Cthonic*

It is Olodumare that animates the "Ori" directly, which to me indicates that Olodumare Indeed is the Paradigm of the Yoruba Pantheon and Cosmos. His presence is very non-intrusive.

This would make the Ifa system a proper divine computer of sorts, "simulating" the Intelligible principles of world formation and sustenance, which is very interesting to think about, given I've read analogies between Ifa and Computers before.

Back to the original thread. If the Divination context is co-extensive with the very "scene" of Obatala's actions, then as I have been suspecting, Orunmila is primarily what Proclus would call an "Intelligible-and-intellectual" God, perhaps the pre-eminent one.

(I say Ogun because of his familiarity with Metals. Ogun is also in another myth clearing the road into the world. He is very much some kind of "Chronic" God, but a hypostasis in more "heavenly" quarters might work on different metal?)

In that case, the Odu might represent so many elements in the story, from the Gods that Obatala is said to get gold (ethical and intelligible values) from, to the materials for the descent, to the goldsmith who fashions the chain (a very strange entity. I need to know who he is. Maybe Ogun?).

But then we also don't need to posit an absolute interval in telling Obatala what to do and Obatala doing it. This is an ideal world after all. Isn't it safe to say within the Intelligible world of the divination setting itself, the divination is the event happening?

Interesting here is that the materials for an ifa divination is also somehow a miniature cosmos, or elements of one, if I remember properly, so Orunmila seems to be cognizing, and also transmitting, principles of formation here.

I think this is one of those moments where it seems like the very structure of the Intelligible might be non-Proclean, or perhaps just where my reliance on Hellenic categories might fail, because although I see Obatala as Demiurge here, I can't seem to place Orunmila.

The "Odu" being cast seems to be the myth's depiction of Orunmila's simultaneous reversion on prior principles and his illumination of Obatala's own Intellect. Or perhaps the speaking is the latter and the casting of Odu is the former. Either way, some sort of intellectual relationship is happening.