Accepting Divinity: The Hero's Journey & Odu Ifa

The hero represents the quest to discover and master your identity, which is synonymous with destiny. The process of becoming a hero then, is what we call Ijo L'aiye, the journey of life. Each segment of the journey is an invitation to show up more fully and demonstrate your ability to focus relentlessly and perform effortlessly. Can you be unwavering in your purpose? Can you be fearless in your love? Under any and all circumstances, can you stay totally committed to your spiritual identity? 

These are the multifaceted challenges outlined in the sacred text of Odu Ifa. There are 256 Odu Ifa, each of which has hundreds of verses, mythological stories, sacrifices and spiritual powers. In all, there are tens of thousands of Ifa verses. More importantly, each Ifa verse represents a pathway to achieving your destiny. Think of it this way; when you consult Ifa, the Odu that emerges represents an itinerary that outlines your Hero's Journey. 

It is for this reason that so many Ifa verses detail the heroic journeys of Orunmila, who is the custodian of Ifa and the intermediary of fate. The heroic journeys can be divided into three parts: 

1. THE DEPARTURE: Here, the Ifa verses typically start with proverbial wisdom that provide a theme for the journey. According to Joseph Campbell, "The call of adventure is to a forest, a kingdom underground, beneath the waves, or above the sky, a secret island, lofty mountaintop, or profound dream state; but it is always a place of strangely fluid and polymorphous beings, unimaginable torments, super human deeds, and impossible delight." Consider, for example, the Holy Odu IrosunIwori: 
   
   Let us do things with joy
   Those who wish to go, let them go
   Those who wish to stay
   Let them stay
   Surely, humans have been chosen to bring good into the world
   The All-Knowing One, Priest of Orunmila
   Cast Ifa for Orunmila
   He said the people of the world would come to ask him a certain question
   He said that Orunmila should sacrifice
   Orunmila heard and complied
   
   Campbell goes on to tell us that the Departure is followed by Refusal of the Call. Often when the call is given, the future hero first refuses to heed it. This may be from a sense of duty or obligation, fear, insecurity, a sense of inadequacy, or any of a range of reasons that work to hold the person in his or her current circumstances. Again, the same verse of IrosunIwori continues this way:
   
   One day, all kinds of people,
   good people and those who do not allow good in other people's lives 
   gathered together
   They then went to Orunmila
   They said: Coming back and forth to earth tires us, Orunmila
   Therefore, please allow us to rest in heaven
   Orunmila said, You cannot avoid coming back and forth to earth 
   Until you bring about the Good Condition
   That Olodumare has Ordained for every human being
   After then, you may rest in heaven
   
   
2. INITIATION is much more than ritual and ceremony. In fact, all Yoruba ritual and ceremony are conceptualized as episodes in the hero's journey. This is what Campbell calls the road of trials, which is a series of tests that the person must undergo to begin the transformation. Often the person fails one or more of these tests, which often occur in threes. 
   
   Here, let us consider the teachings of the Holy Odu OgbeIrete: 
   
   Ogbe, come and be initiated in order to be comfortable
   To take the hand of Ifa and then be fully initiated
   is the pride one has in Ifa
   These were the declarations of Ifa for Orunmila
   When he planned to initiate his child
   Orunmila was advised to offer sacrifice
   He complied
   When I received the hand of Ifa
   My father then performed the ITELODU for me
   Lack of wisdom
   Lack of deep thought
   These are what compel people to be initiated
   repeatedly on three occasions
   After being initiated
   The issue of Esu Odara needs to be taken seriously
   Why must Esu Odara be given extra consideration?
   After being initiated
   We must not use a worn out twisted rope to climba palm tree
   We must not jump into the river without knowing how to swim
   we must not take undue risk which cost life
   We must not snatch the wife of AWO
   We must not have illicit carnal knowledge of a ritualist's wife
   We must not plan evil against our friend with his wife
   We must not lie to our Oluwo
   Any matter that had been exhaustively addressed
   we must not raise it again
   Orunmila was the person who initiated Akoda
   He also initiated Aseda
   He equally initiated Araba
   Only Orunmila Agbonniregun
   Was the person we do not know who initiated
   Now, after I had been initiated
   I will complement it with self initiation
   All those things that are my taboos
   I will surely avoid them
   I had been initiated
   I will re-initiate myself by myself
   - Holy Odu OgbeAte
   
   Campbell informs us that "Once having traversed the threshold, the hero moves in a dream landscape of curiously fluid, ambiguous forms, where he must survive a succession of trials... The hero is covertly aided by the advice, amulets, and secret agents of the supernatural helper whom he met before his entrance into this region. Or it may be that he here discovers for the first time that there is a benign power everywhere supporting him in his superhuman passage. The ultimate adventure, when all the barriers and ogres have been overcome, is commonly represented as a mystical marriage of the triumphant hero-soul with the Queen Goddess of the World. The meeting with the goddess (who is incarnate in every woman) is the final test of the talent of the hero to win the boon of love, which is life itself enjoyed as the encasement of eternity. And when the adventurer, in this context, is not a youth but a maid, she is the one who, by her qualities, her beauty, or her yearning, is fit to become the consort of an immortal. Then the heavenly husband descends to her and conducts her to his bed—whether she will or not. And if she has shunned him, the scales fall from her eyes; if she has sought him, her desire finds its peace."
   
   
3. THE RETURN: The challenge in returning from initiation is to retain the wisdom gained on the quest, to integrate that wisdom into a human life, and apply that wisdom towards helping to bring about the Good Condition. Campbell says, "The returning hero, to complete his adventure, must survive the impact of the world. Many failures attest to the difficulties of this life-affirmative threshold. The first problem of the returning hero is to accept as real, after an experience of the soul-satisfying vision of fulfillment, the passing joys and sorrows, banalities and noisy obscenities of life. Why re-enter such a world? Why attempt to make plausible, or even interesting, to men and women consumed with passion, the experience of transcendental bliss?" Again, lthe Holy Odu IrosunIwori is illustrative of the difficulties of retuning, as well as the benefits of transcending them:
   
   Orunmila said, the Good Condition is a good world
   A world in which there is full knowledge of all things
   Happiness everywhere
   Life without anxiety of fear of enemies
   Without clashes with snakes or other dangerous animals
   Without fear of death, disease, litigation, losses, wizards, witches or Esu
   Without fear of injury from water or fire
   Without fear of poverty or misery
   
   

In a recent lecture in Los Angeles, Araba Ifayemi Elebuibon informed the listeners that the Odu Ifa are divine messengers, sent by Olodumare to help people to achieve our destinies and maintain the world.  The more actively you learn to seek the wisdom of Ifa, the richer and more divinely inspired will be your heroic journey. 

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