Ogos Quotes

Man was first a hunter, and an artist: his early vestiges tell us that alone. But he must always have dreamed, and recognized and guessed and supposed, all the skills of the imagination. Language itself is a continuously imaginative act. Rational discourse outside our familiar territory of Greek logic sounds to our ears like the wildest imagination. The Dogon, a people of West Africa, will tell you that a white fox named Ogo frequently weaves himself a hat of string bean hulls, puts it on his impudent head, and dances in the okra to insult and infuriate God Almighty, and that there's nothing we can do about it except abide him in faith and patience. This is not folklore, or quaint custom, but as serious a matter to the Dogon as a filling station to us Americans. The imagination; that is, the way we shape and use the world, indeed the way we see the world, has geographical boundaries like islands, continents, and countries. These boundaries can be crossed. That Dogon fox and his impudent dance came to live with us, but in a different body, and to serve a different mode of the imagination. We call him Brer Rabbit.

Your best life comes from living spiritually, i.e. shifting your consciousness from a visible, materialistic worldview and grounding it upon metaphysical, unseen realities. The Bible calls this practice ‘walking in the spirit’ (Galatians 5:25) or ‘walking by faith’ (2 Corinthians 5:7).

Ogo is witchcraft, the product of maleficent sorcery. Sorcery shares many odu when speaking of its birth and evolution. The odu Ogundá (3) gives birth to maleficent witchcraft due to Ogundá’s association with Arayé; they were husband and wife, and she taught him much of her wicked witchcraft. Also, there was a time in his life when Ogundá had a wandering heart, and it led him into the land of the Congo. There he learned the secrets of nganga (shamanism and medicine) and nfumbe (spirits of the dead), and he brought both back to the land of the Lucumí. Congolese practices are neutral, used to harm or heal according to the character of the palero (the adherent of Palo Mayombe, an Afro-Cuban spiritual system originating among the Congolese).

(I) Postulate that we all can be a perfect crucible in our most extreme defence of the spirit of the play, life.

You're a woman,' said Ogo. Ayndra spat, 'Ha!' and then started laughing. She turned her back on him again, and pulled an undertunic over her head. Through the wool she said, 'And what of it?' 'I . . . I thought you were a boy.' 'I never told you so.' 'No, but . . . I thought . . . there's a rule of no women in the camp.' 'No women in the camp. Is there a rule of no women in the army?