The cosmos visualised as a naked woman

The Akan-Gyaman Adinkra symbol of Kuntunkantan stands for the cosmos,integrating all being as the five rings of Kuntunkantan are integrated to form a nucleus

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The vagina symbolism of Susanne Wenger:female biological space as metaphor of the union of the seminal grace of Obatala and the fierce power of Sango at the Obatala shine at the Osun forest in Nigeria

Shaping physical space to evoke feminine biological space:Susanne Wenger's bio-spiritual shrine asethetics at the Osun forest in Nigeria

Enter within and remain not the same:Susanne Wenger's sculptural womb-yoni portals as evocative of the transformative potential of spatial navigationat the Osun forest in Nigeria

Shaping light by shaping physical space:Susanne Wenger's architectural manipulation of space in terms of yoni configurations thereby using light as symbolic of illumination of the self at the Osun forest in Nigeria

Delight

Kali Yantra

Yoni as creator-destroyer:the ultimate beauty that is being and becoming

Kali Yantra

Yoni as creator and transformer

Kali Yantra

Yoni as beauty and power

Suddenly he felt her gentle touch and when he looked at her, he found to his utter astonishment that she was now completely naked, lying prone with her legs in the lotus posture, and flower petals scattered over and around her genitals and with her pubic hair and other parts of the body besmeared with ashes and dabs of red and back color. . .

The bhairavi....looked transfigured and asked him to sit on her lap, as he had done many times before, though never without her wearing a stitch of clothing. He was dumbfounded but obeyed.
I climbed over the sacred body, and sat over the dark space left by the folding of her legs. At the very first contact, I was aware that her skin was burning. The heat was forbidding. But I knew it was not for me to question.

I assumed the accustomed lotus posture....Minutes passed; perhaps hours.

Who cared?

A stream of delight rippled through the 84,000 nadis of which she had always spoken. At the base of my spine I experienced a half-tickling, half-singing urge which ran up and down my spine. I closed my eyes.

The bhairavi told him that he was the living flame, time eternal, the sun, brahman, while she was a corpse, time-bound, the sky, and the lotus. Then she asked him to recite Sanskrit verses, and soon he lost all sense of her presence and even of his own being.

Something was happening to the mound around my penis. A vibration, thrilling, hot deep throb hammered beat after beat. The more it came in waves the more I was pushing out my spinal base...a strange feeling of completeness, fulfilment and ecstasy settled on my nerves.

When he finally came to his senses, he felt exhausted but still asked when they would visit the ruined temple again. She assured him that they would meet there again and again, explaining, "A carpet also hungers for someone to sit on it".

From

The World of Tantra by Brajamadhava Bhattacharya,quoted in Tantra: The Path of Ecstasy by Georg Feuerstein.

Sri Yantra,symbol of Tripura Sundari
goddess of beauty,erotic power, cosmic becoming and cosmic unity

Adinkra cosmic spiral and the place of becoming

The Holy Grail
They who drink of me shall never thirst

Yoni,Divination Womb Opon Ifa,the Grail,Cauldron of Ceridwen,the Drink that makes one divine

The Odu are understood at different levels of being. At one level they are perceived as geomantic patterns that emerge when the divinatory instruments are cast. At another level,they are organising categories of the textual corpus of the system. At yet another level,they are understood as living beings,as conscious entities.

At a level that sums up all the others,they are perceived as a means of developing and organising a systemic construction of the scope of existence.This is done in terms of what exists and what could exist,the actual and the potential. From the most abstract to the most concrete.

How does this relate to ideas of female biology? The correlation between this understanding of the Odu and ideas about female biology emerges in the feminine characterisation of the Odu and the resonance of this characterisation in the sculptural realisation of the space on which the Odu are configured in divination.

The Odu are collectively understood as female and, in this collective identity, as being the wife of Ifa. The divinatory process, therefore, could be understood as being characterized as a relationships between a female and a male personality. This implies a generative process that emerges on the space where the Odu patterns are formed.This space is graphically represented by the empty centre of the divination tray. Within this empty space, therefore, the macrocosmic values represented by the Odu in their fundamental characterisation as cosmic forms converge with the microcosmic patterns represented by the client's query.

The empty space, therefore, becomes a generative space, a womb of transformation, akin to the vaginal space where new life emerges after its transformation within uterine space. The correlation of macrocosmic and microcosmic frameworks in the divinatory process could be understood to be expressive of a convergence of forces similar to the integration of the power of life which is universal but manifests anew in each life form with the distinctive genetic encoding that emerges from the gene banks of both parents in the conception and growth of new human life.

Toyin Adepoju

Ofun Meji
II II
I I
II II
I I

The sixteenth major Odu,
container of all mysteries,
the complete calabash of Oduduwa as formulated in the language of Ifa,
is all but inaccessible-
placed out of the way
and out of ordinary thought processes.

Odu, the female principle imagined as a container

igbadu (igba, “calabash”, and Odu )
becomes an orisha,
the divinity worshipped by diviners who have attained the highest degree of self- knowledge-

that is,

the profoundest understanding of Ifa.

Only such diviners may install the terribly powerful calabash of existence,
once closed never to be reopened except under horrific circumstances,
“symbol of the sky and earth in their fecund union,
container of the supreme wisdom of Ifa,
[the installation of which validates] an esoteric principle of universal symbiosis.”

To “see” Odu
is to look in all directions at once,
to look back at the moment of one’s own conception,
to grasp-

from this new perspective-

the horizontal plane of existence,
the brotherhood of all who tread the earth;
below to the realm of the earth,
and to that of the dead…
upward to the stars and the cosmic order exemplified above.

From A Recitation of Ifa,Oracle of the Yoruba by Judith Gleason

The third stage of the initiation of the Ifa priest is known as fifoju kan Odu (initiation into [or “opening-of-the-eyes-to” or “placing eyes on” or “perception of” ] the secrets of Odu ).During the ceremony, the would be initiate feasts many priests from far and near, after which the sacred pot believed to be the abode of Odu, the mythical wife of Ifa, is ceremoniously opened for him to see. In turns the Ifa priests present look inside the sacred pot. The actual contents of the pot are not revealed to the un-initiated, information about them is treated as a major secret of the Ifa cult.

from

An Exposition of Ifa Literary Corpus by Wande Abimbola

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth:for thy love is better than wine.

I am black....the sun hath looked upon me,I am comely,O ye daughters of Jerusalem,as the tents of Kedar,as the curtains of Solomon.

A bundle of myrrh is my well beloved unto me;he shall lie all night betwixt my breasts.

As the apple tree among the trees of the wood,so is my beloved among the sons.

I sat down under his shadow with great delight,and his fruit was sweet to my taste.

His left hand is under my head,and his right hand doth embrace me.

By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth:I sought him but I found him not.

I will rise now,and go about the city in the streets,and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth:I sought him but I found him not.

The watchmen that go about the city found me:to whom I said,Saw ye him whom my soul loveth?

It was but a little that I passed from them,but I found him whom my soul loveth:I held him,and would not let him go,until I had brought him into my mother's house,and into the chamber of her that conceived me.

Thou hast ravished my heart,my sister,my spouse;thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes,with one chain of thy neck.

How fair is thy love,my sister,my spouse!how much better is thy love than wine!and the smell of thine ointments than all spices!

Thy lips,O my spouse,drop as the honeycomb:honey and milk are under thy tongue;and the smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon.

A garden inclosed is my sister,my spouse,a spring shut up,a fountain sealed.

Awake,O north wind;and come,thou south;blow upon my garden,that the spices thereof may flow out.Let my beloved come into his garden,and eat his pleasant fruits.

I am come into my garden,my sister,my spouse....

I sleep but my heart waketh:it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh saying,

Open to me,my sister,my love,my dove,my undefiled:for my head is filled with dew and my locks with the drops of the night.

I have put off my coat...

My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door,and my bowels were moved for him.

I rose up to open to my beloved;and my hands dropped with myrrh,and my fingers with sweet smelling myrrh,upon the handles of the lock.

I opened to my beloved....

How beautful are thy feet with shoes,O prince's daughter!the joints of thy thighs are like jewels,the work of the hands of a cunning workman.

Thy navel is like a round goblet,which wanteth not liquor:thy belly is like an heap of wheat set about with lilies.

Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins.

Thy neck is as a tower of ivory;thine eyes like the fishpools in Heshbon,by the gate of Bath-rabbim:thy nose is as the tower of Lebanon which looketh towards Damascus.

Thine head upon thee is like Carmel, and the hair of thine head like purple,the king is held in the galleries.

How fair and how pleasant are thou,O love,for delights!

This thy stature is like to a palm tree,and thy breasts like clusters of grapes.

I said I will go up to the palm tree,I will take hold of the boughs thereof:now also thy breasts shall be as clusters of the vine,and the smell of thy nose like apples; and the roof of thy mouth like the best wine for my beloved,that goeth down sweetly,causing the lips of those that are asleep to speak.

I am my beloved's and his desire is toward me.



"The Song of Solomon",The Holy Bible,King James Version

Every one knows a cunt. Let them imagine it. If hard press let them go and study the cunt of their wives, girlfriends etc which they have never done. The cunt is such a beautiful work of art. It is a shame it is looked at and admired for its own sake so rarely. Or a dick as the case may be. Another beautiful, beautiful work of art. Let them use their imagination and go and study their spouses dicks and appreciate its beauty, its nuances and its pleasures.

My humble opinions.

MadWoman

I painted my eyes with black antimony

I girded myself with amulets.

I will satisfy my desire,
you my slender boy.

I walk behind the wall.

I have covered my bossom.

I shall knead coloured clay.



I shall paint the house of my friend,
O my slender boy.

I shall take my piece of silver
I will buy silk.

I will gird myself with amulets

I will satisfy my desire
the horn of antimony in my hand,
Oh my slender boy!

Bagirmi poem from African Poetry:An Anthology of Traditional African Poems ed by Ulli Beier

As a big body of water,she is:

Olokun Ajetiaye,Alagbalugbu omi
Ajawo okoto
Afailorogun pariwo
See see ni gbede

The inexhausitble sea,immense water,
Roaring eddy of seashells,
Querulous,though she has no rival
Vibrations from the deep

The phrase "inexhaustible sea" has the same import as the milk flowing endlessly from the generous "pot-breasted mother"[in the last post].

The mystery associated with the female genitalia echoes in "vibrations from the deep"

on the Yoruba Orisa (deity) Olokun

from

The Gelede spectacle
by
Babatunde Lawal

Delicate,tender,radiant

Alexis Amore

What is beautiful,is beautiful

Toyin Adepoju

A thing of beauty is a joy forever
its loveliness never ceases..

John Keats

"The Origin of the World"

by Gustave Courbet

THE VAGINA:PORTAL AND SYMBOL OF TRANSFORMATION

The Yoni (Sanskrit for vagina) is one of the most ancient and charged images in the iconographic history of humanity.The long human story, across time and space, of making and interpreting images, is illuminated by the light that shines from that wonderful place.The space that enables such stunning pleasure,the cave through which the possibility of life enters,,the portal to the zone of its gestatation,the matrix of its emergence...

What would we do without this most wondrous possibility of being?Artists from pre-historic times to the present,from cave paintings to Gustav Courbet's "The Origin of the World", to Picasso's nubile nudes and Judy Chicago's "The Dinner Party"where the Pudenda embodies female figures from earliest myth to modern history,from Tibetan Buddhist Dakini's whose erotic presence is vital to spiritual enlightenment, to the Western esoteric art of Mark Dunn's Yoni Triangle of Art which enables travels between dimensions,empowering the immaterial to be given form in the material,from Asian Tantra to the erotic spirituality of Margo Anand,from ancient African-Yoruba thought,where the Great Mother,Iyan Nla,the Earth,whose vagina suffocates like dry yam in the throat,the roaring of mighty waters, to Luce Irigaray,whose doctoral thesis at the Sorbonne was structured as a vagina

all these celebrate the Yoni,the Pudenda,the Cunt,the Space of Life,the Cave of Pleasure,La Petite Mort,the Place of the "Little Death" (French),Obo (Yoruba),That which no one sees and remains unsmiling(Nigerian-Bini proverb),the darkness in which I wish to die and be reborn,the multiplier of pleasure that has led to the downfall of so many..

I salute you,O Mother,O lover,O Child,Ever Youthful and Yet Source of All that Is,I do homage to that which is heaven on earth,earth in heaven...

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The third stage of the initiation of the Ifa priest is known as fifoju kan Odu (initiation into [or “opening-of-the-eyes-to” or “placing eyes on” or “perception of” ] the secrets of Odu ).During the ceremony, the would be initiate feasts many priests from far and near, after which the sacred pot believed to be the abode of Odu, the mythical wife of Ifa, is ceremoniously opened for him to see. In turns the Ifa priests present look inside the sacred pot. The actual contents of the pot are not revealed to the un-initiated, information about them is treated as a major secret of the Ifa cult.

From An Exposition of Ifa Literary Corpus by Wande Abimbola

Ofun Meji
II II
I I
II II
I I

The sixteenth major Odu,
container of all mysteries,
the complete calabash of Oduduwa as formulated in the language of Ifa,
is all but inaccessible-

placed out of the way
and out of ordinary thought processes.

Odu, the female principle imagined as a container

.....her house in the forest...

has become the ceremonial apere-box containing a calabash

(her body),

which contains in turn

(or is surrounded by)

the four calabashes
given to her

by [her four advisers among the Orisha ]

Obatala gives a calabash of chalk,
Babaluaye offers his favourite substance, osun (red powder),
Ogun-charcoal powder,

and Oduduwa-mud.

These gifts imply four roads,

four corners of the universe.

They are the original four major signs.

Igbadu (igba, “calabash”, and Odu )

becomes an orisha,
the divinity worshipped by diviners who have attained the highest degree of self- knowledge-

that is,

the profoundest understanding of Ifa.

Only such diviners may install the terribly powerful calabash of existence,
once closed never to be reopened except under horrific circumstances,
“symbol of the sky and earth in their fecund union,
container of the supreme wisdom of Ifa,
[the installation of which validates] an esoteric principle of universal symbiosis.”

To “see” Odu

is to look in all directions at once,

to look back at the moment of one’s own conception,

to grasp-

from this new perspective-

the horizontal plane of existence,

the brotherhood of all who tread the earth;

below to the realm of the earth,

and to that of the dead…

upward to the stars and the cosmic order exemplified above.

From A Recitation of Ifa,Oracle of the Yoruba by Judith Gleason

The spiral or concentric circles motif appears prominently on many edan. Informants offered two different but related interpretations for it.

According to some, it represents the spin (ranyinranyin) of the cone-shaped bottom of the small snail shell (okoto), a children's toy associated with increase, dynamic motion,and, by extension, with the transformatory power of Esu, the divine messenger who mediates between the orisa and Ile.

Others identify the motif with the motion of a whirlpool, signifying the expansive power of Olokun, the goddess of the sea and abundance. Since Oduduwa reportedly created habitable land out of the primordial sea at Ile-Ife (Idowu 1962:22; Ojo 1966:194), it is apparent that Earth and Water are, in essence, two aspects of the same phenomenon venerated by the Gelede society as Iya Nla (Mother Nature), alias Olokun ajaro okoto ("The sea goddess, who whirls like okoto").

Indeed, the snail shell motif occurs on Ogboni doors (Dobbelmann 1976: pls. 156).[31] Moreover, black mud from a river or lake is a vital part of the ingredients used in consecrating an altar to Ile, and a fish-legged figure often dominates the relief decoration on Ogboni doors (Dobbelmann 1976:156-57) and drums (Ojo 1973:50, pl. 1), thus linking the terrestrial realm with the aquatic. In any case, as a metaphor for the rhythm of life, and increase (iresi), the spiral or concentric circles motif reinforces the ritual power of edan Ogboni.

Babatunde Lawal on the edan ogboni sculpure of the Yoruba of Nigeria in "Aya Gbo, Aya to:New Perspectives on Edan Ogboni",African Arts,vol.28 ,no.1.Winter 1995,364-49;98-100.

The oracular process in Ifa is a hermeneutic procedure that proceeds through the interpretation of the patterns assumed by the divinatory instruments cast by the diviner.These patterns are known collectively as the Odu of Ifa. The significance of these patterns is interpreted in relation to the texts the patterns symbolize.

The Odu are understood at diffrent levels of being. At one level they are perceived as geomantic patterns that emerge when the divinatory instruments are cast. At another level,they are organising categories of the textual corpus of the system. At yet another level,they are understood as living beings,as conscious entities.

At a level that sums up all the others,they are perceived as a means of developing and organising a systemic construction of the scope of existence.This is done in terms of what exists and what could exist,the actual and the potential. From the most abstract to the most concrete.

How does this relate to ideas of female biology? The correlation between this understanding of the Odu and ideas about female biology emerges in the feminine characterisation of the Odu and the resonance of this characterisation in the sculptural realisation of the space on which the Odu are configured in divination.

The Odu are collectively understood as female and, in this collective identity, as being the wife of Ifa. The divinatory process, therefore, could be understood as being characterized as a relationships between a female and a male personality. This implies a generative process that emerges on the space where the Odu patterns are formed.This space is graphically represented by the empty centre of the divination tray. Within this empty space, therefore, the macrocosmic values represented by the Odu in their fundamental characterisation as cosmic forms converge with the microcosmic patterns represented by the client's query.

The empty space, therefore, becomes a generative space, a womb of transformation, akin to the vaginal space where new life emerges after its transformation within uterine space. The correlation of macrocosmic and microcosmic frameworks in the divinatory process could be understood to be expressive of a convergence of forces similar to the integration of the power of life which is universal but manifests anew in each life form with the distinctive genetic encoding that emerges from the gene banks of both parents in the conception and growth of new human life.

Homage,my mother,the Osoronga
Mother with the beautiful eyes,
Who has a bunch of hair in her private part,
The mother who owns a brass tray
And a brass fan.
The famous bird of night who flies gracefully.

To the coastal Yoruba,the movement of the sea is a reverberation of the drumming,dancing,and feasting going on in the rambling palace of Iya Nla at the bottom.Hence,the popular saying:

Gbogbo ilu ni mbe i'olokun,Olokun Seniade Ajifgilupe,Oba Omi (All kinds of drumming occur beneeath thec sea,Olokun Seniade The -one -who-wakes-up-to-the-rhythm-of-drums,lord of the waters).

As the Mother of All,she receives and entertains visitors all day,all night-the orisa,spirits of the newly dead,spirits of plants and animals,souls of thousands of children waiting to be born onto the earth,and souls of "returning"Abiku,all flock around her as she dances through her huge reception hall dressed in immaculate white cloth and decked in white coral beads,welcoming one group after another.

As one informant put it, "Iya Nla likes music and dance so much that that she can celebrate for weeks without caring for food".

Her earthly disciplies,the "powerful mothers",have a similar love of the performing arts.Indeed,in one Ifa divination verse, (Odu Ogbe iyonu),the "powerful mothers" disclose to Orunmila that they would favour all those who honor them wioth music and dance (Verger 1965:186).Little wonder that the Gelede performance is considered one of the most effective means of seeking their favours.

Babatunde Lawal on Iyan Nla Yoruba Great Mother, in The Gelede Spectacle

As a big body of water,she is:

Olokun Ajetiaye,Alagbalugbu omi
Ajawo okoto
Afailorogun pariwo
See see ni gbede

The inexhausitble sea,immense water,
Roaring eddy of seashells,
Querulous,though she has no rival
Vibrations from the deep

The phrase "inexhaustible sea" has the same import as the milk flowing endlessly from the generous "pot-breasted mother"[in the last post].
The mystery associated with the female genitalia echoes in "vibrations from the deep",although this phrase also evokes the sound of Gelede dance anklets,originally made of seashells.



Babatunde Lawal on Iyan Nla Yoruba Great Mother, in The Gelede Spectacle

In her popular aspect as Yemoja [Iya Nla]is the generous and the dangerous mother:


Iya oloyon oruba

Oni run osiki A b'obo fun ni l'orun bi egbe isu

The pot-breasted mother

With much hair on her private parts;

The owner of a vagina that suffocates like dry yam in the throat.


Babatunde Lawal on Iyan Nla Yoruba Great Mother, in The Gelede Spectacle