OPON IFA AS WOMB OF BECOMING

Ifa is a practical metaphysical system first developed among the Yoruba ethnic group of southern Nigeria. The Odu, who are the means through which the system’s knowledge is organised, are understood to exist simultaneously in terms of different but correlative ontological categories: they are spatial patterns formed by the casting of the divinatory instruments, vertical lines which represent these patterns, the numerical values of these configurations, the literary forms represented by the patterns as well as sentient agents which demonstrate their own Ori,or centre of ultimate direction which derives from the Supreme Being. Ifa sculpture demonstrates in visual terms the hermeneutic and metaphysical conceptions that inform the discipline. Central to this art is the divination tray, which, even when not used by the priest in divining, remains emblematic of the character and activity of the ontological categories at play in the divinatory process. The rectangular or circular symmetry of the tray is broken by the one form obligatory to all Ifa trays, a representation of the Orisha Eshu, the messenger of Ifa, a guide to the interpretation of Ifa’s meaning as well as an embodiment of the co-existence of paradox and order, of the unknown and the known.

Carved at the edges of the tray are figures that could suggest, among other meanings, the nature of the hermeneutic process that Ifa divination involves or the various orders of being that participate in the divinatory process. The former could include spiral formations, both abstract and representational, described as evocative of the transformative power, Ashe, that enables the processes of becoming. The latter could include human beings or animals, animals being used in Ifa literature in suggesting human behaviour.

The centre of the tray is left empty to be used as a template for the visual representation of the divinatory process as a point of intersection between human and non-human realms. This inter-dimensional conjunction is represented by the messages transmitted through the patterns realized by the divinatory instruments when they are cast, patterns which are represented by the inscriptions which the diviner makes on the dust placed on the tray’s centre.

The empty centre is therefore a womb of becoming, a space of hermeneutic realisation, an observation reinforced by the feminine character ascribed to the collective identity of the Odu whose visual expression is represented on the surface of the trayThe structure of the Ifa system is also suggestive in relation to the study of probability, particularly in relation to decision making, as this is influenced by questions of actuality and potentiality. The Ifa priest Joseph Ohomina describes the Odu as representing an ontological map of all possibilities of being, both actual and probable. The knowledge represented by this significatory scope is invoked through the probabilistic configurations realised through the random casting of the divinatory instruments.

The organisation of the Odu in terms of patterns of transformation and invariance in the modification of symbols also evokes ideas that could be studied in relation to Group Theory as the mathematical investigation of relationships between invariance and transformation in phenomena.
Eglash describes this organisational system in terms of fractal geometry, in which symbolic forms are developed through repeated applications of the same transformative operation, creating forms each of which reflects at its own scale the structure of the group.

This recursive operation terminates in the total number of permutations possible to the configurations of the divinatory instruments, and therefore of the numerical organisation of the Ifa corpus in terms of the Odu. The emergence of a transformational boundary, however, becomes a framework for the creation of a potentially infinite plenitude since there is no limit to the number of poems and stories that can be developed in relation to each of these organisational forms. One could see, therefore, that the system indicates the possibility of an infinitely expansive range of significations, a scope all the more compelling because it is organised in terms of a finite structure of numerical codifications.

This notion of potential infinity is amplified by the metaphysical scope attributed to the system by its devotees. Abimbola describes the Odu as a means of organising a vision of the Yoruba cosmos through creating correlations between each Odu and various aspects of existence, including the Orisha, the divine beings who embody various aspects of the universe. Ohomina goes further to describe the Odu as the spiritual names of all possibilities of existence, whether actual or potential.

This conception of the Odu as cosmic signifiers becomes even more marked in relation to the description of the collective identity of the Odu as the wife of Orunmila, whose wisdom is expressed in Ifa. The correlation of an Orisha, Orunmila, who is described as participating in the creation of the cosmos with a wife who represents the expression of his wisdom in practical terms suggests that Ifa can be understood as a means of developing and organising a vision of the metaphysical structure of the cosmos, and the divinatory process as a method through which human beings could draw upon this vision and utilise it in the details of their lives.

The empy space at the cente of the divination tray is evocative of the template of existence within and through which human decisions and the various factors that impinge upon human existence interact.dynamism of human life the experience of being as an interactive encounter/relationship between the shaping of the self by factors that impact on the person and the shaping of those factors by the self.

“Which comes first, the pot or the hole in its centre?” Is it the human self or the experiential structure or pattern of their lives?

In its metaphysical dimension,it embodies the crossroads of being, an embodiment of the nexus where new possibilities emerge through the mutual penetration of the transcendent and the material, the woman whose seeming weakness conceals the inner strength that reflects the hidden presence of the numinous in the mundane,the presence of the ground of being within its manifestations, the convergence of the Emptiness of that which is beyond being and non-being with the emptiness of the fleeting and mercurial nature of the material cosmos.

...the perpetual motion of beginnings, continuation and endings, powered by choice against the background of the unknown, anchored in primordial powers and those departed of flesh, that is the face of Opon Ifa...