| Pix Credit CubaNow |
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.
For the last twelve years 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., 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. 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.
To that end, 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. 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)).
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 2023 HERE).
For 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. "Sin embargo, hasta el momento la asociación con sede en Prado #615 entre Monte y Dragones en La Habana Vieja; no ha dado señales de su esperada predicción para 2024, a diferencias de otros años en los que sus medios de difusión han realizado adelantos o dado a conocer de la reunión oficial de sus miembros para su redacción." (Letra del Año 2024: anticipación y expectativas).
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| Elegba: Pix credit here |
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| Oya Priestess Pix credit here |
Much of this will seep into 2024. But the seeping now serves as fuel for a fire/tempest that appears to be very much in the offing, if the temptation toward explosion is too great to resist. 2024 appears to be a year in which the wages of the sins of the past, now past due, will be collected with interest. It speaks to pathways that are perilous and on which accidents and misdirection is possible, but one ultimately coming to a place quite different from where one started (the framing spirit of Eleggua). And it speaks to the tempests, cleansing and destructive without moral judgement, that may both increase the peril of the journey and result in substantial destruction from out of which something else will be built (the spirit of Oya). 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--sometimes violent. What predominates, then, is testing in the face of pressure--from the slightest breeze of introspection, to the pressure that overturns the most fundamental systems of human social relations.
Within this structure, the guiding oddu suggest the possibility of tempering the pressures and avoiding explosion, though not the solidification of the oppositions that eventually will either explode or be resolved some other way. The principal oddu, Ìretè Otura, provides the baseline: resolution is inevitable. But reason, prayer, and the incantations of social relations may, in the language of the oddu, to "give way" for a time. That suggests both the tightening of the coil that are current human contradictions (external and internal; subjective and inter-subjective) and the possibility of releasing tension enough for temporary relief. That relief may provide a means of re-directing (though ot avoiding) explosion in ways that are socially positive (however that will be measured). Ìká Ògúndá the first supporting oddu speaks to gathering courage in the face of threat either to meet or avoid it. Òtúra
Ògúndá suggests the approach to using strength to avoid or dissipate the explosive potential of increasing tensions of the irreconcilable and oppositional. It brings Ògún into the oracle--the signification of war, metal, weapons--but also the signification of using them as much to farm as to fight. Underlying these oddu, the hidden oddu, Òtúrá meiji and Ògúndá meiji also suggest the underlying or secondary forces shaping the year. These touch on the principal characteristics of the guiding spirit (Eleggua)--transport, commerce, interaction--all positive, but tempered by the caution that such positive may be met with the opposition of the warlike (conflict) and short tempered (irrational or rational passion) that may block. Bottom line: 2024 promises to be a rising tensions, which may produce (explosive) release and greater interaction that may enhance conflict as easily as it might temper it. The guiding insight is to perform in ways that delay and mitigate the atmosphere knowing that while the inevitable may not be avoided, it might be deflected, redirected, or postponed. In the process great prosperity and great conflict will exist side by side. There will be a lot of talking this year; the incantations of speech/text might put off the inevitable, which speech/text will also expose this year. If the year is lucky that may be enough to postpone or mitigate its most destructive effects.
