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Pix Credit CubaNet Orunmila! Elérí Ípin, Ìbikeji Olódumarè, A-je-jù-Oògùn, Obìriti, A-p'ijó-ikú-da, Olúwa mi, A-to-i-ba-j'ayé, Òrò à-bi-kú-j'igbo, Olúwa mi, Ajiki, Ógégé a-gb'ayé-gún; Odúdú ti nídú orí emèrè; A-tún-orí-tí-kò sunwòn se, A-mo-i-kú. Olówa Aiyere, Agiri Ilé-Ilógbón; Olúwa mi; amoimotán, A kò mo O tàn kose, A ba mo tàn kose, A bà mo tán ìbà se ke. [Orunmila, the witness of our fate, Second to Olodumaré, you are more effective than medicine, You are the immense presence that avoids the day of death, Lord Almighty save us, mysterious spirit that battles death. Salutations are due you first in the morning, for you are the force than produces equilibrium among the forces on Earth, you are the one than can reconstruct the creature whose lot in life is bad, you are the repairer of bad luck, those who come to you encounter immortality. Lord and undeposable ruler, perfection in the house of wisdom, Lord infinite in knowledge, we who fail to know you fully will fail, if we could but know you fully, all would be well with us.] (Afolabi A Epiga and John Philip Niemark, The Sacred Ifa Oracle (Brooklyn, NY: Athelia Henrietta Press, 1995))
So begins the invocations of the Babalawós of IFA to Orunmila, that divine manifestation of wisdom and the conduit through which such wisdom is sometimes made available to humanity. Such wisdom is, as is traditional in many places and among many cultures, oracular. It is provided through manifested by other divine manifestations, in the case of IFA, through Ellegua/Esu, the tricky and quite moody divine manifestation of divine spirit of connection, before the work of divination, of connection to the divine, may be commenced.
Since 2012 I
have written of the annual letter of the Cuban Council of the High
Priests of Ifá (Consejo Cubano De Sacerdotes Mayores De Ifá),
the practitioners of traditional religion brought over from West Africa
with the slave trade and now naturalized as a powerful indigenous
religion throughout the Caribbean and now growing in the United States. (e.g., 2024, 2023, 2022; 2021; 2020; 2019; 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015; 2014; 2013; 2012).
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Every religion connects the structures of divinity to the human
communities around which their worship is structured and social,
political, economic, and cultural communities are organized. To that
end, the priestly caste platys a very specific role as mediator,
interpreter, and as the incarnation of a social order grounded in divine
principles and rules.
In most states, the priestly role has been transformed. But it is useful, as one examines the priestly role in modern western states, to consider a more traditional relationship between the priest and the state. One of the more interesting manifestations of the role of religion within political life is that of the priests of the practitioners of the old religions of Africa as re-established in the Western Hemisphere, particularly in Marxist-Leninist Cuba. (here)That priestly role is exercised in very specific ways among the great traditions of Western Religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It shows a more variegated vigor among Non-Western religious traditions. These are well known. Yet most of these have sought to marginalize the great traditions of African religions as a barbaric variant of primitive idol worship that had been suppressed elsewhere. And yet those religious traditions remain as vibrant, their theologies as complex, and their practices as rich as those other religious traditions that have sought over many centuries to supplant them.
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Systems of divination have also been attached to and express religion for a very long time. Divination takes many forms. They have one thing in common--their systems represent a concise mapping of the cognitive universe within which the community of the faithful can understand the world around them and the processes, principles and patterns through which it manifests itself and operates. In contemporary spaces, the role of religious divination has been taken by descriptive and predictive analytics--by the virtual built on the foundations of the simulacra of a reality which it is meant to mimic and from which it is possible to time travel virtually (Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation (U Mich Press, 1994; Alfred W. Criosby, The Measure of Reality: Quantification and Western Society 1250-1600 (CUP, 1997)). One might even be tempted to suggest that these systems even add the divine element with the introduction of generative artificial intelligence as the driver of predictive divination. More traditional systems of divination attempt to set out in text and image the way in which their own worlds are ordered and the pathways and markers of cognition are constructed, and realized through deep embedding in the ordinary course of the lives of social collectives. Prominent among them is the Book of Changes--the I Ching, born during the shaman period of Ancient China, and organically embedded in and as Tao and Confucian overlays, serving as philosophy, religion, oracle and Dao (Benebell We, I Ching: The Oracle (North Atlantic Books, 2023)). The Ifa follows its own contextually driven path as divination and as the expression of a system of cognition principles around which the world is rationalized and perception ordered (Hermeneutics (Interpretation): The Ifa Concept of Cosmology as the Basis for Divination; Celebrating Black History Month 2024 in the US--The Ifa Divination System in the Western Hemisphere).
To realize that objective, at the start of every year the leaders of the great indigenous religion of Cuba conduct, through a series of ceremonies, a general divination for the country. And so it was in the early hours of the 1st of January that leaders of the various branches of the Afro-Cuban religious communities met. The results of that divination, and its advice, is organized into a "Letter of the Year" (Letra del Año) (on the history of the Letras del año see HERE (Historia de la Ceremonia de la Letra del Año )).
La letra indica que es lo que comunican los Orichas a las família de santo y creyentes, como les irá en el transcurso del año en curso, y lo que deberán hacer para que, las posibles tragedias venideras no los agarre tan desprevenidos. Por esa letra, se regirán todos los familiares de ese ilé (casa) sin excepción, durante todo ese año, y en ella quedan determinados cuales limpiezas (Ebbós) deben hacerse todos los miembros. [The letter indicates what the Orishas communicate to the orisha communities and uninitiated believers (the laity), how they will fare in the course of the current year, and what they must do so that possible coming tragedies do not catch them so unprepared. The letter serves without exception as the rules and instructions that serve as the basis for the governance (and guidance) of those religious communities, each ilé (house), throughout that year, and in it are determined which cleanings (Ebbós) all the members should undertake.] (EcuRed, Letra del Año)).
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| Pix credit Associaci'on Yoruba de Cuba |
Traditionally each of the major houses provided their own annual divination. In Cuba a process of consolidation resulted in agreement among the major houses for a major joint divination and the production of a single national augury. The year 2021 marked the 6th year of an important change, in which many of the most important branches of the faith came together to produce a unified letter under the aegis of the Asociación Cultural Yoruba de Cuba (ACYC). It also marked the last year of that union. The rupture was a long time coming. In 2019 there was some confusion over the authenticity of the Letter of the Year with two appearing in the early hours of the new year. That was cleared up but not to everyone's satisfaction. 2020 proved to be a more difficult year. It caused the IFA practitioners to change their divination ceremonies in light of the realities of the pandemic. And indeed, in retrospect, when the Letras del Año for 2021 and 2022 are read for the ACYC, one can (again in retrospect) understand the inevitability of that rupture. (For more read an extended discussion in my analysis of the Letra del Año 2024 HERE).
From 2024, however, the various local and regional associations have again sought movement toward a consolidated augury. Notice of this renewed union was conveyed 26 December 2023:
A raíz de diferentes encuentros sostenidos previamente, se efectuó este 26 de Diciembre de 2023, en nuestra sede nacional de Prado 615 entre Monte y Dragones, municipio Habana Vieja, La Habana; la renovación del Convenio de Hermanamiento entre las Instituciones Religiosas Bantú de Cuba y la Asociación Cultural Yoruba de Cuba, representadas por sus Presidentes los hermanos Aldo Durades Román y Roberto Padrón Silva. Este nuevo convenio logra un respetuoso entendimiento y reafirma nuestros lazos históricos, protegiendo diferentes puntos de interés común para ambas instituciones religiosas, con cuyo hermanamiento, da continuidad a nuestros vínculos anteriormente suscritos y deja indisolublemente ligado a dos cultos con raíces y prácticas muy cercanas con origenes africanos. [As a result of different meetings held previously, it was held on December 26, 2023, at our national headquarters at Prado 615 between Monte and Dragones, Habana Vieja municipality, Havana; the renewal of the Partnership Agreement between the Bantu Religious Institutions of Cuba and the Yoruba Cultural Association of Cuba, represented by its Presidents, the brothers Aldo Durades Román and Roberto Padrón Silva. This new agreement achieves a respectful understanding and reaffirms our historical ties, protecting different points of common interest for both religious institutions, with whose twinning, it gives continuity to our previously subscribed ties and leaves us inextricably linked to two cults with very close roots and practices. Africans.]
What is also clear is that greater care appears to have been taken to avoid difficulties. As in 2024, the old practice of signalling hints about the oracle have been abandoned: "Sin embargo, hasta ahora, la asociación con sede en Prado #615, entre Monte y Dragones, en La Habana Vieja, no ha emitido señales sobre la predicción para 2025. En
años anteriores, su equipo de comunicación solía ofrecer adelantos o
detalles sobre la reunión de sus miembros para la elaboración de esta
importante revelación." (Periodico Cubano, Letra del Año 2025: las expectativas de la comunidad cubana)
* * * * * *
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The 2025 Letter of the Year is interesting especially after several years of oracular suggestions (2019-2024) of turmoil, explosion, and transformation traveling along pathways that are both conduit and are disrupted and reshaped. It is the year of finalization of the great cycle the unavoidable period of ending of which was introduced by disease (2019) and will end with the establishment of new structures (good and evil) toward which all will be expected to bed the knee. The Letter of the Year (the official version and that of the independistas; Miguel Febres Padron (below) and my own) point to the emergence of emperors and the corruption of order, of liars and of the return of defeated enemies to which victors had shown mercy. This is the year of the sacrifices required for new ordering; and the sacrifices will be painful.
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This is echoed in the appearance of the ruling Orishas for the 2025 year; for the Official Letter of the Year they are Shangó (thunder and lightning, patron of hierarchs and wealth, giver and destroyer of power, order, hierarchy, institutions) and Oshun (the bringer and destroyer of success in enterprise; passion as against the rationality of Shangó); for Miguel Febres Padron Odua (royalty and governance) is the reigning Orisha, but supported by Yewa (mystery, secrecy and the enforcer of divine justice); for me Ogun (technology, creativity and innovation, violence, war, reordering) and Eleggua (pathways towards ends or dead ends and the enforcer of justice as he sees it). These are the incarnations around which the predictive analytics of IFA divination is organized. And like prediction analytics that is heavily path dependent on the layering of prior predictions (descriptive analytics), IFA also builds on its own pathways.
Indeed, 2022 saw much of that failure to attend to responsibilities, even as the apparatus of state appeared more decisively secure in the hands of its leaders. 2023 added something new and something old and the intensification of a rational irrationality fueled by passion. Obatalá returned as the ruling sign--but with a vengeance. The oracles promised reason, but reason stretched and twisted to (absurd) extremes; with it the wrap of the irrational. Here the influence of Oshun. Oshun brought the heart, and the passion, to the "right" reason of Obatala. Together they produced moments of reasonable completeness and resolution of matters and also ignited passion, and an intense irrational passion that burned one in the fires of the heart. The intensification of both the mind (Obatalá) and the heart (Oshun) exploded in disastrous synergy, or perhaps worse, disastrous opposition. And indeed, by the end of 2023, this tendency toward the irrational, inflamed passions (love and hatred) appeared to consume all levels of social relations.--though its crucible appeared in the 7 October Hamas killing, the regional war it incited, and the irrational exuberance with which the spectators used it as a channel of their own irrationality, fears, etc. Its parallel with similar effects were echoed elsewhere--as everything intensified. If 2023 exploded, 2024 poured gasoline on the fires, intensifying passionate (ir)rationality and moving toward points of transformation from which there could be no return to the stable order before 2019. 2024 was the year in which the wages of the sins of the past, well past due, were collected with interest all intesified by the supra-moral judgment of Eleggua and the intensifying enforcement of Oya, the reigning Orishas. If Eleggua is the guardian of the pathways, the communicator and the trickster with a long view of justice and karma, then Oya (lyá Mésàn, Iansã, Yánsán), the spirit incarnated in and of the tempest, of the release of pressure, of the fierce warrior is also (like the Valkyries) the guardian of the spirit of the dead, serves as the harbinger and instrument of change. And that, indeed was what was experienced in the tumult that was 2024 on every level of human individual and collective activity--everything changed and what had been unthinkable began to emerge as inevitable.
The Letra del Año 2025 follows (in Spanish and with English translation) along with my analysis and discussion (in English). The letter may be accessed in full on the ACYC Facebook Page (here and here). The Letra del Año of the independistas (Fraternidad Miguel Febres Padron) may be accessed HERE (Odua is the reigning Orisha, but supported by Yewa) (also here).
LETRA DEL AÑO 2025
PREDICCIONES DE IFÁ PARA CUBA Y EL MUNDO
SIGNO REGENTE: OGUNDA OGBE
PRIMER TESTIGO: BABA IRETE MEYÍ
SEGUNDO TESTIGO: OTURA OGBE
ORACIÓN PROFÉTICA:
IRÉ ARIKÚ OYALE TESI TIMBALAYE
(Una suerte de salud firme y seguro en el plano de la tierra con la bendición y el apoyo de todas las Oshas y Orishas).
ONISHESI: BE KO
DIVINIDAD REGENTE: SHANGÓ
ACOMPAÑANTE: OSHUN
BANDERA: Roja con ribete blanco (El ribete blanco por el camino de Obatalá del Oddun).
EBBÓS Ni IFÁ:
- Un gallo, dos gallinas amarillas, agua de mar y de río, tierra podrida.
- Tres flechas, paño amarillo, muñeco hembra y macho, trampa.
- Un pedacito de oro, maraña de hilo, tierra de un hueco, dos cocos, dos velas.
- Aguardiente, miel, pescado ahumado, jutía ahumada y maíz tostado.
EBBÓ DE SANTEROS:
- Un pollo, una trampa, tres flechas, agua de mar y de río, un coco.
EN ESTE SIGNO NACE:
- La representación de Olofin en la tierra.
- La fosa mortuoria común.
- La tristeza y la melancolía.
- El vandalismo y la delincuencia.
REFRANES DEL SIGNO:
- Un solo hombre con la ayuda de Ifá, reta a 30 hombres a combatir y los vence.
- Por causa del tarro se abre la sepultura.
- Ojo de fuego, adulterio del corazón.
- Si el esclavo muere, sólo su madre lo llora. Si muere un hombre libre todo el mundo lo comenta, esta es la ley injusta de los hombres.
ENFERMEDADES QUE SE PRONOSTICAN:
- Enfermedades cancerígenas, úlceras estomacales y duodenales o de tumores malignos interiores.
- Enfermedades por intoxicación alimentaria y alergias.
- Enfermedades venéreas de transmisión sexual.
- Enfermedades de la garganta.
RECOMENDACIONES:
- Se debe tomar medidas por intensificación de actos delictivos.
- Analizar bien las inversiones económicas y sus consecuencias.
- Eliminar la conglomeración de basuras y focos que facilitan la proliferación de enfermedades epidémicas.
- Cuidar y respetar la integridad matrimonial y familiar.
- Prestar más atención a las adolescentes y jóvenes.
- Se debe tener especial cuidado en conversaciones delante de niños.
- Reducir el consumo de alcohol y sustancias psicotrópicas.
- En este signo la carne de cerdo es indigesta, respétela.
- Se recomienda recibir Odduduwa quienes lo tengan pendiente.
- Dar especial atención a Eleguá, Oshún y Olokun.
- Se recomienda poner Mariwó en la puerta y usar sábanas blancas.
- Se recomienda a las hijas de Oshún no usar ropa amarilla.
- El dinero destinado para ceremonias religiosas no usarlo para otros fines.
- Se recomienda a los religiosos baldear la casa con quimbombó.
- A todos los religiosos mantener y respetar la discreción de nuestros ritos.
- Rogar a todos los santos por el entendimiento entre las naciones y la paz mundial.
- Según esta profecía, Orula nos ofrece un bien de salud para hacer frente a todas las dificultades y contratiempos que se puedan presentar.
LETTER OF THE YEAR 2025
IFÁ PREDICTIONS FOR CUBA AND THE WORLD
RULING SIGN: OGUNDA OGBE
FIRST WITNESS: BABA IRETE MEYÍ
SECOND WITNESS: OTURA OGBE
PROPHETIC PRAYER: IRÉ ARIKÚ OYALE TESI TIMBALAYE
(A good fortune in the sense of firm and secure health on the earthly plane with the blessing and support of all the Oshas and Orishas).
ONISHESI: BE KO
RULING DIVINITY: SHANGÓ
ACOMPANYING: OSHUN
FLAG: Red with white trim (The white trim on account of the path of Obatalá from the Oddun).
EBBÓS Ni IFÁ:
A rooster, two yellow hens, sea and river water, rotten earth.
Three arrows, yellow cloth, male and female doll, trap.
A small piece of gold, a tangle of thread, earth from a hole, two coconuts, two candles.
Liquor, honey, smoked fish, smoked jutía and toasted corn.
EBBÓ OF SANTEROS:
A chicken, a trap, three arrows, sea and river water, a coconut.
IN THIS SIGN IS BORN:
The representation of Olofin on earth.
The common mortuary grave.
Sadness and melancholy.
Vandalism and delinquency.
SAYINGS OF THE SIGN:
A single man with the help of Ifá, challenges 30 men to combat and defeats them.
Because of the jar the grave is opened.
Eye of fire, adultery of the heart.
If the slave dies, only his mother mourns him. If a free man dies, everyone talks about it, this is the unjust law of men.
DISEASES FORECAST:
Cancer, stomach and duodenal ulcers or malignant internal tumors.
Diseases caused by food poisoning and allergies.
Sexually transmitted venereal diseases.
Throat diseases.
RECOMMENDATIONS:
Measures must be taken due to the intensification of criminal acts.
Carefully analyze economic investments and their consequences.
Eliminate the accumulation of garbage and garbage dummg places that facilitate the proliferation of epidemic diseases.
Care for and respect marital and family integrity.
Pay more attention to adolescents and young people.
Special care must be taken in conversations in front of children.
Reduce the consumption of alcohol and psychotropic substances.
In this sign, pork is indigestible, respect it.
It is recommended that those who have it pending receive Odduduwa.
Pay special attention to Eleguá, Oshún and Olokun.
It is recommended to put Mariwó on the door and use white sheets.
It is recommended that Oshún's daughters not wear yellow clothing.
Money intended for religious ceremonies should not be used for other purposes.
Religious people are advised to wash their houses with okra.
All religious people should maintain and respect the discretion of our rituals.
Pray to all the saints for understanding between nations and world peace.
According to this prophecy, Orula offers us a good health to face all the difficulties and setbacks that may arise.
* * * * * *
The Divination for 2025 appears to speak to authority and disruption, that is to revolving or revolution. The key elements are distilled from the ruling or reigning Orisha: Shango and Oshun. The reigning Orisha provide the interpretive framework through which the specifics of the Oddu cast, and their supporting text can be interpreted. In semiotics, they serve as the grounding normative basis through which interpretation, perception and meaning that is meaningful, is possible. These are then developed throough the pataki, stories that flesh out the orisha and embed the teaching of the structures and functioning of the lebenswelt built around Ifa. They function, in this sense, in a way similar to that of what the Christian world was taught to call myth. And indeed, the mythos of the pataki may be as poweful as the more formal and structured oddu in fleshing out the imaginaries of Ifa and its social collectives.
He has three wives; his favorite (because of her excellent cooking) is Oshun, a river Undergoddess. His other wife, Oba, another river spirit, was conned by Oshun into offering their husband her ear to eat. His anger was greatly kindled by this, and she is said to have fled from his presence to subsequently become the Oba River, which merges with the Oshun River to form dangerous rapids that are believed to be the physical manifestation of her lifelong hatred for her fellow royal consort. Lastly, Oya was Shango's third wife, and was the one out of the three who managed to learn the secrets of his special powers to use in later life.
Curiously, Radio Renbelde, an apparatus of the Cuban state, inconsideringthe 2025 Letter suggested the character of Shango this way:
Este representa el trueno, el fuego, la justicia, el baile y la masculinidad. Es una figura compleja que combina poder, pasión y astucia.Las leyendas yorubas presentan a Shangó como el cuarto rey de Oyo, un antiguo reino de la actual Nigeria, reverenciado por su valentía y carisma y señalado también por su carácter impulsivo y arrogante. Durante su reinado, Shangó buscó el dominio absoluto, lo que llevó a un enfrentamiento con sus rivales, aseguran las narraciones.La deidad es símbolo de resistencia y se le asocia con la lucha por la justicia y la celebración de la vida, siendo inspiración tanto para religiosos como para artistas en Cuba. Su energía continúa siendo una fuerza transformadora en las vidas de sus seguidores, publicaron hoy diversos medios de la isla. [Shango represents thunder, fire, justice, dance and masculinity. He is a complex figure that combines power, passion and cunning. Yoruba legends present Shango as the fourth king of Oyo, an ancient kingdom in present-day Nigeria, revered for his bravery and charisma and also noted for his impulsive and arrogant character. During his reign, Shango sought absolute dominion, which led to a confrontation with his rivals, according to the stories. The deity is a symbol of resistance and is associated with the fight for justice and the celebration of life, being an inspiration for both religious people and artists in Cuba. His energy continues to be a transforming force in the lives of his followers, various media outlets on the island reported today.] (Radio Rebelde)
And there are the opposing impulses that will guide the fulfillment of the oracular trajectories--an appetitte for absolute authority, an aggresive orthodoxy that tolerates no opposition, nut also the absoluteness of resistance and the fight for justice, which can cut in multiple directions simultaneously.
Oshun--Oshun is the youngest of the Orishas, the embodiment of
intuition, of emotion, of empathy. This is the High Priestess in a
tarot deck, but also the cult priestess of a time before the current
religions; she is the abbess. This is Ibú Ikolé – the mother of
witches; but also Ibú Añá, so poor that she could only forget her
troubles by losing herself in dance to the beat of the sacred Añá drums.
Oschun is also Ibú Ololodí, the master of the 16 major odus of
diloggún; but also Ibú Asedán, the ownewr of pointed things who enjoys
the hunt and the infliction of pain. The point, beyond metaphor, is the
opposite--the oppositional nature--of this reigning Orisha, to her
partner. Thsiis passion enough to build and to tyear down. This is the
flame of energy that constructs and the fires that extinguish all
around them. Both will be very much in evidence in 2024, augmented and directed toward the state and institutional energy in combinaiton with Shango (see the 2019 oracle and he role of Oshun).
These are the ideas that are picked up in some of the adages put forward
by the Cuban Ifa priests. These suggest the essence of the tensions
through which pressure builds: the cetrality of religion or the drovong power of lebenswelt, the "commonality of the grave as the only lace where humans unite in total equality. It is also the time for dropping out ("Sadness and melancholy, Vandalism and delinquency").
And it is central to the signification of the oddus cast for the year, a
signification that produces the interpretation of the "adages" but also
that are the means of signifying the oracular in the spirit of
Shango/Oschun. It is in these senses that the oracular casting for the
year "give birth" (signify) several key elements: protection against the augmentation of criminality, carein the proteciton of the social order, and the family (however defined), as well proteciton against the places and habits from out of which plague arises. These speak to the ways in which the detritus of explosion may re-arrange the social order and require cleaning up.
With these framing principles in mind, one can approach the more specific oracular guidance of teh oddus. The oddus (reflections based on the translations and oddus in The Sacred Ifá Oracle (Afolabi A. Epega and Philip Neimark, Brooklyn NY: Athelia Henrietta Press, 1995). Let us consider each in turn briefly:
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The message with respect to dishonesty is clear enough: "Eke re'bi ógún odún ko de Eke re ajo osu méfà ko bo Òtító inú ni ajeku ju iro lo. (The dishnest traveled for twenty years and failed to return; the dishonest traveled for six months more and failed to return") (The Sacred Ifá Oracle (supra, pp. 100).
Those who are dishonest travel; they do not die; they do not fail; they do not stop; they may even propser. There is, however, no turning back. Dishnesty is a pathway that leads away Those who set out on that path do not return. They have becme something else; they percieve things in a different way. Their way of looking at things is dishnest from the perspective ofthose left behind; but it may be perfectly hinest form their perspective. That raises the quesiton: how do those who were left behind relate to those who are dishinest from thier ownway of seeing/doing things? The answer is straightforward--they may not return. They cannot return because they are no longer who they were. They ae something else. They have left a community of believers and travel with and to another community. Any interaction is between strangers. And that dishinesty, as it affects those to whom the dishinest may not return, can only trun out badly if those left behind are not careful. Dishinesty, in this sense, acquires its meaning from the relation between parties. Dishonesty signifies a rupture that makes interaction fraught with danger. It refers to the separaiton of people and the difficulty of their engagement. One cannot return and remain dishonest. One is a stranger among the honest--and the honest are strangers among the dishnest. Rupture is the operative insight.
But there is another aspect of the oddu that focuses both on the nature of dishonesty and its social effect as touching on the core belief and value systems among strangers:
A dífá fun Baba îmàle ab'ewu-gereje. A ni: biwon d'ayé tan iro ni won mi a maa pa. A niki won rúbo, won ko wonko rúbo. Iro naa ni awon ìmàle npa titi di ònì-olónì. (Honesty is the best policy divined Ifá for for Baba Ìmàle, who was clothed in flowing robes. He was told he would be a liar all hs life. He was asked to sacrifice but he refused to do so. Up till today, the ìmàle (Muslims) are still lying. (The Sacred Ifá Oracle (supra, pp. 100).
The nature of that lying is also clear--it is the lying that separates belief systems and thus the way the world id seen and in which people may order their lives within shared value systems. Once one moves from one value system to another they cannot return without shedding that which caused them to leave.
Won a ma wipe àwon ngbaawe Olórun ni odoodún. Èsù wa to won lo nijokan. . . . Ó ni: Hen! ngbaawe Ol'orun Olórun kiikú. Edùmarè kiis okunrun. Òràn ìbànújé kiiba Olódùmarè. Lile ni Èsù le agbajo won. . . (They are always saying that they are fasting annually for God. One day Esu asked them why they had been saying that they were fasting. . . He says: Hen! You fast for God; God never dies. Edumare is never sick. Olodumare is never sad. Esu was forced to disperse all of them. (The Sacred Ifá Oracle (supra, pp. 100)-101.The dishnest do not return because they are dispersed. The community of the honest produced a solidarity of orthodoxy that doe snot permit dishnesty to remain among them.
Within the community of believers it is possible to seek wealth and prosperity, but only is one is well dressed and sits on an appriate mat ("Fi aso rere bo'ra kio joko lori eni dáradára kiotoo sa Ìfa yi" (Ibid., p. 101). That is the converse of dishinesty amongthose who do not share a basis of honesty.
And thus the message of of the oddu: one mus be honest to prosper; but honesty is possible only within a community of believers in their interactions. Beware the interactions among communities becaise they will be framed by dishonesty. At the micro level that touches on being cheated (or better a difference in the way that value is calculated). At the macro level communicaiton is impossible because there is no common ground. The interactions are fraught with dishonesty precisely because honesty is possible only aamong those with shared values. Here one encounters Shango and Oshun as orthodox figures, and it suggests a separationas the surest means of preserving the honesty of communities and their internal prosperity, and also their safety.
And this from the Cofradía Òlófín on Ogunda Bede:
The sign refers to trends and processes in global governance, so is not directly relevant to individual choices and actions. The sign speaks of the nature of global processes, and how they may indirectly affect individual persons.
Ogunda Ogbe is known as Ogunda-Bede, the Head of Crooks, the Master of Liars, and the Chief of Con Artists. Much of the meaning of this sign is in its name and in its main symbols. These are the tortoise – a trickster and a manipulator, and preachers wearing flowing white garbs – a symbol of hypocrisy, lack of integrity and coherence. On the right side (male, action, forward movement, expansion) there is Ogunda. On the left side (female, obstacles, challenges, contraction) there is Ogbe, a male sign. The sign is imbalanced, it contains an excess of expansive, active energy. If brought to their extremes, wisdom can become stubbornness, authoritativeness turns into authoritarianism, planning, creativity and progress give life to systems and processes that are intrusive, burdensome, unreliable, unstable, and prone to systemic failure.
The sign fell in the negative (osogbo), with an indication of gossip, setbacks, and mishaps. In Ogunda the first position is in a contractive mode, therefore all these may occur unexpectedly, as a result of failure to maintain coherence between words and deeds or be generated from external sources. In the negative, Ogunda sows the seeds of deceit, betrayal, and lack of trust, that come to their full flowering in Osa, and in the supporting oddu Irete Osa, provoking a reaction of flight and running away. With Irete Osa as supporting oddu, Ogunda Ogbe contains indications about various types of installations, buildings, government facilities, or government facilities run by private contractors. These are all types of backbone infrastructures, included but not limited to those for biomedical and genomic research.
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But the Oddu suggests more trouble for Akon the crab. Having refused to try to fit in he was acquired as a slave by Olúweri. Akon ceased being a participant in themarket and the driver of his own prosperity, becoming nstead a factor in the prosperity of his owner--not so much by his labor but through his reproduction--his children providing an endless stream of slaves to be exploited by someone else.
Oluweri . . . was going to buy Akon (the crab) as a slave. He was told that if he acquired the slave he would never be in want of people . . . Oluwweri obeyed and performed the sacrifice. Akon had many children, Oluweri originallybought human slaves. They mistreated and deserted him. Only the crab (Akon) remained with him. (Ibid., p. 56).But who is Akon? At one level Akon is anyone (thing) that consents to exploitation. On the other it is the body that can repoduce a large number of exploitable factors in the production fo wealth of another. It is a double warning then, When understood in the shadow of Ogunda Ogbe (Ògúndábèdé), the principal oddu, it suggests the consequence of rupture.
Others have suggested that Ìreté méjì"reveals the imòrtance of love and vanity and the constant struggle for love and self-affirmation. (here). This oddu invokes Oshun and hercapriciousness--with respect to wealth and prosperity as well as social interaction. Every positive will be balanced by its oppsoite. No stability here, just swings. It is possible to avoid being Akon but it may be that Akon is fated. Bit even success can be a prison.
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Where the first supporting oddu spoke to Akon the crab, this oddu speaks to Àgbàdo (corn). When Àgbàdo first appeared on earth she sought to consult Ifà. "She was told to offer sacrifice to prevent people from eating her products. A new cloth and a he-goat should be sacrificed. She refused the sacrifice. That is why people eat corn and corn products." "Wón niki ó wa rúbo ki àwon omo aráyé ma baa fi omo re je. Aso od'un kan ati òbúko ni ebo. Ko rúbo. (Ibid., p. 117). The insight is clear--those who do not take protective measures will be exploited by others. The failure to drive relations in this case permited a space where others could step in to advance their own interests. In this case a different form of slavery emerged--Àgbàdo (corn), like the cran Akon was made the slave of others producing and reproducing itself for the exploitaiton and consumption of those who control them. The story underscores the essential insight of the oddu--that wealth that is not protected will be plucked by those with the foresight to do so.
The principle weakness is inactivity. That is also emphasized in the oddu. Those who sit patiently and watch the world go by will do just that--the world will go by, and should it pause then the watcher may become Akon (crab) or Àgbàdo (corn). "She was asked to offer sacrifice when her life seemed worthless. It was predicted that she would become great. . . . She heard and oerformed the sacrifice. She became the queen of all running streams." (Ibid., p. 118). And the sacrifice--the tools and materials necessary to succeed.
For some commentators, this oddu speaks to the power of evil and the value of preparaiton, and the consequences of the failure of preparation in the face of evil. It suggests generosity among one's group and vigilence agsinst those who are not (here).
The hidden oddu.
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But Egiogbe also speaks warning--to those who sacrifice for the vanguard, for the leader, for the organizer, and is invariably repaid with nothing but exploitaiton and death. It speaks warning, effectively, to those who would put their trust in the dishonest (Ogunda-bede) and to those who will not heed the warning to protect themselves (Irete-sa), and promises themn that they will be soncumed--like the bana--by those who cultuvate them. This is the year in which those who cultuivate the great fields of humanity will consume them. It is the warning of exploitaiton by those who can by those who produce. For those who are farmed in this way--most of us, the warning could not be more precise.
Okunkun-birimubirimu li o difa f'Eniunkokunju; Won ni kosi eniti o maaq fi oore se ti ko; maa fi ibi suu; A niki o ru; Ada ati akaso; O ko ko ru; Eniunkokunju--oruko ti a npe Agbe; Gbogbo oore ti Ogede se f'Agbe; Ko kun loju; Bibe ni Agbe be Ogede lori nikehin.The dishonest farmer; the jar of poisoned honey; the act of obeisance to a false leader in order to save the world. These are the tajectories that will acquire greater relevance in 2024. Together they suggest a coming together and a falling apart--peace and war. They suggest as well the atmosphere in which these events will emerge, one that will be torn apart by windshear that is produced in the interactions of raitonality and passion. For 2024 one must prepare for conflict, for the exploitaiton of the raitonal and the intuitive--for the ingratidudfe of those who burden life's producers. And in the end there will be only Oku li o nru oku.
[Okunkun-birimubirimu divined Ifa for Eniunkokunju. They said nobody had ever done hin a kindness that he did not repay with evil. We asked him to sacrifice a cutlass and a ladder. He refused to sacrifice, Eniunkokunju--the name we call the farmer. All the good things Ogede (the banana) provided for thre farmer were not appreciated. The farmer beheaded Ogede in the end.]
Summary:
2025 appears to be the year that the wages of sin are collected. Within this structure, the guiding oddu suggest the sape of the trajectories already put in place between 2019 and 2024. The principal oddu, Ogunda Ogbe (Ògúndábèdé), provides the baseline: It speaks to rupture and union. Ìreté méjì, the first supporting oddu, speaks to arrgiogance and the extraterritorialization of self-love to those around. It speaks to prosperity, but also to the sacrifices that must be made to attain a propsperous state; and with it the expectaiton that prosperity is merely one side of the cycle of prosperity and adversity. Otura Ogbe (Òtúrabèdé; Òtùrà-Oríkó), second supporting oddu continues the theme of exploitaton raised in the first supporting oddu. It warns about exploitation by others. It is perhaps most usefully understood as a warning--not about those who would exploit (they are taken as given) but about the exploited and their own personal deficiencies that make it possible to be exploited. The weak hidden oddu is a powerful one all the same: Èjìogbè (Babaegiogbe), no. 1 in the cycle of Ifa. It corresponds to the IChing's male power hexogram (Qian-Force) and the tarot Strength. It speaks to the power of thegood, of victory over enemies, of long life and peace. But it does not identify the victor or the loser. That is the warning.
Bottom line: 2025 begins the process of tidying up the enormous transformations and cleaning up the explosions of the last several years. That doe snot make this a pacific year. Quite the reverse, it is a year in which the repercussions of the last several years become clearer in the forms of rupture, separation, and the consequences of defeat. Yet one ought not to rely on the pretty language and the positive messaging of the interpretation proferred by the well meaning Instead one might take to heart the core interpretive incarnations offered by the oddus: (1) the dishonest who follow Baba Ìmàle in flowing robes who is both an outsider and one who disrupts solidarity by creating his own, the person who cannot be honest because honesty cannot be measured with two distinct scales, and who can never return; (2) Akon the crab who would not conform to expectations and was forever marked--so marked he became an object of exploitation and the producer of generations of exploitable being just like him; (3) Àgbàdo (corn) who would not protect her own resources and condition and who became the object of cultivation and consumption by others; and (4) Ogede (the banana) who found that his kindness to an enemy who returned the kindness by beheading the plant and consuming its fruit. That is the warning. The reward may be equally unpalatable as a warning: (1) become Baba Ìmàle and impose a solidarity to a specific set of values , a system of honesty that is dishonest outside ; (2) become Oluweri, the exploiter and endslaver of Akon the crab; (3) become Eniunkokunju--the name we call the farmer, those who cultivate and consume Àgbàdo (corn), that is those who consume the production of others and then plow the producer under until replanted; and those who behead and consume Ogede (the banana).
These are the warnings built into all on the parts of the oddu and of the essence of Shango and Oshun--the first to impose order and value, and the second to organize and manage wealth by arranging a hierarchy of relations between exploiters and those who are reduced to consumables, endlessly reproducing productive forces. 2025 offers us Baba Ìmàle, Oluweri, and Eniunkokunju, the consumers and exploiters of those who would be protected by Èsu, Akon, Àgbàdo and Ogede. In the world that is "becoming" both individuals and communities face the challenges of what emerges after the eruptions of 2024, not unity but rupture, not equality but relations of consumption and production. Shango and Oshun, it seems will preside over the transformation of the world and its social relations into platforms within which relations of anxiety built on emerging hierarchies will become more visible.
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