Awo is the concentration of intelligence and power that becomes a part of you when you and that nucleus,a sentient force beyond space and time, are ready.It is the invisible presence of the tradition,the teacher who is as intimate to you as your own mind but who enables understanding that your mind alone cannot create.The invisble but palpable presence by your side as you dialogue with this ancient field of knowledge.
Awo is the teacher that you sense at your shoulder as you work with the unseen company of those who have come before and those who never came but yet are.
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"Seated upon a Cubic stone of measured Space-Time whose Light be fixed be but one of many a stone throne, all as one simultaneous to ride as an Eight-Legged Mare, which be tethered to a Tetrahedron World-Tree at the midst of the Cube enclosed by a Dodecahedron. Many a Dodecahedron Universe to Seer while to ride the Eight-Legged Mare at whose centre be one’s inner Star of a Sun behind the Sun of Singular Eye whose Light travelled faster at the Ending of a Beginning, Beginning of an End leading to yet another Beginning Ouroboros, Travelling without Moving..." The first three cubes are computer simulations of the development of the universe.The fourth cube is artist James Turrell's cube of light which evokes the physical and cognitive associations of illumination. The first image is a computer simulation of the evolution of a section of our universe as developed by the Grand Challenge Cosmology Consortium (GC3), a section so huge it would take light,the fastest known phenomenon in the universe,500 million years to cross it. The blue areas depict low density gas and the red areas indicate high density gas formed by gravity following the initial even spread of gas after the creation of the universe. |
You called us and we have come.
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The second image is a simulation of the evolution of the entire universe in terms of its 1.5 billion light years of existence,from just after the Big Bang,the explosion held by scientists to have brought the universe into being,up till the present day, by Michael Norman of the University of California, San Diego,Robert Harkness of the San Diego Supercomputing Center (SDSC), and Brian O'Shea of the Los Alamos National Laboratory,allowing the cosmologists to travel backwards in time and view the history of the universe through studying the formation, growth, and evolution of clusters of galaxies, the largest gravitationally bound structures in the universe. Near the center of the image is depicted a "particularly massive galaxy cluster, with a mass of 2x1015 times that of our sun (that's two quadrillion solar masses)...Galaxy clusters have big central galaxies that tend to have super massive black holes[ an imploded star generating a massive gravitational field from which light cannot escape]. These black holes weigh millions to billions of times the mass of our sun, and produce incredibly energetic jets of gas which stir up the gas in the galaxy cluster." |
When you are planted in awo you know that you are swimming in a mighty,invisible but potent current that is available to you as power.
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The third cube is a "computerized guess of how gas in the universe was distributed billions of years ago, at redshift 3, when the universe was only a quarter of its present age" by the GC3 team, using supercomputers at the National Center for Supercomputing Application and assumptions about the composition and beginning of the universe, in which each side of this cubic representation of the universe is about 8 million light years across, with color representing temperature of the hot gas,with helium abundance superposed with a wire mesh,the entire structure giving insight into the ""past and present structure of the intergalactic medium, the matter inhabiting the regions between galaxies and clusters of galaxies." |
How will you develop and access this power?
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The old woman's wizened face with outer space and the sphere of the earth as a background evokes the celestial aspect of Odu/Ifa as a primordial wisdom,existing before the beginning of time, the foundation in terms of which the universe was created and in terms of which it develops. |
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The fourth cube is James Turrel's installation "Afrum-Proto" evoking solid light, "echoing principles in theoretical physics and creation myths alike, [thereby making ]connections between energy, matter, and a human perception of these cosmological elements". |
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The second image of an old woman is used here to depict Iya Agba,her contemplative serenity radiating meaning projected through the Congo cosmogram on the back wall.The circular path around the four quadrants encapsulates the quatenary division and unification of time,space,cosmic order and hermeneutic progression evoked by the quatenary and circular structure of Igba Iwa and its two dimensional affiliates.These affiliates are the intersecting vertical and horizontal axes and their quatenary realization in Opon Ifa, Benin Olokun Igha Ede and Vodun veves. Beyond Africana cultures, these affiliates are seen in all quatenary cosmological and hermeneutic forms where the circle and the square are conjoined as the seeker makes their way round the circle,immersing themselves in the units that make up thequatenary constitiution and its multiples. |
At the mid point of the axes of being and becoming,you are centred in Iya Agba,ancient and alluring with the seductive force of wisdom and power,given birth to in your soul which is both a transcendental point of light beyond space and time and the dark earth where the ancient one is positioned in the universe that is the forest.
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Three dimensional map of the distribution of dark matter in our cosmic neighborhood in a cube the size of 1.5 million light years. The map was computed using the ARGO-Algorithm to Reconstruct Galaxy-Traced Overdensities, a novel computer program for cosmic cartography developed at the Max-Planck-Institute for Astrophysics (MPA)which permitted an international cosmography team to calculate a three-dimensional high-resolution map of our cosmic neighborhood that shows the distribution of the invisible dark matter in great detail. The map is based on a few hundred thousand individual galaxies. The cartography of the Universe, the cosmography, is plagued by large white spots in contrast to the terrestrial cartography. Stars and dust clouds of our own Galaxy obscure many views, and the dim glow of the most distant galaxies only weakly defines the boarder areas of the observable Universe. As the geographers of medieval times one can try to fill in these white spots with assumptions. However, modern cosmography does not rely on fantasies and legends with dragons and other mythical creatures. It uses statistical methods of signal processing and well developed mathematical theories of the emergence and distribution of galaxies. Missing information cannot be drawn out of a hat with these methods, however at locations with too large gaps, stochastic methods can fill in possible cosmic landscapes, which at least have correct statistical properties. Maps of the universe constructed in this way are of great scientific value, less for the purpose of cosmic navigation, since intergalactic journeys even with the speed of light would require millions to billions of years, but more to study the structure and evolution of the Universe. The distribution of cosmic matter is only partially known since it mostly consists of mysterious dark matter, which we neither see nor know. The visible galaxies trace solely the rough outline of the highly complex network of matter concentrations and filaments, very like the lights of cities on a dark coast line permit us to imagine the countries beyond. The high speed with which ARGO generates maps will in future permit us to combine the steadily growing number of measured galaxies into a common, high-resolution chart of the visible Universe. Simultaneously, any existing uncertainties due to measurement inaccuracies will be characterized precisely. Thereby, the maps become applicable for solid scientific purposes. The construction of such maps was so far a huge computational problem, since in principle each galaxy brings a bit of information for each of the millions of positions of the reconstructed Universe. Earlier attempts to construct such maps required enormous computations on supercomputers, but delivered only maps with moderate resolution. The seeds of the visible structures today were sown in a fraction of the very first second of the Universe. In the following fourteen billion years these structures grew constantly. They are therefore a window into the early epochs of the universe, shortly after the big bang, when space was filled with radiation and hot plasma and there were neither stars nor galaxies. An analysis of these structures reveals properties of cosmic matter, gravitation, which is responsible for the structure growths and the geometrical properties of space-time of the Universe. Good cosmic maps permit further detailed predictions of a number of observable effects. Comparing them to real observations may verify our understanding of space, time and matter. |
Ike di na awaja na awaja-power flows in many channels
The spirit bloweth where it listeth and none knows whence it cometh and whither it goeth
When the student is ready,the Master will appear
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The third image of an old woman suggests here the character of Odu,the centre of the wisdom and power of Ifa,as an ancient personality identified with the earth,one of the planets in the cosmic scope actualized by Odu.The labyrinth in front of the fire indicates the path of knowledge and transformation through the study of Odu,one of whose manifestations is the fractal permutations of the Odu patterns of Ifa as they are developed in terms of combinations that combine the first two basic forms,Eji Ogbe and Oyeku Meji,representing the primary polarities of existence:negative-positive,,masculine -feminine,celestial-terrestrial,in terms of a total of 256 forms which constitute the finite characterization by the human mind in Ifa of the infinite number of initiatory and cognitive possibilties represented by existence. |
The journey of the seeker of awo is through the spiral constituted by the golden calabash formed by the dome of the sky as it touches the earth at the horizon.
Through the paths formed by your movement in body and mind within and across this space you move through the circumference and the four main directions of this spatio-temporal axis.
This is a journey that never ends.
The omo awo-child of awo-will circle the circumference and penetrate through the four foci to reach the centre of igba iwa,the calabash of being,the beginning and the end of all that is and will ever be;
only to start again the spiral progression in which new growth takes place in every round of progression and consummation.
The centre is the circumference and the circumference is the centre.
The centre is limitless and can never be exhausted.
At each of the four quadrants that define your location at that centre is a sphere.
Each sphere a mode of being that shapes the cosmos : Orisa : matter and consciousness.
Each mode of being is represented by a natural form:white chalk,for white light that embodies all other colours,the esence of being from which all else emerges;red dust,for the palpitating blood that ensures the bodily life of the human being;charcoal powder,for the human effort at using nature in shaping the universe and in self sustenance as represented by making fire with charcoal;mud, earth as the primal mother and the darkness of the space beyond life on the planetary sphere.
Each of these contellations of being is a creative principle,the transformative esence of existence,Odu.
Poised at the centre of this constellation you look in all directions at once:
cosmic and terrestrial,celestial and chtonic.
all evoking
the cosmic scope of Odu, the embodiment of creative possibility in the cosmos and the hermeneutic forms through which this creativity is understood.
"... the constellations of possibilities of all events, past, present and future"
a manifestation of Olodumare, "architect of continuous creation",Olodu-the owner of Odu, "the repository of possibility and circumstance from which each moment is born"
a matrix in terms of which all possibilities of the cosmos are actualized and which yet transcends these possibilities,a summation and transcendence dramatized in Aina Olomo,Divine Fire's description of awo as "the dimension of consciousness where the sum total of humanity's inspirations and experiences are alive, existing forever in the minutes of today, of yesterday and tomorrow...a realm of phenomena unavailable for total absorption by the human mind."
As human beings study the transformations made possible by this cosmic framework and motive force,they study aspects of Odu.
"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".
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".
"Hitherto we have explained the phenomena of the heavens and our sea by the power of gravity, but have not yet assigned the cause of this power.This is certain,that it must proceed from a cause that penetrates to the very centres of the sun and planets,without suffering the least diminution of its force;that operates not according to the quantity of the surfaces of the particles upon which it acts(as mechanical causes do),but according to the quantity of the solid matter which they contain,and propagates its virtue on all sides to immense distances,decreasing always in the duplicate proportion of the distances.
Gravitation towards the sun is made up out of the gravitations towards the several particles of which the body of the sun is composed;and in receding from the sun decreases accurately in the duplicate proportion of the distances as far as the orb of Saturn,as evidently appears from the quiescence of the aphelions of the planets;nay,and even to the remotest aphelions of the comets,if those aphelions are also quiescent.
But hitherto I have not been able to discover the cause of those properties of gravitation from phaenomena,and I frame no hypotheses;for whatever is not deduced from phaenomena,is to be called an hypothesis;and hypotheses,whether metaphysical or physical,whether of occult qualities or mechanical,have no place in experimental philosophy.In this philosophy particular propositions are inferred from the phaenomena, and afterwards rendered general by induction.
Thus it was that the impenetrablity,the mobility,and the impulsive force of bodies,and the laws of motion and of gravitation,were discovered.And to us it is enouigh that gravity does really exist,and act according to the laws which we have explained,and abundantly serves to account for all the motions of the celestial bodies,and of our sun.
And now we might add something concerning a certain most subtle Spirit which pervades and lies hid in all gross bodies;by the force and action of which Spirit the particles of bodies mutually attract one another at near distances,and cohere,if contingous;and electric bodies operate to a greater distance,as well repelling as attracting the neighbouring corpuscles;and light is emitted,reflected,refracted,inflected,and heats bodies;and all sensation is excited,and the members of animal bodies move at the command of the will,namely,by the vibrations of this Spirit,mutually propagated along the solid filaments of the nerves from the outward organ of sense to the brain,and from the brain to the muscles.
But these are things that cannot be explained in few words,nor are we furnished with that sufficiency of experiments which is required to an accurate determination and demonstration of the laws by which this electric and elastic Spirit operates".
Image and verbal text credits
First image:
"Cosmic marbles" from http://www.psxextreme.com/ps3-wallpapers/475.html
Second image:
"Watch on the Himalayas" by Nicholas Roerich from the Estonian Roerich Society at http://www.roerich.ee/index.php
Third image:
From "Simulating the Universe" at http://www.astronet.ru/db/xware/msg/1161926/cosmic_gc3_big.gif.html and Astrnomy Piocture of the Day (APOD) at http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/
Fourth image:
From "Time Travel" at at http://www.ncsa.illinois.edu/News/Stories/Timetravel/ from The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), located at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign site
Fifth image:
From Astronomy Picture of the Day at http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/
Sixth image:
From Binah & the Crown Chakra at http://tr-tr.facebook.com/notes/chakra-chakra-chakra/binah-the-crown-chakra/278658867762
Seventh image:
"Afrum-Proto," 1966 (corner projection) Quartz halogen projection; installed at Art Tower Mito, Ibaraki, Japan. Collection Jeanne and Michael Klein. Text and image from PBS series Art in the Twenty-First Century at http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/turrell/card2.html
Eighth image:
Fom the Facebook page of Ayaba OshaBi Awodele Ifaseye-Olomo
Crone from Ye Olde Witches Brew magazine at http://yeoldewitchesbrewmagazine.presspublisher.us/issue-printer/samhain-2009
Ninth image:
From Botánica 7 Angeles at http://www.7-angeles.com/index.html
10th image:
Olodumare from egbeherdeirosdeifa.blogspot.com
From : "Hitherto" to "operates"
From Isaac Newton,The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy,first published n 1687.Trans.by Andrew Motte.On the Shoulders of Giants:The Great Works of Physics and Astronomy.ed Stephen Hawking. Philadelphia:Running Press,2002.733-1160.1159-1160.
From "Seated" to "Moving" by Mark Dunn,Letters, at
[1] I thank Akinbiyi Akinlabi,Professor of Linguistics at Rutgers University, for the tone markings and precision of spelling in the Yoruba version of this expression.
[2] Wande Abimbola, An Exposition of Ifa Literary Corpus.
[3]The conception of forest as cosmos in classical Yoruba thought is expounded in Abiola Irele,The African Experience in Literature and Ideology. 179-181
[4] Dion Fortune, Esoteric Orders and their Work and The Training and Work of an Initiate.London:Thorsons,1995
[5] Awo Fa’lokun Fatumnbi, “Obatala:Ifa and the Chief of the Spirit of the White Cloth”.Scribd. http://www.scribd.com/doc/34173767/Obatala-Ifa-and-the-Chief-of-the-Spirit-of-the-White-Cloth. Accessed 05/10/2010.
[6] A particularly rich exploration of the concept of ori as it applies to human beings is Adegboyega Orangun, Destiny:The Unmanifested Being.Ibadan:African Odyssey Publisher,1998.
[7] Babatunde Lawal Ejiwapo: the dialectics of twoness in Yoruba art and cultureAfrican Arts, Spring, 2008 http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0438/is_1_41/ai_n24327210/
[8] The understading of the concept of “oju inu” is beautifully explained by Babatunde Lawal in “Aworan: Representing the Self and its Metaphysical other in Yoruba Art”.The Art Bulletin September 01, 2001 http://www.jstor.org/stable/ Accessed: 05/10/2010.
[9] As described in Dion Fortune, Esoteric Orders and their Work and The Training and Work of an Initiate.London:Thorsons,1995.99.
[10] Carolyn Watson, Citizenship, Religion and Revolution in Cuba. PhD dissertation in History at The University of New Mexico.2009.229
[11] This powerfully evocative image is described in Judith Gleason,A Recitation of Ifa,Oracle of the Yoruba. New York: Grosman Publishers,1973.188-191 and Dennis Wiliams. Icon and Image A Study of Sacred and Secular Forms of African Classical Art. London: Allen Lane,1974.24.
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