Thoughts: Ofo Ashe (The Power of Words)

In more than one tribal society it is considered very bad luck to compliment someone or something. Some tribes take this so far as to practice saying the opposite, such as "What an ugly baby you have," or "your house looks like it may fall down."

I have often noticed the connection between events in my own life and the words which I speak. I even coined the phrase "You can keep it or you can brag about it. Your choice." This refers to the fact that every time I take a lover and brag about uit, the relationship always mysteriously ends soon after (without the lover having knowledge of the bragging).

In thinking about my home recently burning down, I come back to the power of words. Naturally, I had been bragging to others about my neat home recently. Even others who had no home. I should know better than that. I know better than most how much it can hurt to hear others who have more than you bragging about it.

The West African Ifa tradition calls the power fo the word "Ofo Ashe." However they look at the power of words more literally contending that words are litterally spells, or commands to the Universe about how it should act. This functions much like the pop culture phenomena book/movie "The Secret," where what you say is what you get.

My experiences inform me that "The Secret" model of positive word-play is too simplistic to account for the complicated interplay of life's events, when often we get the opposite of what we say or believe. I am convinced beyond a shadow of any doubt of the supreme power of words and speach, but I dismiss the simplistic positive-thinking models and assert that the true mechanisms of action are in fact much more complicated.