Ifa Self Initiation Ritual
Ifa Self Initiation Ritual
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Abstract
Cover picture
Opon ifa, Ifa cosmological symbol and divination template, with ikin,
divination nuts, resting on quaternary cosmological symbolism
inscribed on iyerosun, the dust of earth as the convergence of
all possibilities in the material existence enabling awareness. Opele
divination chain at the right side and spiral symbol of transformation
and eternity inscribed on top left, reinforced by the circularity of the
opon ifa, evoking lae lae, foreverness. The seeds of possibility at the
nexus of being and becoming, represented by the intersecting vertical
and horizontal lines of the convergence of past and future in the present,
within the quaternary coordinates of space, transformations at play
within the matrix of eternity. Image from Iya Janinia’s blog.
Acknowledgements
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Purify and Consecrate yourself1. Drinking a cup of water, declare,
inwardly or outwardly, “may the divine essence flowing from Orun, the
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Zone of Ultimate Origins, infuse my being and cleanse me of all
impurities of mind and body, so I may enter the intersection of mind and
cosmos, and commune in purity and worthiness. Ase2”.
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Having set the stage by purifying yourself, invoke that aspect of yourself
known as Ori, Ehi and Chi3, establishing a correlation between your
conscious mind and the embodiment of your ultimate potential, your
own self that dwells in the source of existence:
3 Options for this section which I have left out in the name of brevity
conducive to the emphasis on contemplation but which expand the
central idea are : “Let us dialogue in the depths of my soul. What
intersections do you perceive between my paths and the paths
constituting the totality? May I forge a link, may I build a bridge between
your transcendent vision and my conscious understanding. The more
you listen to yourself, comparing the different soundless voices within
you, the better you will be able to assess the relative value of the various
directions in which you are being pointed”.
Ehi, Ori and Chi, aspects of the self as understood in Benin, Yoruba and
Igbo cosmology, respectively, are understood to exist in the dimension
of being that relates most closely to the creator of the universe. They are
also described as embodying aspects of the potential of the individual
which are not ordinarily accessible to consciousness but which can be
reached through divination and supplication. For Ori, among many
sources, one could see Bolaji Idowu, Olodumare: God in Yoruba Belief,
Wande Abimbola, An Exposition of Ifa Literary Corpus and Ifa Divination
Poetry. For Chi, Chinua Achebe’s, “Chi in Igbo Cosmology” is superb. For
Ehi, R.E., Bradbury’s “Ehi: Three Stories from Benin", in Benin Studies,
(ed.) P. Morton-Williams, is impressive. My “Correlating Benin, Yoruba
and Igbo Cosmologies” gives an overview of conjunctions between
these systems.
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Maintain silence.
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Visualize a divining tray of Ifá-blanki5
5 The divining tray of the Ifa divination system, the central system of
knowledge of classical Yoruba culture, is the central iconographic form,
the central visual expression of the system, after the marks that
represent the two hundred and fifty-six Odu, the latter being the
primary organising categories of Ifa. The totality of the Odu are derived
from a set of primary sixteen units. The opon Ifa image is from Rowland
Abiodun et al’s , edited, The Yoruba Artist: New Theoretical Perspectives
on African Arts. I discuss fundamentals of opon ifa iconography, its
visual symbolism, in “Opon Ifa, Being and Becoming at the Nexus of
Time and Space”. Hans Witte,’s Ifa and Esu: Iconography of Order and
Disorder and Abiodun et al’s Yoruba:Nine Centuries of African Art and
Thought, among others, are also pioneering works in the burgeoning
field of Opon Ifa Studies.
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Meditate on this symbol of the coming of everything from Nothing. The divining tray is empty but
from it will emerge the 16 Odu Ifa. In a similar sense, out of the emptiness of the essence of being,
emerges all that exists. The divination tray is empty but on it will be written the 16 Odu which
represent the totality of existence. From Nothing did the universe come. To Nothing will it return.
This conception of the odu ifa is a personal, speculative interpretation of Ifa cosmology, deriving
from a number of sources, including Hindu cosmology and the cosmology of the Hermetic writer
Dion Fortune as described in Fortune’s The Cosmic Doctrine. The concept of Nothing is also very rich
in scientific cosmology, a demonstrated by Tian Yu Cao’s magnificent analysis about its relationship
to a contemporary scientific picture of the origin of the cosmos in "Ontology and Scientific
Explanation," in Explanations (ed. John Conwell, Oxford University Press, 2004), 173-196 and
Nothing: A Very Short Introduction by Frank Close.
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Imagine yourself at the centre of the Opon ifa, empty but full of
possibilities, within the primal waters of the womb of being, as the
universe comes into existence from you, manifested as the primary
sixteen Odu of Ifa.
Slowly Visualize the sixteen Odu emerge on either your body or in the
space in front of your body as you call out their names and visualize
their symbolic markings. A mapping of the Odu onto your body is
provided on the previous page6.
The Odu are the names of spirits whose origin we do not know. We
understand only a small fraction of their significance. The Odu are the
brains behind the efficacy of whatever we prepare. They are the
spiritual names of all elements in existence, 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; situations such as
celebrations, fighting and ceremonies are represented in spiritual terms
by the various Odu7.
Having invoked Odu Ifa, project these fundamental essences into the
world through a collage of selections from the great ese ifa, Ifa literary
form, “Ayajo Asuwada” :
Joseph Ohomina’s Ifa Philosophy and the Quest for the Unity of Being”.
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Dews pour heavily
So that you may pour lightly
As I pour myriads of existence upon the earth .
Myriads of goodness take the shape of togetherness.
The creator of togetherness, I invoke you!
Let myriads of goodness come to me!8
Then affirm your unity with the convergence of the cosmic dynamism of
ase and the metaphysical essence that is Odu:
As the spiral returns into itself, as the snake curls itself into a circle, as
Osumare, the ever moving rainbow serpent, symbol of continuity and
permanence, the principle of movement, the integrating force that binds
the universe together9, Iyandezulu, the bundle of heaven whose
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social networking site on [Link is non-functional as of this writing,
years since my accessing it]:
“Osumare is the orisa of all movements, of all cycles, wealth, long life.
Osumare is the snake that surrounds the earth eating its own tail
(ouroboros). If one day he loses his strength and lets go of his tail, the
earth will fall apart, which will happen if mankind continue to destroy
Aiye [Yoruba for the world]. Due to this he is considered by many the
orisa of ecology.
He is the great serpent that surrounds the Earth and secures the unity
and renovation of our universe. He lives in Orun [ the ultimate zone of
origin] and comes to Earth as the rainbow. Son of Nana and brother of
Obaluaiye, he is the Yoruba counterpart of the Vodoun Dan of the
Ewe/Fon of Dahomey.
Osumare is a male Orisa, but due to his duality and cycles (six months a
snake, six months as the rainbow), some incorrectly say he is both male
and female. He is an ambiguous, double orisa. He expresses the junction
of opposites in order to maintain the universe and life. Osumare
synthesizes [symbolizes?] the movement of transformation. He owns
everything that is elongated, such as the umbilical cord. He also
represents wealth and fortune as other Orisas do. The segi (segui), a
rare blue mineral found in Yorubaland is said to be his excrement and it
is more valuable than gold. It is with all the colors of the rainbow that
Osumare gave color to nature.
Although his beads in Brazil are yellow with black stripes, all colors
belong to him. His eleguns wear brajas (cowry elekes in snake format)
and carry a bronze snake in their hands. Some say that like Osumare, his
children go through cyclic changes in life, like the snake shedding its
skin. His dances while in possession are some of the most complex in
Candomble.
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movements are in thousands10, encircling the universe to make it one,
the serpent who rests in the flesh of my body and in the flesh of earth11;
Dwenningmen12, the twisted horns holding the knotted movements that
explode into life as the cosmos bursts into existence, embodied in the
dynamic motion of the shapes of plants, roots, bones and stones13; as the
universe is stable and yet dynamic14, ensuring a fulfilment for each
species in accordance with its overall cosmic purpose15, expressing the
ultimate goal that comes to itself when it is with the incomprehensible
One16, so will I fulfil my ultimate purpose; as long as space abides, as
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long as the world abides, so long will I abide, destroying the sufferings of
the world17.
Maintain silence and stillness for a few minutes for those affirmations to
settle into the mind.
Pray
May I see with the eye of Eji Ogbe, Owonrin Meji, Ofun Meji, each
Odu and her Orisa, thus may I grow into perceiving with the
understanding of the One beyond all19.
As the eye of the eagle soaring above the Iroko, the rabbit and the deer,
sees how these various forms make one whole, my heart beats in
harmony with the heart of the forest of existence. I sense that the
immortal spirit that animates that forest, the immortal spirit that flows
through the Odu, the immortal spirit that energizes the cosmos, the
immortal spirit that lives in me, are one and the same20.
19 The names of three of the Odu are here correlated with the
description, by Wande Abimbola, in Ifa Divintion Poetry or An Exposition
of Ifa Literary Corpus, that each Odu is particularly associated with an
Orisa, thereby integrating the cosmos as understood by Ifa.
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Complete the initiation by aligning yourself with the orisa, expressions
of the Ultimacy Who Cannot be Pictured, Who has No Altar, No Shrine,
No Place of Worship Beyond the Human Mind, yet whose agents
humanity may more readily comprehend21:
Orisanla
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whose purity is that of the stream at dawn22.
Orunmila
metaphor of the cosmos, and, possibly, the dwelling place and being of
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Esu
My brother
who is paradox itself
may I grasp the various aspects of truth
which even through seemingly
in opposition
form one whole24.
As Obatala
On his journey of purification and atonement
may I learn that you, Esu, are everywhere
in those tests that strain us to respond
with the emotion and thought of the moment
or with the understanding of our divine mission25.
Odu, the wife of Orunmila and generative source of the wisdom of Ifa as
described by Babatunde Lawal in "Ejiwapo: The Dalectics of Twoness in
Yoruba Art and Culture” by Rowland Abiodun, and Henry John Drewal et
al, in Art and Oracle: African Art and Rituals of Divination and by Judith
Gleason in A Recitation of Ifa, Oracle of the Yoruba.
24 “Esu turns right into wrong, wrong into right” (Wande Abimbola,
Sixteeen Great Poems of Ifa)His cap is red on one side and black on the
other; he is at time shown as androgynous . A superb analysis of Esus’s
correlation of contraries is provided in the first chapter of Henry Louis
Gates Jrs’ The Signifying Monkey. Esu overlooks the Ifa divinatory
process and represents the axis constituted by the relationship between
chance, opportunity and free will, as well as the mediation between the
various aspects of being, particularly between the Orisa and human
beings. Esu is one of the three central Orisa of Ifa. The other two
are Orunmila, the founder of the Ifa system and Odu, Orunmila’s wife,
who, according to one view, revealed Ifa to him. The offspring of
Orunmila and Odu may be seen as the two hundred and fifty six Odu
Ifa, the organizational categories and active agents of Ifa. I discuss Esu in
relation to opon ifa iconography, its visual symbolism, in “Opon
Ifa, Being and Becoming at the Nexus of Time and Space.
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O You, Esu, who give reward for action
that is in harmony with divine will
may I always act and respond
with an understanding of the universal law
of cause and effect.
Visualize
The divining tray glowing with the 16 Odu patterns
Pray
Brethren
guide me to create the wisest pattern as I
weave the tapestry of my life
according to your divine wisdom.
Visualize
Your brethren in light
as an assembly of radiant beings who lay
shining hands of power on you and merge their
luminous beings with yours, lifting you into
cosmic consciousness, in union with the Absolute.
May my being
and
my actions be united in
this divine task.
Ase.
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