I’m in my studio working on my second complete corpus of 256 Odu Ifa signatures.
It is a full catalog of African alphabets of intellectual origin.
The implications of these codes are too rich to exhaust, for maths, computation, chemistry, physics, architecture, art, philosophy, literature, performance and spirituality.
I should complete all the codes within this week.
The child is highly valued in indigenous Yoruba culture. As I look at the images sent…
ÈNÌYÀN—We Have the Power to Choose
Ènìyàn in Yoruba means a person.
Ènìyàn is from the verb yàn (to choose).
Ènìyàn means ẹni tí ó yàn—the one who chose.
This birthday gift came well after my birthday. It has my name emblazoned on it. As I wore it, I recalled the conversation with Iya Oyo and Baba Oyo that evening they explained the meaning of my name, Moyo, which literally means “I rejoice.” It is part of a longer name Moyòsọ́rẹtíolúwápèsèfúnmi.
Your Mother is My mother is Your Mother is My Mother.
“Iya Oyo, does your name mean the mother of Oyo, or the mother in Oyo?” I asked Iya Oyo one day.
“It means both,” she responded. “To my entire community of Oyo, I am the mother of all, young and old. If anyone is hungry and comes to me, it is my responsibility to feed them. Anybody who needs a place to sleep and comes to me, I will roll out my mats to them. I am their mother, and that is why I am Iya Oyo. At the same time, I live in Oyo, therefore if I travel anywhere, I am the mother who lives in Oyo.”
As she greeted Iya Oyo by kneeling down on both knees, the young woman looked worried…
YES YOU CAN FLY
Butterflies and birds have no airports
Yet they take off and fly with
no navigation maps.
Fireflies rise and glide around
without pilot gears