The Symbolism of the Ifa Divination Tray

The Symbolism of the Ifa Divination Tray as Summative of Ifa’s Central  Metaphysical and Epistemic Conceptions

The symbolism of the Ifa divination tray can be described as summing up the range of metaphysical and epistemic conceptions intrinsic to Ifa, as well as suggesting those ideas which may be extrapolated from this ideational core. The divination tray is a tray that may be used in Ifa divination. Even when it is not used, its symbolism suggests ideas that underlie the divinatory process.

The divination tray can be described in terms of a dialectic  between an empty centre and a populated circumference. It can also be described in terms of a relationship of contrast and complementarity between continuity and rupture. This creation of complementarity through contrastive elements, representing  invariable elements in the design of the tray, could be described as being at the core of the range of  ideas the tray symbolises.

The design of the tray dramatises a dialectic between an empty centre and a  populated circumference because  the centre of the tray is invariably empty of any design or inscription while the circumference is invariably populated by a variety of forms. These forms  vary between different trays but one invariable element is the face of the Orisa Esu which is positioned at the centre top of the tray, facing the diviner as he or she  uses the tray. The figure of Esu, in all the examples I have seen, contrasts with the other designs in the circumference of the tray because it breaks the continuity of forms present on the tray’s circumference even while being one of those forms. The break occurs in terms of its invariably  facing towards the diviner, which might not be so with the  designs of the other forms on the circumference, which might be facing sideways or even be non-anthropomorphic. Even when the design includes anthropomorphic or quasi-anthropomorphic figures, the central position of the Esu image at the centre top of the tray, a position at times replicated by an identical image at the bottom centre of the tray’s circumference, ensures that the Esu face is a particularly distinctive  or even the  most distinctive  section of the circumference design.

This creation of contrast and complementarity through the visual form of the tray is evocative of Ifa as organised in terms of simultaneous relationships of complementarity and contrast. These relationships run  from the visual structure of  the Odu to  conceptions of forms of space embodied by relationships between  various realms of existence. From one perspective, this suggests an emphasis on process and transformation, as well as on the forms  that make these processes possible and  those forms  which emerge in the course of these  processes.

The divinatory instruments are cast on the empty centre of the tray. The patterns they assume represents the oracle’s response to the query put before it. These patterns are interpreted in terms of the ideas they suggest to the babalawo. This interpretive process is facilitated through the correlation of each of the possible combinations of patterns,256 in all, with ideas expressed in terms of  literary texts, which could be narrative, poetic or both.

The empty centre of the tray can therefore be understood as a nexus of possibility because the possibilities that emerge from the probabilities configured through the random casting of the divinatory instruments emerge from the instruments either being cast on the tray or  are represented by  symbols  written on the tray. The tray could also suggest the space constituted by the structure of human existence, this structure being the template in terms of which various possibilities represented by the probabilities distinctive to each human life are realised. Like the diviner who casts the divinatory instruments and the client on whose behalf this is  done, people are continually questioning the choices they make, asking themselves and others which new choices to make and how to manage the outcomes of choices already made, questions and challenges conducted  in the context of the range of influences that shape their lives. This range of influences can be described in terms of  a tension between the continuum  of relationships between the deterministic aspects of their existence and those aspects over which they have a greater or lesser degree of control, a tension at the heart of Ifa metaphysics and action. This tension is actualised in the divinatory process and is also  experienced in existence in general in terms of  a relationship between randomness and meaning. This relationship between randomness and meaning emerges in Ifa divination in terms of the random casting of the divinatory instruments  and the effort to interpret the outcome of the random configurations they assume  in terms of meaning. This quest for meaning is understood as generating answers which emerge from the deepest levels of the individual’s possibilities, the aspect of their being that predates birth and outlives death. Each aspect of their lives, each choice they make, are understood, therefore, as related to the complete continuity of their lives, pre-terrestrial, terrestrial  and post-terrestrial.

In the general course of human life, human existence may be described as primarily determined by the overarching effect of the apparent randomness represented by the circumstances enabled by one’s birth, an action in which, as far as one knows, one  is  not complicit. All actions and choices and interpretations of possibilities could be described as  efforts to manage the consequences of this formative random experience, interpreting its significance either as intrinsic to it or through one’s efforts to extrapolate meaning from it. These questions are central to Ifa metaphysics as well as to the human effort to make meaning of existence in relation to the details of individual lives  as well as in relation to  existence  as a whole.

The character of the Ifa tray, and particularly its  empty centre, as symbolic of the space of becoming constituted by the circumstances of human existence is reinforced by the fact that to facilitate the divinatory process  the tray could be divided into four equal parts through the intersection of one horizontal and one vertical line. This division represents the division and complementarily between the worlds of spirit and matter. The point of convergence between the horizontal and vertical lines can be understood in terms of  the  point of conjunction between spirit and matter, between the pre-terrestrial origin  of the Ori and its engagement with the terrestrial being of the material self. This image of  division and complementarity is reinforced by the similarity of this cosmographic form to  another  cosmographic form from Yoruba culture,  Igba Iwa, the calabash composed of two halves conjoined to make a whole in which  the top signifies the celestial and spiritual worlds while the bottom represents the material and terrestrial worlds.

The relationship between the empty centre and the inscribed circumference of the tray also suggests cosmic associations, associations which are amplified by their similarity to cosmographic forms from other cultures. The role of this empty centre as the physical template for the divinatory process, where the divinatory instruments assume the configurations that represent the oracle’s response to the client’s query, as well as the visual relationship of contrast and complementarity between the emptiness of the centre and the presence of a range of inscriptions on the circumference, within which the image of Esu is prominent, suggest the empty centre as a indicative of a womb of becoming in a cosmic sense,  evocative of  the point of emergence of the universe into being, described in one version of Yoruba mythology as Osumare, the cosmic serpent who coils round the universe to hold  it together,suggesting  a circularity of form akin to the circularity of the Opon Ifa, a circularity that the babalawo Marcos Ifalola Sanchez understands  as symbolising  eternity.

The empty centre, therefore, could suggest the cosmos  as an expression of the possibility of being. That   emptiness could represent an imaginative depiction of that possibility as well as  a space for the  visualisation of conceptions of whatever is  understood as enabling existence. Thomas Aquinas sums up a similar conception in his question in relation to the cosmos  “Why is there something rather than nothing?”. If his question is interpreted  in a  context that includes even scientific discoveries in cosmology that were not available in Aquinas’ time, that question suggests going beyond all explanations provided as to the emergence and development of the universe, and asking why the universe should exist at all. Is there any rationale, any logic, behind the existence of those physical factors understood to be responsible for the existence of the cosmos?

That empty centre of the Opon Ifa,therefore, could represent the space of possibility that enables the cosmos to exist, understood in a metaphysical sense. It could also represent that  space of possibility understood in an epistemic sense, in terms of human reflections over the ages   on the origins of  being. Its emptiness indicates the possibility of reflection on this subject rather than fixity of understanding, a progression necessitated by the enigmatic  nature of the subject. It suggests  ever developing and changing formulations rather than fixed conceptions as each person or group of people  grapples afresh with these fundamental questions. The inscribed circumference, however, could represent the ideas developed about why and  how the universe has come to be, as well as the human actors and other elements of the universe human beings engage  with, including  their non-human companions on  earth, as they pose these questions  and try to answer them.

The empty centre of the Opon Ifa could also evoke questions about the limits of human knowledge as suggested, for example, by Buddhist conceptions of Emptiness as a means of representing the character of  ultimate possibility, Nirvana, as  being beyond being and non-being as well as the Kabbalistic idea of the unmanifest and  related  ideas of negative theology, all these   depicting   ultimate possibility in a cosmic sense in terms of negations that indicate its transcendence of all human assertions and conceptions. These conceptions indicate that  the ground of being is beyond human conception and so represent it by terms that do not demonstrate any positive assertion about its nature. A central motif for such characterisation is depictions of emptiness or darkness, like the empty centre of the Opon  Ifa which in such a context would have the circumference as  representing those aspects of existence within the range of human conception and the empty centre as those beyond such conception. The structure of the Opon  Ifa enables it to serve as a  means for contemplation of such conceptions, whether in terms of identifying with them or in terms of reflecting on their validity.

The  empty space of the Opon Ifa can also be related to descriptions from scientific cosmology of the origins and progression of the cosmos, particularly since the notion of a primal explosion as having led to the existence of the universe as matter flew away from the centre of the explosion is now central to explanations of how the universe could have come into being. That empty centre of the tray, therefore, could represent a point or event of emergence of the cosmos as described by scientific cosmology, with the inscribed circumference indicating the structure of the cosmos  as defined by the laws or principles  that shape it.