the apprehension of.
This reality is described as the unity of human being and deity in the source of existence from which all possibilities emerge. Hindu theologian Abhinavagupta projects this idea magnificently in his opening lines of such texts as Tantraloka, Tantrasara, Paratrikisika Vivarana in terms of the union of his mother and father as dramatizing the union of thew deities Siva and Skati that generates and sustains the universe, and their giving birth to him as analogous to the emergence of the heart of cosmos that vibrates in harmony with the union of these deities.
Jaideva Singh’s translation of the Paratrisika brings out these ideas vividly while Bettina Baumer’s Abhinavagupta’s Hermeneutics of the Absolute expounds richly on them, complemented, among other sources, by Christopher Wallis interpretation of the passage in his translation of Tantraloka chapter 1. The most detailed analysis of those lines is Alexis Sanderson’s while Paul Muller Ortega’’s The Triadic Heart of Shivaexplores in detail this idea of the union of human and divine heart.
I discuss conjunctions between the Abhinavagupta’s Tantric idea of the human couple as embodying deity with the Ogboni image of the edan ògbóni couple as representing Ile, Earth, in . The edan ògbóni image also implies an erotic dimension highlighted in the nakedness and at times prominent genitalia of the figures. I also discuss this aspect of the edan, in its intersection with Tantric thought, particularly Abhinavagupta’s.
This sacred eroticism implies an understanding of the sacrality of the human body and of nature, an idea also developed in Yorùbá thought, with particular reference to the feminine, as I discuss in in. Kerry Martin Skora’s series of articles examines in depth the implications of Abhinavagupta’s sacred eroticism and its relationship to a philosophy of nature.
A book length translation of Abhinavagupta’s chapter dedicated to erotic ritual is while Lilian Silburn’s contains a beautiful translation of a summative passage of that text, which I also discuss in relation to Ògbóni in, referencing its English translation,
Female edan, nursing a child
[5] The use of white, powdered chalk in representing Olorun, another name for Olodumare, the creator of the universe, is here complemented by the imagery of dew falling from orun, the place of ultimate origins, to mould the Earth and enable existence on it, as depicted in “Ayajo Asuwada,” a poem from the Yorùbá origin Ifá system of knowledge, perhaps first translated by Akinsola Akiwowo in “Contributions to the Sociology of Knowledge from an African Oral Poetry”
(International Sociology, 1986. Vol. 1. No. 4. 343-358).
Babatunde Lawal discusses this poem in relation to the feminine principle of deity, in Yorùbá spirituality, with particular reference to Ile, Earth, the centre of Ògbóni veneration, in The Gelede Spectacle:Gender and Social Harmony in an African Culture ( ).
[6] I am yet to find my source for this beautiful summation of the current scientific account of cosmogenesis.
[7] Translated by Babatunde Lawal from “Ayajo Asuwada” (Akiwowo, 1986) in The Gelede Spectacle : Art, Gender and Social Harmony in an African Culture. Seattle University of Washington Press,1996.21.
[8] Obatala, in his character as Orisanla, the Great Orisa, is described in one myth as the source of all the other orisa. The orisa are understood, in this context, as the splinters of his being which broke into fragments when his slave Àtuńdá rolled a rock on him. Beier presents this myth, in relation to an examination of the nature of the orisa as individual and as a collective, in The Return of the Gods, presenting it as an image of expansion of possibilities of viewing the cosmos, each orisa representing a vantage point on the cosmos. Wole Soyinka explores the myth in relation to ideas of individuality and unity towards the conclusion of his poem “Idanre” (Idanre and Other Poems. London:Eyre Methuen, 1979, 57-88. 65, 68-69, 81-83).
Among engagements with Soyinka’s deployment of this myth is Niyi Osundare’s “Wole Soyinka and the Àtuńdá Ideal: A Reading of Soyinka’s Poetry” (81-97). Exploring questions of creativity within the matrix of Soyinka’s deployment of the mythic complex to which Àtuńdá belongs is Nouréini Tidjani-Serpos’ “The Postcolonial Condition of African Knowledge: From the Feat of Ogun and Sango to the Postcolonial Creativity of Obatala”( Research in African Literatures. Vol.27. No.1. 1996.3-18).
[9] From “chief of the white cloth” to “existing in all things on all levels of being” comes from Awo Fa’lokun Fatunmbi’s “Obatala : Ifá and the Chief of the Spirit of the White Cloth.”
Edan ogboni, representing the human male and female couple, children of Onile
[10] Eji Ogbe is the first in the odu of Ifá, a sequence of 256 spatial patterns and their graphic and literary correlations constituting the central information organization and storage system of the Yorùbá origin Ifá system of knowledge.
I evoke here babalawo-adept in the esoteric knowledge of Ifá-Joseph Ohomina’s description of the odu Ifá as not simply human creations but the “names,” the spiritual identities, of all possibilities of existence, a view I discuss in “Cosmological Permutations: Joseph Ohomina’s Ifá Philosophy and the Quest for the Unity of Being.”
Eji Ogbe is being referenced here, and after Obatala and Olorun as representing cosmic emergence and totality, as signifying the existence of a system, Ifá, for exploring this cosmic dynamism, as it is interwoven with the concerns of human life, and working out, through the process of Ifá divination, how the intersection of the human and the beyond-human may be shaped towards human ends.
The inclusion of the Ifá referent here and in each stage of this invocation thereby correlates the nexus of the Ògbóni cosmogram represented by Olodumare, Earth, blood and the human being, with Ifá, thereby unifying and mutually enriching these two central Yorùbá systems of knowledge.
The inspiration for this strategy comes from the almost complete identity between the Ogboni cosmogram, the Ifá story of Iya Agba and her four calabashes under the earth, and as this story is developed by Judith Gleason ( A Recitation of Ifá, Oracle of the Yorùbá ) and as I develop it in the Ìyá Àgbà series of essays ( ) and with Johnson’s account of the contents of the Igba Odu, the Calabash of Odu, representing the female pole complementing the male Orunmila, deity of wisdom, in Ifá ( ).
In the Ifá story, each of the symbolic substances, mud, camwood dust, charcoal and chalk is associated with an orisa, an attribution I replicate in this ritual.
Thus, the Ògbóni cosmogram is expanded in this context into a microcosm of Orisa cosmology, with the four orisa evoked here standing for all the others, organized in relation to Olodumare, as embodied by Earth, representing the material universe and its spiritual identities, identities implicated within Olodumare, the creator of the universe, as the ultimate source, the ground, of the material cosmos, an ultimacy intersecting materiality, an intersection evoked by the image of the crossroads, central to Orisa cosmology in general and to Ifá in particular ( Yorùbá : Nine Centuries of African Art and Thought).
This almost complete identity of symbolic forms demonstrates a deep intimacy of meanings between Ifá and Ogboni, an intimacy centred in the constellation of a symbol configuration around a female figure, Ìyá Àgbà in the Ifá story or as embodying that figure, Odu in the Igba Odu and Earth, in the Ogboni cosmogram.
Lawal’s deduces that all female orisa are best understood as expressions or forms of Ile, Earth, a helpful idea in trying to demonstrate Ògbóni as foundational to Orisa spirituality and Yorùbá philosophy, one of the goals of my work on Ògbóni.
[11] An interpretation of Eji Ogbe correlative with Babatunde Lawal’s observations in a magnificent article, its conceptual breadth and analytical depth amplified by rich visuality as the essay maps the foundations of Yorùbáorigin metaphysics in terms of the principle of complementary duality, “Èjìwàpò: The Dialectics of Twoness in YorùbáArt and Culture.” African Arts. Vol. 41. No. 1. 2008. 24-39. Ògbóni symbolism is discussed on ps. 29-30 and that of Ifa on ps. 30-32.
Onile
[12] “the all-pervading wisdom” is a quote fromthe characterization of the Dhyāni Buddha Vairochana, one of the Five Divine Wisdoms in the Kargyutpa school of Tibetan Buddhism, while the description here of this kind of wisdom is an adaptation of its characterization in the book, both as presented in W.Y. Evans-Wentz, 37.
[13] This idea of successive offerings to the deity, but using my own choice of offerings, is adapted from the Hindu Sri Devi Khadgalama Stotram ritual, in honour of the Goddess Tripurasundari. The complete version of the abridged form of the English translation of the ritual as it as it is known to me, readily accessible, provided free online, is by the Shakti Saddhana group. The calabash motif evokes the biological, metaphysical and cognitive symbolism of the calabash and similar concavities, such as the pot, in classical African thought.
In Igbo thought, it stands for the life nurturing space of the womb. In Yorùbá Orisa cosmology, it indicates the gestative space from which all possibilities of being arise, as Shloma Rosenberg states of the “odu calabash” of Olodumare, the ultimate creator, a version of Igba Iwa, the Calabash of Existence, representing the unity of spirit and matter, of orun and aye.
In Zulu thought, it signifies the cognitive grasp of all possibilities of existence, as described by Mazisi Kunene (Anthem of the Decades, ). Susanne Wenger uses the question “which comes first, the pot or the space inside it?” in evoking paradoxes of being in relation to classical Yorùbá thought in A Life with the Gods in their Yorùbá Homeland ( Worgl: Perlinger Verlag, 1983 ).
Conjoining the biological, metaphysical and cognitive symbolism of the calabash in these examples is Igba Odu, the “Calabash of Odu” in the Yorùbá origin Ifásystem of knowledge. Ifá tries to map all possibilities of existence and shape them in relation to human needs. Igba Odu may be seen as signifying existence as a hermeneutic possibility, a dynamic form open to understanding, symbolized by the feminine identity known as Odu, teacher of the Ifá system of knowledge to her husband Orunmila, divinity of wisdom, thus demonstrating intimacy of being and of cognitive generation in relation to this knowledge system.
Edan ogboni, representing the human male and female couple, children of Onile
Judith Gleason describes Igba Odu, the “Calabash of Odu,” as representing the possibility of looking:
in all directions at once…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 earth-and that of the dead [and] upward to the stars and the cosmic order exemplified above ( A Recitation of Ifá, Oracle of the Yorùbá .
Evoking this range of generative symbolism, biological, metaphysical and cognitive, is the ubiquitous presence of the calabash, in relation to the feminine form, in Yorùbá religious sculpture, demonstrated in the image of a woman holding a bowl in the art dedicated to various deities as well as in some examples of the agere Ifá, in which the bowl holds the sixteen sacred palm nuts used in consulting Ifá through a divinatory process. The conjunction of the divinatory instruments and the concave container, particularly as held by a female figure, mobilize ideas of biological gestative potential with those of cognitive potential represented by the divinatory instruments, as Rowland Abíọ́dún’s observations in “Hidden Power : Oṣun, the Seventeenth Odu” (27) may be developed.
Female edan
[14] This is an adaptation of a celebration of Ile, Earth, from 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, 41, translated by Lawal from Adeoye, C. L, Igbagbo ati Esin Yorùbá . Nigeria: Evans Bros. 1989:
Earth is the mother of the "One
who wakes up to meet honor,"
otherwise known as Edan
May we not step on you with the
wrong foot
May we step on you for a long time
For a long time will the feet walk
the land
May we not step on you, Earth,
Where it will hurt you.
[15] “your radiance at dawn and dusk” to “where the logic of our mysterious terrestrial journey is made plain”[15] is inspired by the address to the goddess Elebereth in J.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings Vol. 1 : The Fellowship of the Ring: “We still remember, we who dwell/ in this far land beneath the trees,/Thy starlight on the Western Seas” ( London : George Allen and Unwin, 1979, 114)
[16] “ as you lead us/across the complexity of existence to the simple light/ where the logic of our mysterious terrestrial journey is made plain” is inspired by Dante Alighieri’s summative perception of cosmic harmony in Paradise, the culminating book of his Divine Comedy, in which “all the leaves scattered throughout the universe,” representing all aspects of existence, all substances, phenomena, their accidents or qualities, and the relationships between the substances and their qualities, are perceived as “one simple light” (The Divine Comedy 3 : Paradise. Trans. Barbara Reynolds. London: Penguin, 1988, 345;348.
[17] An invocation of Oduduwa, the identity as deity rather than as human progenitor of the Yorùbá . The imagery used here is inspired by Susanne Wenger’s A Life with the Gods in their Yorùbá Homeland where she describes Oduduwa as
[18] This interpretation of the symbolism of mud is influenced by Paula Ben-Amos’ "Symbolism in Olokun Mud Art"( African Arts, 6/4: 28-31) and Ndubuisi Ezeluomba’s “The Explanation of a Text with Reference to the Mud Sculptures of Benin.”Black Arts Quarterly 33, Vol. 12, Issue 1. Winter 2007 . URL:www. stanford. edu/group/CBPA/BAQWinter2007. pdf. Accessed 25/12/09.
[19] “The mirror like wisdom” is a quotationof the characterization of the Buddha Akṣḥobya, one of the Five Divine Wisdoms in the Kargyutpa school of Tibetan Buddhism, as described in Evans-Wentz, 37.
[20] Quoting Lawal on the associations of Ogun
[21] An adaptation of Dante Alighieri’s cosmic vision at the conclusion of the Divine Comedy,
[22] Inspired by the suggestion of rugged power in the sculptural depiction of Ajagbo, a version of Onile, as her character is described and pictured by Peter Morton Williams in “The Yorùbá Ògbóni Cult in Ọ̀yọ́”, Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, Vol. 30, No. 4. 1960, 362-374, 369-370 and the superb image of this figure in Lawal’s “À Yà Gbó, À Yà Tó,” 40.
[23] “the all performing wisdom which gives perseverance and unerring action in all things” is a quote from the characterization of the Dhyāni Buddha Amoga-Siddhi, one of the Five Divine Wisdoms in the Kargyutpa school of Tibetan Buddhism, from Evans-Wentz, 37.
Onile
[24] “the all performing wisdom which gives perseverance and unerring action in all things” is a quote from the characterization of the Dhyāni Buddha Amoga-Siddhi, one of the Five Divine Wisdoms in the Kargyutpa school of Tibetan Buddhism, from Evans-Wentz, 37.
[25] Ọbalúayé is another name for the orisa Ṣònpònnò, associated with smallpox and identified, by Susanne Wenger, with the spiritual and psychological purification that could emerge from suffering, such as the intense suffering that comes with the disease (A Life with the Gods.1983. 168, 173, 175 ). Wenger herself entered the Orisa tradition through a serious illness that opened her to its possibilities ( Ulli Beier, The Return of the Gods. ). I discuss the theme of transmutational suffering at the intersection of Orisa mythology and historical examples in Autobiographical Explorations: Ifa and Vincent van Gogh.
[26] An interpretation depicting the progression of the odu ifa as a sequence of formulation and expansion that dramatizes cosmological progression from an initial complementary polarity represented by Eji Ogbe, the first odu.
[27] Evoking human beings as capable of both immersion in experience and observation and analysis of their experience, a reflexivity that is the foundations and driving force of culture and civilization.
[28] This characterization is adapted from J.R. Tolkien’s depiction of the goddess Nienna in the Silmarillion( London: George Allen and Unwin, 1978,31) , his self created mythology underlying his fictional novels The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
[29] The second and third lines are almost verbatim quotes from the characterization of the Buddha Amitābha, one of the Five Divine Wisdoms in the Kargyutpa school of Tibetan Buddhism, as described in Evans-Wentz, 37.
[30] An interpretation of the aesthetics of the Yorùbá Gelede mask, in its evocation of classical Yorùbá conceptions of the feminine., as I describe this in, referencing, among others,
Edan ogboni, representing the human male and female couple, children of Onile
An Invitation to Donate to this Project
You can contribute materially to this project, facilitating research and publication in Ogboni Studies, consolidating the subject and providing foundations for the unified study of African esoteric systems, bodies of thought and action defined by secrecy in the exploration of knowledge.
Click here to donate at Ogboni Explorations blog.
Comments