Commentary:
In Odu Ifa the name of the diviner is a key to understanding the solution to a particular problem. In this verse the name of the diviner is you walk over the bush, I walk over the bush, we walk over the bush together. In Yoruba the word bush is a reference to the forest outside of a village. Walking into the bush means leaving the comforts of the home and the village to travel into the natural environment. In Yoruba culture you go into the bush to gather herbs, to hunt, to make a clearing to start a farm and countless other tasks related to survival. The inference here is that we approach the issues of survival individually and we approach the issues of survival collectively. Nigeria has the highest population density of any region on the continent of Africa. The steady growth in population is, I believe, a result of the effective distribution of labor in the rural areas making it possible to maximize limited natural resources. The name of the diviner is telling us that this verse of Odu Ifa is a revelation of the mystery of working together.
On a personal level the metaphor of working together is a clear reference to right brain, brain integration. It is impossible to work effectively with others until you have first learned how to integrate the conflicting elements of the inner self.
What becomes more clear as the verse unfolds is the fact that this Odu makes references to the cultural structures that guide the working relationship between husbands and wives.
In a cultural context the idea of working together addresses structures used in traditional Yoruba culture to guide the working relationship between men and women in the larger community.
The concept of Odu also functions as a metaphor for the way in which the earth regulates itself so abundance will be available to those who live on earth.
Finally, I believe the description of the relationship between Orunmila and his wife is a topographical metaphor that describes the polarity between electromagnetism and gravity. In Ifa physics this dynamic is described in terms of gender based symbols which male energy representing expansive movement and female energy representing contractive movement. According to Einstein the building blocks of Creation can be described as both wave (expansive energy) and particle (contractive energy). He also stated that all energy carries both manifestations of movement and the difference is simple a matter of perspective. I believe Einstein’s ideas were foreshadowed by the wisdom of our traditional Yoruba ancestors.
Awo Falokun
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