Comparative

Cognitive Processes and Systems Compcros Research and Retreat Centre

Compass House Chivers Way Vision Park Histon Cambridge National: 07704257164 International : 447704257164 compcros@gmail.com

Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju Compcros

 Acknowledgements I thank everybody who has contributed to making this initiative possible. Justin Baptiste whose enthusiastic welcome and guidance to the world of office renting was motivational. Danny Bellew, whose summation of my vision in relation to Compass House was decisive. Auntie Bibiana, who provided the first piece of funding and whose faith has been central. Eva Szabo, the pivot of my existence in Cambridge, emotionally, economically and in terms of companionship and vision. Emmanuel Obikwu who has been consistent in unstinting encouragement. My mother Jhalobia Ojemu and my sisters, Ifuemi Adepoju and Ameto Nenger, pioneers in empowering and motivating this vision, contributing funding and the spur of pride in the project. My nephew, Daniel Pogoson, master of the humane culture of love. Tony Abolo who has been a companion on this journey from the day we met by chance in front of ITV in Benin-City in approximately 2000. Akin Solanke who has been crucial in nourishing my faith in the midst of uncertainty. Gemma Doggett and Angelina Sabalino, Regus Centre managers at Compass House, for their spirit, both compassionate and efficient. The beautiful Regus staff at Compass House, Caroline Bloxham, Katalin Bach, Charlotte Way and Daganara Stepies who make me feel at home. Yewande Okuleye for vitally contributing to making concrete my appreciation of this project. Without her drive and encouragement this presentation might not exist. Great catalyzer, I salute you! Kevin Hough for being always friendly, inspiring and helpful, even beyond expectation, lending me his camera to take the outdoor pictures here that are mine. I also give thanks to all those whose images I am using.

 Entering the Palace I enter into the abode of the most holy mystery the place of intersection of cosmic purpose and human aspiration. My will and my desire turned by love the love that moves the sun and the other stars. I enter the innermost centre of the palace of She whose beauty embodies all experience possible in all worlds the palace made of the forms that constitute the cosmos the kaleidoscope of its multifarious majesty the secret home in the center of the universe. The place where are gathered all possibilities of existence where rests the potency, deep in fecund darkness, of that which transcends all. The home of the cosmic dancer sky clad empty space penetrating depth enveloping luminous majesty unhurried motion space soaring the hearth of becoming ever burning flame configurating one

Encounters in search of knowledge in society and nature as the seeker Hammadi meets, in various contexts, Kaidara, Fulani god of gold and ultimate knowledge. The contemplative presence of the Buddha Dorje Chang, embodiment of ultimate knowledge and the method of reaching it, anchors the entire tableau. The constellation of possibilities derived from the unification of existence in Kaidara, as represented by the central circle , overlays the Vision Park landscape, the physical home of Compcros. Collage made from Kaidara art by Etienne Souppart and Dorje Chang image from Tibets Great Yogi, Milarepa.

 List of Contents Cover image Acknowledgements 2 Homecoming 3 Entering the Palace 4 Kaidara Nexus 5 List of Contents 6 Sri Yantra/Dorje Chang/Cognitivist/ Vision Park collage 9 Mission and Method 10 Purpose 10 Cognitive Mapping 10 The Spiral of Infinity on the Plane of Immanence 11 Cosmographia Conjunctionis 13 Your Heart, My Heart 14 Navigating Textual, Artistic and Physical Space 15 The Spiral of Paradox and Infinity 16 Navigating Physical Space 17 Vision Park 17

Beauty as Ultimate Reality : Kamala 18 The Interior Space 19 Compcros Library 19 The Template of Inscription 20 Igha ede 22 6

 Spirit in Ascent 24 Igha-ede 26 Nourishing All, Possessing Nothing 27 Possessing to Dispossess 28 Igha-ede 29 Origins : From Benin to Cambridge 30 Works of Art 30 Mahavidya/Orisanla Shrine 31 Sri Yantra 31 Sri Yantra and Vase 32 Nommo 33 Gio Pommodoro 34 Igha ede 34 Opon Ifa 35 Kali Yantra 35 Katherine Maltwoods Glastonbury Cosmography 36 Daniel Pogosons Being-Space 36 Initiatory Cosmography 37 Circularity Resonance 37 Ripe Heart of Matter 38 The Exterior Space 39 Vision Park 39 7

 Mound of Ascent 39 Lake of Being 40 Circle of Enterprise 40 Map of Vision Park 41 Beauty in Silence 42 The Couple 43 Histon 44 Histon Baptist Church Exterior 44 Histon Baptist Church Interior 44 Gate of Trees 45 Histon Village Green 46 Walk of Companionship 47 Bridge in Motion 48 Verbal Directions and Map 49 Image Credits 52 Sri Yantra/Setting Sun 55

The sublime centering of the Buddha Dorje Chang, his balance focused in the crossed hands holding the bell of the Void beyond being and non-being which is yet is the source of all, and the scepter of the method through which this ultimate source is realized, configures the world of outer and inner space, Vision Park and the reflecting mind, within the complex beauty represented by Maria Strutzs exquisite rendition of the Sri Yantra, Hindu embodiment of cosmic harmony and beauty

 Mission and Method Purpose Compcros is Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems. It is a research and retreat centre whose focus is the exploration of the essence, structure and dynamism of the cosmos. This study is carried out through inquiry into the self and nature within the context of a comparative exploration of existing disciplines and worldviews and the creation of new ones. These efforts employ all the cognitive capacities available to the human being, from faith to imagination and reason. These enquiries are further pursued and publicly disseminated through research and production in various media and through the inspiring matrix of the relationship between the interior of the Centre and its environment. The internal space of the Centre is marked by works of art depicting various worldviews, cosmographic constructs resonating with the cosmographic possibilities of the Centres surrounding exterior, interior and exterior spaces conducive to aesthetic appreciation, relaxation, contemplation, prayer and ritual. Cognitive Mapping Cognitive mapping, in this context, refers to the correlative cognitive possibilities enabled through the intersection of cognitive centres represented by texts, works of art, non-human natural forms and human beings. One aspect of cognitive mapping is the cognitive geography of space understood in terms of relationship between the human being and the spaces they relate with. A cognitive geography of an environment would refer to ideas of what understanding may be arrived at about that environment and how that understanding may be reached Compcros is both a concept and a location in which that concept is expressed in terms of physical space. This unity of concept and location is inspired by the possibility of understanding physical space and its metaphorical corollary, mental space, as two correlative aspects of cognitive space. Within this context, physical spaces are explored for and developed in terms of their aesthetic, philosophical and spiritual value.

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The spiral of infinity on the plane of immanence [Here] the spiral is an nsibidi sign meaning journey, but it also suggests the sun and eternity Inscribing Meaning Exhibition : National Museum of African Art At the apex of the mind, I beheld something unchanging, in a momentary flash St. Augustine of Hippo Spiral Good Morning, Sunrise by Victor Ekpuk with Ife head

 Compcros is a dramatization of the understanding that the relationship between interior and exterior space may be comprehended in cosmographic terms. Interior space is understood in terms of the human being as the interiority constituted by awareness and the biological form that enables this awareness, while exterior space in this context is represented by all forms exterior to the self and its biological persona. Interior space in a non-human sense is demonstrated by the human physical constructs realized by the interiors of buildings as spaces created by humans to house themselves in expression of their character as embodied beings. Exterior space in non-human terms is composed by the spaces outside the interiors of buildings. To adapt Jeffrey Lidke on Hindu Tantric epistemology, as the human being navigates between mental and sensory interiority and the outside world, he is a cosmic centre because the cosmos is cognized from the vantage point of ones consciousness as an aspect of the cosmos. The mobility of the cognitive centre constituted by the human being implies that one may privilege a location where one is positioned in terms of such a cosmic convergence or one may project the notion of such a center of totality to any location or construct that one chooses. Is it helpful to explore ones physical universe as one moves from one place to another, in the space of one day or in the course of a lifetime, as a cosmological matrix, capable of enabling one draw together various strands of understanding of the cosmos within the context of that space? Wherever the Tantric is, according to Jeffery Lidke, is the cognitive core of the universe, radiating from its generative centre in consciousness, to its periphery in the material world. Travelling within the worlds made possible by banks of knowledge, books, electronic forms, nature, people, one dramatizes this concept of cognitive mobility within inspiring interior and exterior spaces concretized by the spatiality of Compcros.

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In the depths of the burning core I saw bound into a single volume the scattered pages that are the universe a dense knot in one simple light Dante Alighieri Black and green circles art by Victor Ekpuk

 Your Heart, My Heart As I navigate you I navigate existence. Mobile in body and in mind your heart a home for all that is is my heart . Wherever I go that beauty the ceaseless flow of action at play in the world the stream of knowledge of the dialogue between self and cosmos the welling stream unending in its flow the rain of bounty of the transcendent good flowing power, immensity of being, steadfast rock, patient force, overturner of mountains, luminous emanation, transformative force source of wisdom as water bubbling to the surface of the earth from unseen depths, refreshing, rejuvenating ultimate purity, the luminosity whose presence compels reverence concealed in the dark depths of radiance the crucible of cognitive transformation

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 Navigating Textual, Artistic and Physical Space One may navigate textual space, artistic horizons and physical space in the Compcros library and its enclosing space. In navigating these spaces one engages with different but ultimately related cognitive centres, all relating to the environment within which the human being finds themselves and the environment they have shaped out of nature. The natural environment is the one humans find themselves in. Humans shape this environment and try to interpret their experience with it through language and images. They organize their interpretations through various schemes. These schemes are the various ways of organizing knowledge, already created or yet to be born. These interpretive schemes are emblematized by the concept of the library, defined by Yewande Okuleye as organized knowledge. A library may be understood as ordered knowledge in terms of both its books as structures of knowledge and the order of books in the library in relation to criteria that might include the contents of the books and the creators of those contents. Navigating natural, textual and artistic space is embodied cognition. These navigations are also part of a continuum of experience in which the mind in physical space may travel into worlds that might not be directly anchored in the physical world or where the contact with the physical word could disappear to the mind, as in some intense encounters with ideas in verbal texts and in engagements with inspiring natural forms and works of art. Walking, the earliest and most basic form of navigating physical space, mobilizes all the senses as constitutive of mind in movement, so that the paths taken by the perambulating human, the delicate silhouette which rests on one leg then on the other, in order to advance in the words of Hamidou Kane's Fool in the great dramatisation of contrastive conceptions of space in relation to humanity and technology in Ambiguous Adventure, are best understood as cognitive pathways, circuits of cognitive becoming, nodes of knowledge and memory, processesed through mental dialogue and when its experiences are described, externalized verbalization, inscription or depiction, expression and communication that recall Aristotle's Peripatetic School in which discourse and walking may have gone hand in hand. Particular schools of thought go so far as to organise all the possibilities of existence as paths of navigation between metaphysical centres, centres which embody constellations of possibility realised through those paths. In the Orisa tradition Ifa, moving from Eji Ogbe, King of Them All, to Ofun Ose, The One that Holds the World Upright ( this last characterisation is my invention), from the First Emergence to the 256th Emanation; in Kabbalah, having traversed the 32 Paths between 0, the Unmanifest, and Malkuth, the 15

The face of paradox, the spiral of the serpent, the circle of continuity, congregating at the empty centre from which arises the sixteen sided totality of the object and the event, the person and the thing. How may we reach this totality?

Material Cosmos, in 10, you have traversed the totality of existence as understood by those schools, in the spirit of peripatetic sages like The Fool and the Hermit of the Tarot, another cosmographic mapping, of Siva, who, as mendicant walks the Hindu universe and Kaidara, appearing in various forms in Fulani cosmology, often as a dirty, bent old man, making seemingly nonsensical demands that are actually tests on the path of wisdom; all these are images of wisdom as a quest pursued through action, whether mental, physical or both, a pursuit emblematised by the act of walking, of navigating space enriched by the sensory triggers and unanticipated encounters that emerge from both human and non-human spatial forms. Compcros inspires exploration of this rich domain represented by cognitive navigation of textual, artistic and physical space. Navigating Physical Space Vision Park Compcros is located in the magnificent office complex of Compass House, Vision Park, in Histon, Cambridge, a five minute walk from the great university city and cultural hub of Cambridge. The Centre is defined by its textual, art and nature resources. The textual resources are the Centres library. Its art resources are the works of art in the Centre. The nature resources related to the Centre are constituted by the inspiring natural environments of Vision Park and Histon. Compcros enjoys proximity to wonderful parks and woods nearby, wooded with old trees and yet providing space for relaxing and safe retreat from the exertions of activity. Vision Park, where Compcros is located, radiates from a spatial centre composed of a neo-prehistoric mound overlooking a lake from which elegant lilies and lotus flowers rise. The lake is alive with ducks and fish, and on the lake rests a restaurant. This spatial order demonstrates the integration of various forms of being, humans, animals, plants, earth and water. The lake and its various convergences may therefore be called the Lake of Being, the lake and the various animate, inanimate, natural and human made forms that constellate on and around it evoking associations with ideas of the ultimate source of existence.

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Beauty as ultimate reality

Delectable Kamala, beautiful nature, beautiful yantra , lovely Vision Park mobilized in the quest for ultimate meaning

A lake suggesting a source from which all being emerges and to which perhaps it returns? The convergence of various forms of existence at the lake evoking the creative potential of the clash of matter from which exploded the universe? The limpid waters of the lake suggesting the nothingness, the unknown zone anterior to the primal explosion that created the universe? The various offices in the park are organised around this spatial centre. This organisation suggests the projection of human activity represented by the enterprise taking place in those offices from the primal pool of being evoked by the lake and its animal, human, plant and elemental convergences. The Interior Space Compcros Library Compcros offers a library that straddles a significant range of cognitive perspectives, from the faculties of imagination to ratiocination, as expressed in different cultures and disciplines across time and space. The texts span a broad configuration of cognitive forms, from the various structures of harmony of imaginative creation and logical order in the cosmographic geometries of Hindu Tantra to the mathematical patterns of scientific cosmology, to the verbal and visual arts. The scope of this library makes it a vantage point for the exploration of the riches of what is known as human existence. The library covers esoteric Hinduism and Buddhism and classical African spiritualties, among other spiritual traditions, along with texts on architecture of different cultures, various kinds of literature of different cultures, philosophy from a variety of civilisations, some of the most sophisticated as well as general works in science from the 17th century to the present, along with children's literature and novels for adults, works on the visual arts of painting and sculpture of different times and societies, and even erotica, such as various editions of the iconic Kama Sutra and the Perfumed Garden. The Centre library demonstrates depth and range, providing access to both academic and non-academic literature, acting as both a research and a general library, in the spirit of the New York Public Library. The library has superb, strategic books, the catalogue of which will be placed online, in a number of disciplines that no other library has within and beyond Cambridge, including the magnificent clusters of libraries in London and the M15 cluster of libraries, which extend even into Kent. Some of the Centres holdings might even be unique in England. 19

Art by Victor Ekpuk

The Template of Inscription, the scribal archive, concrete, electronic and mental, hidden in its heart seeds awaiting harvesting in the crucible of mind, resonating with the power of those textual forms through which humanity tries to illuminate its existence across the ages.

 The Centre might be the only library in the Cambridgeshire region offering online access to academic journal databases for people who are not members of any institution. Our combination of scope and specificity of library holdings and proximity to Cambridge enable us to complement the broader range of the centuries growing acquisitions of the Cambridge University library complex, the newer Anglia Ruskin University Library and the beautiful Cambridge Public Library. Particularly remarkable works in the Centre library are the fantastic A Life with the Gods, with text by Susanne Wenger and photographs by Gert Chesi, in my view, one of the worlds greatest works of religious philosophy. Complementing these are almost all the works of Susanne Wenger, a religious thinker whose verbal structures, and, with her artistic school, their visual constructions, architectural and sculptural, are a unique example of the reshaping of pre-existent structures of meaning in religion and nature. Other striking works are the collection of various editions of the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, a summation of the cosmos in a journey through hell, purgatory and heaven where Dante meets those he knows personally or knows about as contemporaries of his, and historical, religious and mythic figures he has encountered only through reading, all in a magnificent succession of landscapes, at times terrifying, at other times sublime. Better known are the unillustrated Dante editions. Not only does the Centre library contain a selection of those, from translations by Dorothy Sayers to Mark Musa, Henry Cary and more, it demonstrates magnificent illustrated versions, from William Blake's density of form and phantasmagoric visualizations of Dantes Hell and Salvadore Dalis mesmerising dreamscapes in Purgatory, to Birk and Sanders modern themed illustration which pictures Dante's journey as taking place in a contemporary Western cosmopolis. Well represented are the masters of the fantastic, from Jorge Louis Borges and his cosmic paradoxes, such as the library believed to mirror the cosmos only to be later understood to be only one more item in the cosmos, to the demonic mysticism of Howard Philips Lovecraft, in which beyond the three dimensional world of sunlight and human love there bulges another world that breaks into the everyday in moments of sheer terror and heightened awareness. From Lovecraft's unique baroque style depicting the mind traversing cosmic spaces though the body is confined to a mundane room in some nondescript town, we may move to Ben Okri and the journey in which every drop of blood is drained from the body as one walks through a field of broken glass in order to enable the embodied self pass into the world of the dead, and Italo Calvinos 21

 smorgasbord of cities, in which each city is a network of possibilities, the multifarious permutations of the cosmos represented through urban paths, alleys and architectural geometries. One of the greatest body of works combining imaginative range and exploration of ultimate meaning are the world's scriptures in their marvellous variety, from the crazy improbabilities in the exuberant power of the Hindu Mahabharata, where the fire lusts after the wives of the sages, to the never ending weave of Ifa narrative, conjoining the burlesque and the sublime within an irreverent play that celebrates human creativity in the face of that which is beyond full human grasp, the playful paradoxes of Zen verbal art from the famous show me the sound of one hand clapping to the thunderous silence of the Buddha's disciple's answer to the question of the essence of the Awakened Ones teaching, to which the master responded, To you, I give my marrow', to the exalted and earthy forms of the Bible, mixing divine splendour and divine craziness, soaring faith and cold blooded treachery, the beginning of the world in a garden and its end in a phantasmagoric eruption, to the magnificent rituals, meditations and exercises of the Golden Dawn, perhaps the most influential work in the Western esoteric tradition, comparable in vision, scope and execution to the great better known scriptures but superseding them in its obvious integration of systems from the scope represented by African, Jewish and Western traditions, creating a unity that is unique among many scriptures in presenting actual methods for expanding consciousness that give rise to the vastness of vision evident in scripture, but the methods for achieving a similar cognitive and expressive scope being often undivulged. Africa, Asia, the West, in their quest for ultimate meaning in religion, myth, and their various expressions, are all represented in this library in both primary works and scholarly study of the historical development of these efforts. Is the world complete without the visual arts? From Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci to El Anatsui, from Vincent van Gogh to Owosu Ankomah, a panoply stretching from the pre-historic to the ancient, from the ancient to the modern, in Western, African, Asian and Australian arts is represented. Classics of children's literature, from European fairy tales to the magical exploits of Harry Potter to the adventures of Haroun Al Rashid on the sea of stories, to the sublime pathos of the world of the rabbits in Watership Down, to the moles of Stone and Word in Duncton Wood, and more, will transport you to the remaking of the world that makes every moment morning yet on creation day, in the words of Chinua Achebes retelling of an ancient creation story. The great masters and mistresses of philosophical journeying, Plato and the search for understanding through dialogue, storytelling and imagination, Aristotles patient analyses, Kants uncompromising marshalling of pyramids of ideas, Heidegger and the search for that which constitutes us but which because it is near we take for granted-Being, Irele on the intersection of human and cosmic creativity, Lao Tzu on the emptiness that is yet everything, 23

Art by Victor Ekpuk

The self moving by the reconfigurative power of symbols from the womb of becoming into the larger cosmos

 Soyinka's journey from mythic reinterpretation to the space of empty possibility, Achebe on the great wrestler who fought himself and was defeated by the small bodied opponent, his own spirit, all pass before you in their many faced splendour. Science and technology demonstrate the intellectual interpretation and management of the material world. The world is decisively shaped by the great works through which humans have tried to make sense to each other of the nature of the universe in a manner that can be mutually verified, navigating between speculation, exploration and verification. Isaac Newton on what he can demonstrate of the grand sweep of cosmic law in relation to that which he believes but cannot prove about cosmic process and its divine architect, Albert Einstein on the experience of time and space as shaped by inconsistencies that define the universe, Paul Davies, Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose on cosmos and mind, Tian Yu Cao on the space that existed before anything, the Nothing from which all emerged, these are among the various scientific adventures one encounters in this library. Beyond a library as a collection of books, beyond the conception of the library described by the artist Yewande Okuleye as organized knowledge, may be discerned a possible understanding of the library as a reaching towards the ultimate, towards a cognitive totality that is yet always beyond reach, in the spirit of the Aristotle scholar who described the great philosopher's work in terms of the question of the ultimate impossibility of conceptually unifying all of being, the conundrum of order and beyond-order. The library of Babel is rebuilt, the cavalcade of tongues is reconstructed, in terms of a synergistic dynamism, bringing near that which was far, showing the marvellous nature of that which is near, celebrating the glory of life and consciousness. The scope of the Compcros library demonstrates a move towards actualizing the potential of the academic nexus of Cambridge in developing the character of scholarship as a public resource. This is a still developing potential of this famous centre of learning. The emergence of Compcros as the first and perhaps the only privately funded public library in Cambridge is a vital contribution in this direction. Compcros is therefore contributing strategically to the task of widening access to academic culture beyond formal academia, in the name of scholarship understood as a way of life which as many people as possible should be encouraged to participate in.

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 Nourishing All, Possessing Nothing Nourishing all possessing nothing Flow undiminished primal emergence perpetually fecund multifaceted beauty embodiment of meaning unrestrained by limit

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In relation to these library holdings, public or online presentations or both, will be held exploring the underlying forms that unify the various cognitive processes the library holdings represent. How may they be adapted across contexts, migrating cognitive approaches from widely disparate domains? May such questions be related to aspirations to unify all possibilities of knowledge in terms of a unified dynamism that reflects the dynamic coherence of existence? Essays, books, websites, video presentations and virtual reality demonstrations will be used in exploring these questions. Use of the Centre is free. We are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. There is a vending machine with soft drinks and snacks by the Centre library in Compass House. There is a restaurant in Vision Park. In the town are shops selling a wide range of products at good prices, three banks and ATM machines. A mini- universe. Possessing to Dispossess The idea of using ones personal library as the nucleus of a public library and research centre emerges from my long aspiration to emulate Plato and Aristotle as pioneers in the culture of higher education as a democratic ideal, open to all, these pioneering efforts reverberating unendingly across time and space, shaping civilizations, forever fruitful. The concrete expression of this aspiration for me has been my encounter with masters of kenosis, adepts in the process of emptying the self of attachment to possessions, whether material, such as books, or even a house, or abstract, such as knowledge, treating them as custodial treasures to be shared rather than as possessions to be confined to the self. These adepts of creative sharing who inspire me are Father Mathew Dundon, of the Society of Jesus, in his former role as parish priest at the University of Benin Catholic Church, in whose tenure the mission house was a place where the breeze blew freely and the library was available to all, along with his guidance in its use, the library of Father Dundons house in another location being one of my earliest introductions to the scintillating theology of Karl Rahner, as I watched books grow in that house, ordered from outside the country for use within the ministry in Benin. Another such adept is the Benin Ifa babalawo-adept of esoteric knowledge- Joseph Ohomina who, for more than a year shared his knowledge of Ifa with me in a spirit of both complete humility and self assurance, traveling at his own expense to locations where we had our discussions and never once requesting anything from me in return except my readiness to learn. These examples are subsumed in the adepts, from Jesus to the Buddhist Bodhisattva, Milarepa, Milarepa owning almost nothing, not even clothes, in pursuit of the goal Jesus describes as I have come to light a fire on the earth and would I that it were already burning and the Bodhisattva vow of Santideva As long as space abides, as long as the world abides, so long may I abide, destroying the sufferings of the world. 28

 Origins: From Benin to Cambridge

The motivating concept of the Centre derives from my experience in Benin, Nigeria. Reflecting on the Benin experience, I have been inspired by the potential for synergy of the citys academic and classical knowledge cultures within the system of ecology and metaphysics that historically shaped Benin. This inspiration motivated me to found in Benin the pioneer of this integration of learning and contemplation in the context of nature represented by Compcros, adapting ideas of space in classical Benin urban and domestic planning that have had a profound influence on me. I bring to the Cambridge environment an interpretation of space as cosmographic form that is unique to this location, cosmography realized in terms of both the interiority of the reading and artistic space of a library and the exteriority provided by nature and human made forms. Being able to introduce an innovation into the cognitive culture of an ancient European seat of learning, one of the greatest in the world, adapting ideas inspired by a Nigerian environment, I plan to open a branch of the Compcros Research and Retreat Centre in Benin. This will bring full circle the scope of transcontinental influence on this weaving of space and mind, having begun my exploration of sacred space in Benin under the inspiration of the Nigeria writer Wole Soyinka and the English occultist Dion Fortune, Fortune having been inspired by the English landscape. Works of Art The ambience of the Centre is shaped by works of art from classical Dogon, English Pagan, Benin, Yoruba, Hindu and modern African cultures, including a fissured mortar formerly used for pounding food as well as a pot evocative of both the cosmos, in the spirit of Yoruba cosmology and the womb, in the spirit of Igbo cosmology, and in the spirit of Fulani cosmology, evocative of the brain, understood as a receptacle of cosmic force. One is better enabled to ingest the expressions of profound human achievements represented by the library within a space consecrated to the search for meaning, as expressed in the works of art that configure the library. These include the images of Tripurasundari and Kamala, two of the Ten Great Cosmic Powers, the Mahavidyas of Hinduism, Great Wisdom Goddesses, embodying all possibilities of being and becoming. Tripurasundari manifests the multifarious wealth that is the cosmos. Kamala, cosmic abundance and purity, drenched in nectar by her arch of elephants, her nubile form resting on the delicate luminescence of a lotus, opening in tandem with lotuses in her two hands, evoking purity and unfolding of spirit within cosmic and human being, as another empty hand blesses while another enjoins 30

do not fear, the landscape behind her rising in a rich hill of green, the entire panoply drenching the senses in fulfillment.

She is beauty as ultimate reality, immanent and transcendent, expressed in her delectable human form, her elegant geometric form, her yantra, and the animal and natural features that surround her. She embodies the aspirational focus for the devotee of beauty and the seeker of knowledge as a manifestation of beauty, a beauty that may be described as radiated by the shaping of natural form into ordered beauty represented by the design of Vision Park.

The Sri Yantra

These Goddesses are venerated through the vase of water that stands before them.

The liquid in the vase evokes purity, nourishment and waters of biological and psychic emergence from both womb and prehistory. These gestative waters are inspired by the image of the fresh water from a stream undisturbed by human contact placed daily on the altar of the Yoruba Orisa Orisanla. The freshness and transparency of the water indicate the purity of being and creative effervescence of Orisanla, described as he who shapes the child in the womb, whose white robe is depicted by Awo Fa'lokun Fatunmbi as the integration of colours representing the strands that constitute existence. The bulging bottom and triangular point of entry of the pot lead the mind to entrance into the womb through vaginal space, thereby resonating with the biological creativity of Orisanla. This is a cosmo-biological creativity that enables the infusion of the new being represented by the child in the womb with the life emerging from the cosmic being of the ultimacy of Olodumare, biological associations further subsumed in the creative processes of human creation of forms. Biological, artifactual and cosmic creativity resonate within the form against which the earthen jug stands, the Sri Yantra. The yantras downward facing triangles signify the generative space of pleasure and life, the mind expanding sexuality and biological creativity of the yoni, female genitalia. Its upward facing triangles evoke the penetrative and inseminating power of the lingam, the phallus and the yoni conjoining to constitute the configuration of the cosmos in terms of male and female potencies. These complementary polarities radiate from the dimensionless space of the bindu, the dot at the center of the Sri Yantra, as it unfolds outward in the creative sequence of conjoined geometric forms that constitute the cosmos. This generative process culminates at the outermost form of the square signifying the four directions of space. The entire 32

structure is the manifestation of Tripurasundari, embodiment of all possibilities of existence. As you enter the library you are greeted by the Dogon Nommo, imploring rain, his hands raised in supplication to the Ultimate as he bares his totality of self, his self unencumbered by the environmental dictates represented by clothing, in order to encounter the One who makes his existence possible.

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Facing you is Italian artist Gio Pomodoros Solar Illumination of the Universe, the building blocks of existence conjoining in the vitality of myriad colours. At the foot of this evocation of the conjunctions that create the cosmos, are symbols of the intersection of space and mind in human creativity.

These include Norma Rosens rendition of a version of the igha ede of Benin Olokun graphic art, its conjunction of horizontal and vertical axes evoking the quadrants of the four directions of space, material and spiritual, the conjunction of space and time, of temporality and infinity.

 Also greeting the navigator of this space of learning is the empty center, the womb of cosmic and terrestrial becoming, in dialogue with the populated circumference of being of the opon ifa, the Orisa tradition Ifa cosmographic symbol topped by the face of Esu, mediating between transformations of being and transformations of knowledge.

One comes face to face with the dynamic conjunction of brilliant colour and impenetrable darkness in the Kali Yantra, the geometric embodiment of the Hindu Goddess Kali. Her darkness is the night of cosmic dissolution and the transformative death of unrefined aspects of the self. The reemergence of being from the night of death, cosmic death and death of the crude aspects of the self, blazes forth in her brilliant colours.

 Also shaping ones encounter with this enclave of knowledge is English artist Katherine Maltwoods Glastonbury cosmography, depicting the intersection between space and mind, the mind perceiving landscape as celestial and mythographic form.

A delightful encounter is suggested by the interplay of color and darkness, of dynamism and stillness, in Nigerian artist and philosopher Daniel Pogosons Being-Scape. 36

Also present is the ladder of ascent of initiation, the circles of commencement and completion, the intersections of challenges and opportunities, all within the stream of being represented by the ocean waters of Olokun, embodiment of the intelligence of the worlds oceans, as depicted in Norma Rosens depiction of an example of Benin Olokun graphic art.

One also encounters a pot, its circularity in resonance with the circularity of the table on which it stands. The circularity of the pot and the table evoke the endlessness of infinity. The depth of the pot suggests the plunge into the depths of the unknown represented by the quest for knowledge. Is infinity the culmination of this quest?

The dialectic of interior space and exterior form demonstrated by the pot suggests relationships between inside and outside, brain and mind, cosmic form and cosmic inhabitants, the known and the unknown, being and becoming, between the fecundity of the ultimate beyond time, space and form and the constitution of being. 37

 Ripe Heart of Matter Ripe heart of matter shaping force multiplier

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 The Exterior Space Vision Park One could take a break from study to participate in the conjunction of earth, sky, water and aquatic life represented by the neo-prehistoric Mound of Ascent and the Lake of Being at the Centre of Vision Park.

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 Ascending the mound, one comes to a panoramic view of the Park. The activity of humans is silhouetted against the ancient majesty of the sky, which has seen so much come and go over the ages. What will stand in this splendid park a billion years from now?

Liquid radiance shimmers from the lake as plants, water, fish, swimming ducks and humans in the nearby restaurant come together, unwittingly celebrating their common experience of existence by converging in this ecosystem.

Landscape as ritual, aesthetic and utilitarian form converges to create a setting for the quintessential vision of the relationship between enterprise and well being: business. What is work, the kind of work in terms of which one earns a living? A necessary evil or a necessity for fulfillment? How may we design work spaces that take the human being as close as possible to the idea of work as fulfillment, a fulfillment enhancing ones humanity beyond the necessity of biological existence?

May answers to these questions be symbolized in the names of the buildings housing the clusters of enterprise, the businesses that occupy this space? Through names, people encapsulate aspirations. Through names, they signal their hopes for the future to themselves and others so as to create a unified vessel of vision for voyaging into that future. Enterprise House, Endurance House, Compass House, Endeavour House, Discovery House, Sovereign House, Victory House, Conqueror House, Pioneer Court, Trust Court, names that indicate fundamental values and resources in the struggle for success. 41

 The harmony of natural and purely human constructed form evokes the relationship between the human being as a part of nature and what the human person creates from nature. Without the sentience and the technological enhancement of the planet enabled by human awareness and physical dexterity, what would the cosmos be? A field of potential largely unfulfilled?

Without the consciousness of self and world enabled by sentience and the physical ability to manipulate nature, evident in humanity and perhaps in other life forms we shall either discover as we foray into the cosmos through these technological achievements or by these life forms discovering us first though the technology represented by their own shaping of nature, what would the cosmos be? A theater without actors? A field of sport without players? An arena without contestants? An embryo yet undeveloped? Fertility unfulfilled? 42

Who are this couple that give shape to the surrounding space, projecting a permanent human presence in this idyllic spot? Our earliest ancestors, the oldest father and mother, testifying to the continuity of the race in the midst of the plant, elemental and animal worlds?

 Histon One could move from the Park to enjoy the nearby stillness of the Histon Baptist Church. This sacred space has a remarkable atmosphere, an inspired and inspiring silence. Distant music shaped in soundlessness seems to strum on the ears as one basks in the sense of space charged, washed clean by devotion, ringing with a power unknown but unmistakable.

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One could walk a little further on to immerse oneself in the majestic solitude of ancient trees that frame the entrance into nearby Homefield Park. In their majestic size and variegated form, the trees suggest why humans have venerated trees as evocations of the cosmos. Massive trunks, large branches and sub-branches, all these vitalized by the life of the tree that creates this dynamic growth. Is this not the Norse Yggdrasil that constitutes all worlds, the Jewish Kabbalistic Tree of Life that reaches from the unfathomable Source of Being to the world of human struggle with good and evil? Are these not the Yoruba/Orisa Ifa Tree of Stories where all possibilities of existence emerge as stories constantly being narrated and enacted, charged with cosmic power embodied in human imagination and language? Evoking this world of mythic and cosmological delight, the majestic gate of trees opens the way to the woodland, leading one deeper inside into an arboreal labyrinth where discovery of nature may inspire discovery of the self. Entering the Grove of Meditation, screened from pedestrians and vehicular traffic in the park, one may delight in companionship with oneself and nature.

Would one wish to spend time with nature even more? Moving out of the town, one may take the Walk of Companionship, a sequence of woodlands on the way out of Histon .

You walk through these spaces in the company of natural forms, screened from your fellow humans who whiz past on the adjoining road in their technological enablements or in biologically powered bipedal motion. 46

 You are hidden from sight by the stretches of woodland but can see those on the road. This experience of immersion within a hidden space while seeing others outside it creates a sense of distance from the normal human activity of peregrination within a human community.

One is looking from inside a hidden space at others with whom one belongs as members of the same species but from whom one is briefly abstracted. Such perceptual detachment is central to religious and philosophical thinking. It is here enabled by the simple act of moving through woodland adjoining a road in a town.

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 You eventually emerge from those spaces onto the sweep of space that shapes the intersection of the expansive grounds of the Holiday Inn and the flight of road leading into the ancient and modern glories of Cambridge, less than five minutes away on foot, less by vehicle and even less by car or bus.

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Directions to Compcros in Compass House, Histon, Cambridge

Compcros Compass House Vision Park Chivers Way Histon Cambridge CB24 9AD 07704257164 compcros@gmail.com danteadinkra.wix.com/compcros By road From the M11 From the M11 North leave at junction 14 signposted for Newmarket (A14). From the A14 East bear left just before the M11 junction no 31 signposted Newmarket (A14/A10). After about 1 mile turn left at the first exit onto the B1049 for Histon. Go past the Holiday Inn on your right and through a pedestrian crossing. At the main traffic lights turn left into Chequers Road (signposted Vision Park). Turn left into Station Road and first right into Chivers Way and Vision Park. Compass House is the first building on the left as you turn into the park. From Cambridge city centre Follow signs for the A14 or Histon to get to the A14/B1049 junction and continue north (see above). 49

 By Bus and taxi from Cambridge From Cambridge station take a taxi or bus to Vision Park, Histon; journey time approximately 15 minutes by taxi, 30 minutes by bus. Bus route Citi 8 runs from Cambridge Rail Station and City Centre to Histon every 10 minutes during the day, with a journey time of approximately 30 minutes from the Rail Station and 20 minutes from the City Centre. The bus stops in Histon on Station Road, 300 yards from Chivers Way in the Business Park.

By Air London Stansted Airport is 24 miles away.. Cambridge Domestic Airport is 10 minutes drive. London Luton Airport is 50miles/ 70 minutes drive. From the airport take the B1047 to the A14 and after two junctions, turn right on to the B1049 towards Histon / Cottenham. Vision Park is signposted half a mile along, on the left. Compass House is the first building on the left as you turn into the park. Accessibility The Centre is fully accessible for wheelchair users. There is a lift to the first floor where Compcros is.

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 Image Credits

Page Image Source Cover Compass House http://www.regus.co.uk/locations/office- space/cambridge-vision-park 3. Homecoming Microsoft Word stock image 4. Kaidara Nexus collage Composed by Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju from various sources 9. Sri Yantra/Dorje Chang/Cognitivist/ Vision Park collage As previous 11. The Spiral of Infinity on the Plane of Immanence collage Composed by Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju from Inscribing Meaning Exhibition : National Museum of African Artand A History of Africa by Basil Davidson 13. Cosmographia Conjunctionis Composed by Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju from Victor Ekpuk work and study photograph

16. The Spiral of Paradox and Infinity collage Composed by Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju from opn ifa and Voddo veve images

18. Beauty as Ultimate Reality: Kamala collage Composed by Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju from various sources

20. The Template of Inscription [My own title] Painting by Victor Ekpuk. Text by Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

17. Benin Olokun igha-ede rendered by Norma Rosen in Chalk Iconography in Olokun Worship by Norma Rosen. African Arts, Vol. 22, No. 3 (May, 1989),44-53+88. 24. Spirit in Ascent [My own title] Painting by Victor Ekpuk. Text by Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju 26. Benin Olokun igha-ede rendered by Norma Rosen in Chalk Iconography in Olokun Worship by Norma Rosen. African Arts, Vol. 22, No. 3 (May, 1989),44-53+88.

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29. Benin Olokun igha-ede rendered by Norma Rosen in Chalk Iconography in Olokun Worship by Norma Rosen.African Arts, Vol. 22, No. 3 (May, 1989),44- 53+88. 31. Mahavidya/ Orisanla Shrine Picture by Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

31.Sri Yantra from Wikimedia Commons at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sriyantra.svg 32.Vase and Sri Yantra Picture by Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju 33.Nommo As previous 34.Gio Pommodoro and other Cosmological Motifs As previous

34.Benin Olokun igha-ede rendered by Norma Rosen in Chalk Iconography in Olokun Worship by Norma Rosen.African Arts, Vol. 22, No. 3 (May, 1989),44-53+88.

35. Opon Ifa from Yoruba: Nine Centuries of African Art and Thought. by Henry John Drewal et al.New York : Centre for African Art, 1989.22.

35. Kali Yantra by Vamakhepa at www.sics.se/~piak/yoga/yantra

36. Glastonbury Zodiac by Katherine Maltwood at Rival Landscape Zodiacs by Fenlander at http://fen-lander.hubpages.com/hub/Rival-Landscape-Zodiacs 36. Being-Space by Daniel Pogoson Picture by Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

37. Circularity Resonance Picture by Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju 39. Mound of Ascent As previous 40. Lake of Being As previous 53

28. Initiatory Cosmography rendered by Norma Rosen in The Initiation of a Priestess : Performance and Imagery in Olokun ritual by Joseph Nevadomsky with Norma Rosen in TDR Vol. 32, No. 2, Summer, 1988. 186-207.

 40. Circle of Enterprise As previous 41. Map of Vision Park from Mortlock House, Vision Park, Cambridge site at http://www.mortlockhouse.co.uk/accommodation.html 42. Beauty in Silence from Histon and Impington Online at http://www.hisimp.net/history/hissight.htm 43. Shadow Figures by Helaine Blumenfeld at http://helaineblumenfeld.com/ HelaineBlumenfeld/Work.aspx ?p=28&ix=2912&pid=2811&pr cid=4&ppid=2811 43. Shadow Figures by Helaine Blumenfeld at http://helaineblumenfeld.com/ HelaineBlumenfeld/Work.aspx ?p=28&ix=2912&pid=2811&pr cid=4&ppid=2811 44. Histon Baptist Church Exterior from http://archangelic.co.uk/case- studies/churches 44.Histon Baptist Church Interior from http://www.churchbuild.co.uk/testimonials/215-3/ 45. Gate of Trees from http://histonfootprints.wordpress.com/2011/11/26/exploring-the-park/ 46. Histon Village Green from http://www.compass-house.com/location 47. Walk of Companionship Histon footpath by Sarah Vigliotti at www.sarahvigliotti.co.uk/images/histon/index.php 48. Bridge in Motion The A14as seen from bridge from Histon to Cambridge by Jme at http://keeppushingthosepedals.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/yet- another-cycle-ride-to-meetingthis.html 51. Map slightly adapted from CHS Cambridge Housing Society site contact page at http://www.chsgroup.org.uk/page-view.php?pagename=contact. 55. Sri Yantra/Setting Sun from Ellodia Thallon at http://elodiathallon.wordpress.com/about/ Begun 2 June 2012 Completed and posted 10 December 2012 54

Completed December 10, 2012