A Lecture on Oshun and Gelefun: Ara Obinrin Gelefun includes; Oshun, Yemoja and Oya

White is not an ethnic reference. In Yoruba there are only three words for colors, black which is “dudu” red which is “pon” and white which is “funfun.” All colors fall within one of these three general categories, and all colors are described by Ifa as carriers of a particular type of ashe or spiritual power. Any time you refer to white in religious symbolism you are speaking about things that bring coolness like water, air and calm emotions. White is a symbolic reference to natural elements in the environment.

The most widely worshiped female Orisa in Nigeria come under the general heading of Ara Obinrin Gelefun, the daughters who sit on the earth and bring coolness. When I speak of male and female in terms of Orisa as Forces in Nature, I’m not talking about human men and women. Male and female in the metaphysical and cosmological context refers to the yin/ yang polarity between the Forces of expansion and the Forces of contraction. Everybody has both. If you don’t grasp this, some of the language of Ifa can sound sexist. If you really look at what is being said, I do not believe that it represents a sexist point of view. That is the idea that one gender is better than another gender.

When I talk about female Orisa in their most primal manifestation, I am speaking of primal Forces of contraction. The idea of contraction does have implications within the social framework of Yoruba culture and we’ll get to that. But I want to start with the metaphysical basis. The center point of Creation is called Oyigiyigi in Ifa. Oyigiyigi means “The Eternal Stone,” which is the Source of Matter in the Universe. In the Ifa Creation Myth all the matter of the Universe is contained within this stone. Science says the same thing. Oyigiyigi represents the ultimate point of contraction. It is pure female energy. There is no force for contraction in a stone that is infinitely small, and infinitely dense. Oyigiyigi is the complete crystallization of female power or female ashe. Oyigiyigi is pure womb, pure female essence. There is no manifestation of the power of expansion in Oyigiyigi prior to the moment of Creation. There is no value judgment on this statement. It is a description of the history of the development of the Universe.

Before there was time and space everything was condensed. There was no power of expansion, there was no light, there was no time and there was no space. The idea that there was no light does not mean that Oyigiyigi was evil. It is simply a state of being. In Ifa we say that Oyigiyigi became manifest through the ashe of Olodumare. Here we have another female concept. “Olodumare” means “Owner of the Womb of the Rainbow. ” No personal pronouns in Yoruba are gender specific. All the anthropologists translates the word by saying Olodumare He… I have never seen it written in English, Olodumare She… But when you are speaking of the owner of the womb of the Rainbow this seems to have a female connotation.

We know that the rock split apart. Science calls this the Big Bang. Ifa calls this splitting apart the separation of the calabash of Creation. The first split was called the Creation of Igbamole. The word “Igbamole” means “The Calabash of the house of light.” It is a two sided calabash. At this point in Creation half the Universe is light and half the Universe is dark. The light portion of the calabash is the realm of Obatala which means “The King of the Spirit of White Cloth.” Again white cloth is a symbolic reference to light. The bottom portion is the realm of Oduduwa. In some regions of Nigeria, Oduduwa is the female aspect of Obatala. In some areas the female aspect is called Yemo.

Oduduwa can be translated one of two ways. We can say either the Odu or womb of black character or the owner of black character depending on how it is broken down. “Yemo” means simply “Spirit of my mother.” Again there is no pejorative reference in the use of the word black. In the Yoruba language, black suggests that something is invisible. It is the absence of light, the power of contraction. So either way that you translate Oduduwa you are symbolically representing the idea of contraction. Ifa recognizes the fundamental polarity of yin and yang or light and dark. This polarity came into Being with the splitting of Oyigiyigi into Igbamole. There was a big explosion and light went in every direction.

Physics tells us that at the moment of the Big Bang there was nothing but light and nothing but the power of expansion. In religious language this means that the feminine principle disappeared. In the early history of Creation, we have pure female energy one moment and pure male energy the next moment. The existence of nothing but light in the Universe lasted for about one trillionth of a second. The big problem of astrophysics is the question of why the light from the big bang didn’t just flatten out into a single beam of light. That would be the logical consequence of an explosion from a center point. This may not be real obvious, but to the world of Western science it is a serious enigma.