Contrasts in Concrete

A life lived in nature is ruled by different laws than what we find in the monuments of stone, concrete and steel of modern urban civilization. I believe the concrete makes it difficult to resonate with the natural law and consequently our dharma or destiny turns clouded and confused. Our actions or karma seems blocked and bewildered at all times. For a dweller in the countryside re-entering the city it is a meeting of a cacophonic world of noise and disturbance. The omens that help us understand speaks clearly through birds and beasts that walk the land as its extension and messengers. In the city all this is altered, the peace of pigeons has turned into gluttony and confusion and they can no longer speak as they should. Nature loses its language when it is forged into stone and order of modern civilization and its inhabitants engages in dysfunctional interaction that was imposed by modern lifeless culture.


The hunt for spirit and connection hides itself in ambition so the longing can be distracted by immediate goals or indulging into any form of pleasures as this drives modern man towards a simulacrum of ecstasy, a pale ape of contentment and happiness. The feeling of being lost is real and a hunt for meaning is often begun and ended – a natural consequence of living in a world where the contrasts are all shades of concrete.

The new language that rises from the silence of fields, caves, forest and mountains is loud and self serving. The immediate gratification of passions and hungers flow over the asphalt and color it red and venomous, the tar blending in and makes it stale and sad. This new language speaks of separation, and it is only logical that a language rooted in shades of sameness see what defies it as something “other”. Nature turns into something crude and violent, alien and weird – it is savage and lacks modern sophistication. These are the lies modern man tell himself to be able to survive as the world turns in great speed into concrete, a solidification of all things invisible and a temporal. Modern civilization is like Saturn afflicted and here enters Falcifer, he who tries to bring truth by tempting man into glorifying matter. It is a subtle mystery, and difficult to master. Here lies the choice of turning lead into lifeless stone of into the eternal gold. It is difficult to look behind the veil, this curtain of steel is often to heavy to lift and Saturn with all his venoms and medicines provides an avenue for poisoning and healing alike.

The lands of concrete, the city turns into a cage. In this little secluded territory man fights for his status and his rights. This little structure of possibility, this modest piece of nature man has made tame and docile with stone and steel turns into the field of experience and aspiration. It is within the enclosures of the cage modern man finds his role and defines himself. It is from this the new language of separation and alienation grows forth and makes our journey on earth into a nightmare or a cabaret.

This is all born from a horizontal and material idealization, where the axis of the worlds are not seen as having their crown in the celestial, but here on earth, at the centre of the cage. This is truly a dislocation from the true spiritual centre and the journey towards the fresh waters of eternal wisdom tend to be a long walk into the solitary fields of nature where we again can regain our humanity at the grave of Adam where the waters of Jordan flows freely and gracefully, for our restoration and perfection…

Sangó – Stone of Thunder

Oramfe, Sangó, Jakuta, Hevioso are all spirits associated with thunder. They are all red in colour and they all have relationships to politics, water and women. The form of thunderous manifestation varies slightly. Oramfe seem to be more serene and Januslike, while both Jakuta and Hevioso seem to be less boastful than the Oyo representation of the thunder spirit, Sangó. In Ilé Ife, Oramfe is important in the Odun Ose festival dedicated to Omitoto, or the deified spirit of cool water. Central in the rituals is the apparition of Orisa Ito,which manifests as the mudfish. This fish who lives in two kingdoms at the same time, in water and on land replicates a deed secret on Sangós complex nature. The same bi-morphic element is found in the birds used to represents the spirit of thunder, the nightjar and the okin, or flycatcher. Both avian species suggest the importance of both anomaly and change in the animal world as a reference to ritual and political primacy. And here we encounter the complex field of Sango and mundane politics.

For Oramfe, the spirit of thunder in Ile Ife the cult is closely intertwined with Obatala, with the principles of calmness and freshness. In Oyo, Sangó, is first and foremost a Balogun, a war lord, which is only natural as Oyo from the founding of the 16 Yoruba kingdoms were originally the state assigned to take particular care of war and defense. Hevioso takes more the shape of a king amidst his comrades and Jakuta takes the form of a feline hunter. Oramfe is at times represented as a ram headed figure holding an ax. A form that was given to Alexander the Great as ‘son of Jupiter’, and a image we find replicated in Picatrix for creating talismans capturing the dignity of Mars (in particular when Mars is in Capricorn). This form reminds of Jakuta (He who throws stones), an Orisa seen as the guardian of social morality and political fairness and justice, just like Oramfe. Sangó somehow represents the two blades of his ax and personifies how the blade can turn upon its owner by arrogance, pride and delusions of grandeur.

In Sango we find several mysteries explained that is subject for a vast amount of misunderstandings and profane perspectives. One of many is why the cult of Ifá and Orisa is using stones (otan). There is a Yoruba saying that tells about this metamorphosis: wón dota, ‘to become stone’. This is related to the passing on after the journey as human beings and our return. The idea of becoming a stone is a reference to be deified. Some Yoruba sages tells us that when heroes dies they are hurled towards the center of the earth and sprouts up through the surface as a stone and return along a golden ladder to Orun (the celestial abode). The stone becomes then the physical embodiment of a particular force. The stone as the mountain speaks of ancestry and wisdom. It is in the mountains, with the wind fondling our mind and heart that the straight way towards source is opened.

Sango is most famous in the form he took as a former Alaafin (king) of Oyo, where he is depicted as a ruthless and tyrannical king ruling his people with fear and controlling his kingdom in ways not much different from, let’s say, Idi Amin. With the aid of his wives, especially Oya, he realized his brutal ways and filled with regret and humbleness he went to the awun tree (some say Obi tree) and hung himself. This act reflects the original customs concerning kingship. The society of women (Iyami) are those who possess the power to crown a king – and they can also take the crown back and demand the king’s death, which in these cases means to demand that the king commits suicide.

This principle is manifested in the odu Obara, probably an elision of Oba Ara, ‘king of thunder’ and represents the personal strength as it takes the form of will power. The odu is warning against entertaining states of suspense and insecurity as this tend to provoke paranoid states which in turn teases enemies to take shape. In this odu we are reminded that we always need others, we need balance. It is in this odu we find the proverb: Otunwesin Osinwetun, ‘the right hand washes the left, the left hand washes the right’. The typical materials for ebo here is pigeon, water, shea-butter, cotton, ogi ori (cloves). Everything that is related to maintaining a calm and tranquil mind so good decisions can be made.

In Sango we can learn much. We see what excess of fire can do when reflected in a self centered Will combined with the political power to execute it. In Sango we find the lesson of humbleness and the secrets of divine presence upon earth in the form of otan (stones) and ancestry. He is a king who ideally dresses in female clothes, not because of any modern funny idea of profane explanations for a man dressing the apron of a woman. No, he dresses as a woman to give homage to the source of power, woman is the crown of kingship and a kind who has no support from women is no king. It is a reference to men always to recognize that we are what we are because of odu (the womb), that the wisdom of the world belongs to woman. Sango teaches us that consequences of deviating from what is good, true and just. In a way he is a contrast to older deities of thunder, such as Jakuta and Hevioso who are stern upholders of political order, perhaps more like Alexander the Great and Julius Cesar. Both these famous leaders represent the clarity of vision aided by a good mind in the guise of good and wise teachers and advisors.

The Celestial Matter

Man is a small cosmos and the cosmos is a great man, in this is reflected the truth that man reflects the image above – and in the same way as the ideas and divine forms take shape in the physical world by intelligible dictate in the same way can man as a small cosmos and divine image create with the aid of the celestial fire. The sages following the path of Hermes Trismegistus will see that the harmonious order follow the circuits of the stars that all that is emanates from the divine and immutable ideas. By linking our reason with the silent fire of the divine mind an avenue is opened that can bring life to matter. When the cosmic fire is tempted to descend by prayers, enchantments, odors, music or the starts of the earth (the plants) a bond is forged for a given daemonic force or celestial virtue to animate matter. This can take form in possession of the human body, a talisman or a statue. The world of matter is essentially moved by the same celestial order. This opens for marvels and the wonderful, and thus by wise aspiration we can understand how to bring the fire of the stars upon earth and bring matter into states more saturated with the celestial virtues. As the Maestro Marsilio Ficino said it so well:

“Yet the Arabs and the Egyptians ascribe so much power to statues and images fashioned by astronomical and magical art that they believe the spirits of the stars are enclosed in them. Now some regard the spirits of the stars as wonderful celestial forces, while others regard the spirits of the stars as wonderful celestial forces, while others regard them as daemons attendant upon this or that star. They think the spirits of the stars – whatever they may be – are introduced into statues and talismans in the same way that daemons customarily use on the occasions when they take possession of human bodies and speak, move themselves or other things, and work wonders through them. They think the spirits of the stars do similar things through images. They believe that the daemons who inhabit the cosmic fire are insinuated into our bodies through fiery or ignited humors, and likewise through ignited spirits and fiery emotions. Similarly they think that through rays caught at the right time and through fumigation, light and loud tones, the spirits of the stars can be introduced into the compatible materials of the images and can work wonders on the wearer or bystander. This could indeed be done, I believe, by daemons, but not so much because they have been constrained by a particular material as because they enjoy being worshipped” (Ficino. Three Books on Life. Book Three; Chapter XX

So much can be said of these mysteries, and so much Ficino said already….

The Harmonious Aspiration

Trapped in the duality of modern reality, most people instantly engage in an ordering of the same and the other. It is the very spirit of modernity at work, where we define who we are in relation to what we are not in bonds of accepted opposition. This reality came with the acceptance of the Cartesian world view, formed by doubt. Now, this was not the project Descartes had in mind, but this became his legacy. And so it followed that the world, that had since Antiquity been understood by induction or deduction as a dual way to approach truth saw this as barred by a wall of opposition. We, as modern people, have a taste for what is new, but there is little new actually. History repeats it self and so does thinking, not in the exact same way (which is demonstrated by the mathematical principal of infinitesimal portions), but in similar patterns. The time (history), the people (society) and the temperament of the land alters slightly this repetition and generates a certain difference. In this small shift of difference form the repetition new authorities’ rises and authorities are called in such way because society deems them so, because of books and diplomas. It is the reign of quantity. Modern man questions how a person with a handful of diplomas and a dozen of books published can be wrong – or does we, or do we just accept? After all, the world endows a man with a grade and a diploma a certain prestige and authority and we listen to the words with ears of truth. And this is good, because knowledge is truly the food for the mind (nous) and it is there we meet God. We listen to authorities because we want to make sense form our lives, this search can be profound or shallow – but it is still a search for meaning. We look for meaning in a fragmented world that constantly defines what you are in relation to what you are not. This dissection happens on the premises of government and social norms, rules and al too human morals. The idea of duality, which in its extreme tells us that the exhaling is more important than the inhaling, because a division has been made and a judgment of sameness has been passed to make it distinct from ‘the other’, so, one is good and by proxy the other is bad is typical for the modern mindset. I believe this idea rests in the Bible. In Matthew 12: 30 when Iesu tells that he who is not with me is against me, but this was situation-specific. It was not a metaphysical statement of the world being ruled by a twain substance, it was of a completely political and mundane order.
It is my opinion that many people go wrong here, in assuming the terrestrial illusion as a celestial reality. We are speaking about what is an accomplished human being, and I say as Plato that: “A hero is born among a hundred, a wise man is found among a thousand, but an accomplished one might not be found even among a hundred thousand men”. 

Today, the wisest of minds is focusing on our journey on earth being a heroic one. And this is good, we should be the heroes in our own life. This is crucial and essential – for ascent, to enable the soul to turn itself upwards. We need to conquer the world – a world that is largely coloured by our cardinal sin – or in a more harmonious language, our planet with its benefics and malefics. The hero is he or she who seizes life as a challenge and overcome mundane restrictions and become wise. Wisdom calls naturally on understanding and with this the idea of duality vanishes. So, by resolving the dualist dysfunction we become wise. Accomplishment of our being is a whole other task. We move here from what in Advaita Vedanta is called qualified monism to unqualified monism, we embark on a union with source and we see the world as One, our perspective turns unique and embraces all. We do not look for the wall of separation but we simply see the big picture, the drama playing itself out, while we stay centered and harmonious no matter what happens. This is the path of saints and here we are scratching the membrane of Oneness. This means that harmony is a key. The philosopher saint Marsilio Ficino said the following in the third book of Three Books on Life: “Since the heavens have been constructed according to a harmonic plan and move harmonically and bring everything about by harmonic sounds and motions, it is logical that through harmony alone not only human beings but all things below are prepared to receive, according to their abilities, celestial things” . 

This is the key for realizing meaning and to understand what is good and true. Modern man looks over the horizon for meaning, but meaning is found vertically, upwards to the greater harmony we are aping and mimicking. If we tease our soul to turn upwards we can seize aping and instead we can become a harmonious manifestation of a divine idea. In this we will see beauty, goodness and truth.

Ficino used images, medicines, vapors and odors, music, and dance and movement as an integral effect of music together with well accorded concepts and motions of the imagination, fitting discourse of reason and contemplation of the mind as the complete remedy for healing unhappy man. It all had to be balanced in such watt heat the remedy induced harmony, because Ficino, as Galen, as Hippocrates, Paracelsus and all ancestors of modern medicine knew what Plato saw so very early that:: “Excess generally causes reaction, and produces a change in the opposite direction, whether it be in the seasons, or in individuals, or in governments.” And this is important, excess happens in one organ or place and the excess induces the illusion of separation because its form seems so dominating compared to the rest of its inherent unit or body. I mean, when you have a fever, you can understand this as being a meeting between two forms of excess in the same body or as the body defending itself against an alien intruder. Modern medicine endorses the latter view and verifies all on basis of Cartesian opposition, while Traditional medicine seeks to control the excess in one part of the unity or body. This gives grave consequences for how we perceive the world as it gives grave consequences for any form of radicalism. I say only, contemplate it; look above, to the stars and the planets, find the peace of their movements and reach onwards towards Oneness...

The World of Mystery

Our world is a strange place. Ifá calls our world, Aye Akamara, the world of mystery, hinting towards the enigmatic rays of wisdom that veils our world and create confusion. These veils are layers born from the opposing poles on the axis mundi that sustains creation. It is the blending of night and day, the darkness and the light. It is why daybreak and twilight hypnotize us, because at these hypnotic moments we see unity. Since unity is so alien from the perspective of fragmented man we see these points of union as something outside ordinary perception – and alas, these unusual moments speak of the original state, about perfection.

Modern man experience and exercise the illusion of duality daily. It is our way of making sense of things, if what we experience is not in a category of sameness it belong sot the other – and modern man do not like the other, because we have been condition to see in the other an enemy. The other threatens our ideas of belongingness, and it is here we go wrong – everything belongs; our task is to realize where it belongs. And instead of making life rich, we limit life, experience and horizon.

Ifá says in Ìwòrì Òsè the following:

Ìsé kìí dé kí ó má mú ire rè bò ni

T’ibi t’ire èjì wápò

Meaning:

Adversity does not come without bringing

Its good aspects to us

That which is bad and that which is good

Come together

What the Ifá oracle tells is that night walks hand in hand with day. The bad is simply just a consequence of being, just as much as the good. It all comes down to perspective. I mean, personal perspectives and personal opinions about you, as long as you are working on you own betterment, does it matter? Is it your business? Likewise, when undesired incidents happen are they necessarily bad – or are they just consequences that goes counter to you expectation?

We expect respect, but we dot get it, we do good but are not repaid with good, the material and invisible world appears to be a bit out of sync – or it is we who don’t understand what is going on. Orisa Èsú challenges you by trials that make you appreciate life, Orisa Obaluwaye challenges you by give illness that leads to potential strength, Sango challenge by inducing arrogance than can lead to the lesson of humbleness. Often we get judgmental because we understood certain waymarks and we see how other people are lost on their way towards the same insight. Let’s not do that, lets try to understand each others journey. After all, we are all in the same boat on the same chaotic ocean. One hand washes the other and sometimes we wash with perfumes and someone else washes with dirt. Does it matter? Perhaps this act serve some purpose if we are willing to understand what is going on from a lets say, ‘cosmic perspective’, where you are not the bellybutton of creation. Sometimes bad things happen; sometimes people do bad things, say bad things, and even hold opinions that revolt you. By buying into these peoples drama by passion, interest, anger and what not you do not help. You simply make another person’s journey your own… Is this really what you want?

If we approach life on earth as divine beings going through a journey of blessings, wisdom and experience we should approach this journey with interest. Whenever we get disappointed, angry, melancholic, or whatever it is sign posts for the path not being understood or embraced. By understanding the bad we will release the good – and, believe me: this is a truth a million times true.

And I say as Ifá in the Odú Ìrosù wòrì:

If we continually tasted sweetness without

Tasting a little bitterness also,

Life would be dull.

Ase!

The Negative Light

Light is the building block of being and creation. The interaction between light and darkness constitutes the cosmic pulse and is replicated in man by breath. When we are inhaling and exhaling we are interaction between life and its absence. In a cosmic scale this takes the form of light and darkness and just as breath needs extreme contrast to maintain life, so it is with cosmos and creation. It is the extreme that generates the stability of the earth and the world and it is these contrasts that make our world a mystery. The source of light manifests in several ways and is a source for abundance, blessings, wealth and what the Yoruba people call Ori rere, a calm conscience. The objective is that our being in the world should be soothing and comforting, as the caresses from the rays of the sun. When light is exalted it burns and makes all things barren. It does this while it remains in the glory of its own being. These cosmic and mystical phenomena can replicate in people as well and give what can be understood to be a negative vibration of Obatala. Obatala is the spirit of the white cloth, dreams, light and all things aerial and pure. When light turns negative it implodes and dislocate our sense of self importance. Our indecisiveness becomes a tool for allowing the scorching sun to burn the fields and people around us. It leads to a misdirected sense of superiority an calls upon another odu, Obara meji. Obara refers to the principles of strength and force and can in its negative manifestations lead to authoritarian and ruthless abuse of ones own strength. The accumulation and comprehension of light in the hands of a negative manifestation of Obara generates despots and tyrants of any kind. The source for this activity of being others to ones will is ultimately a refusal to lift both hands to the light (which is the meaning of the word Eji Ogbe, which is the name given to the first Odu in the corpus of Ifá).  By consuming the light for personal ends can in its positive manifestation lead to natural authority, while in its negative manifestation it will generate arrogance and dislocated ideas of ones own self importance. Ultimately this form of arrogance will lead to the idea of total supremacy where ones words are experienced as weightier than even the word of Olodumare, God. At this point light will collapse and implode and the bright scorching sun will start to make your spiritual life barren and deserted from light. The arrogance accumulated is challenged and this provokes the vibration we know as ‘the father of light’, Obatala. The docile and inspirational father of purity turns into the white death that seeks out the cause of the darkening of the light to reinstall the natural balance. It is from this complex interaction one Ifá proverb tells us that Sango (manifested in Obara and represents politics) need Obatala in order to be a just ruler. What Ifá says is that strength without a clear and enlightened mind will lead to tyranny. The red powers of strength and the whiteness of light needs to be in harmony and its natural hierarchy be adhered to. But we are not perfect, and at times even the accumulation of wisdom and understanding can ignite in us the illusion of supremacy. When the redness, the ‘rubeata’ of enthusiasm of strength has overcome a person the remedy is calmness and Ifá gives one such remedy that I will replicate here in the form of a Ìdáàbòbò, which is a protective remedy or medicine. The medicine is done in the following way:

You will gather the following items:

Ewe èbùré (Crassocephalum Rubens)

Omí ìgbín (the blood of snails)

The herbs you will pound into a powder and drench it in the blood of the snail and leave it to dry. You will then take a mortar and pestle and mix it well.

Then take:

Ewe ódúndún (Kalanchoe crenata)

Ewe tètè (Amaranthus hybridus)

Ewe rìnrín (Peperomia pellucida)

Let it dry and turn it into powder with the help of the mortar and pestle. You will then mark in the powder the odu obaraogbe and recite the incantation (ofo) below over the powder. This being done you will separate the powder in three parts. One part is added to ose dudu (African black soap), one third to a neutral lotion or body cream and the last third is placed in a cup of cold water and drunk.

Èbúré dé awo olùjébè                        Èbùré make open the doors of supplication

Ikú e jébè fún wa o                            Death, accept our supplications

Àrùn e jébè fún wa o                         Sickness, accept our supplications

Ofó e jébè fún wa o                           Loss, accept our supplications

Sònpòná e jébè fún wa o                   Spirit of infectious disease, accept our supplications          

Èrò pèsèpèsè ni t’ígbín                      The snail is always clam and tranquil

Èrò pèsèpèsè ni t’ òdúndún               Odundun is always calm and tranquil

Èrò pèsèpèsè ni ti tètè                       Tete is always calm and tranquil

Èrò pèsèpèsè ni ti rinrin                     Rinrin is always calm and tranquil