Why None Can Stand Next to Olodumare (Or Your Original African Name For the Source Almighty) | Ominira omo Oduduwa Live on Facebook

Ominira omo Oduduwa Source:  Ominira omo Oduduwa Live on Facebook

If you are writing in English or a non African language, on the subject of African or diaspora spirituality, you need to watch this recording now. Put down whatever it is you’re doing, and go watch now. Mama Ominira started her usual debunking myths and educating African people that we need to return to our Ancestors, but then the subject of how to explain what Olodumare is came up.

This was a difficult issue for many because an equivalent word does not exist in most other languages. There is a supposed name for the concept in the Hebrew language, but it is not publicly known, and may have been forgotten save for a few mystics, and there is a running bet that it is an African name. In any case, despite the myths, nobody’s head will implode from saying, “Olodumare”. We just understand that we can’t understand or fathom Them (singular), and leave it at that. We deal with Orishas, Irunmole, and Ancestors, because we can grasp some aspects of observable Nature, and this will have to be enough. It has been enough. More than enough.

She makes a good case for not using any term for Olodumare except Olodumare as a proper name. He has 14,000 acceptable Oriki and related descriptions for us to choose from, and therefore there is no need to place another name or derivative of another name in Their place. The other choices available in the Christian and Islamic terminology, God, Yahweh, and Allah, and even El, are all local deities who were promoted in rank for those people, and so for us, to put them in Olodumare’s place is a kind of blasphemy. When we know better, we should do better. If a name that was originally meaning “The Unfathomable Almighty Source of All Existence in All Dimensions and Realms” can be found in those languages, it might fit, but it would still be inappropriate for Africans who have their own names available.

So go watch the recording. Now.

Sis. Nicole Lasher

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