An Encounter in a Forest : Dante Alighieri, Nimi Wariboko and Myself 1

 Summary

A person wakes up to find themself lost in a forest. A passing person offers help.

In the middle of this life in which we find ourselves, I woke up to find myself lost in a terrible forest. No way out. Thinking about it now, my blood boils with the old fear.

I tried to find my way back to where I might have been coming from, but the road behind me, slim but visible amidst the tangled trees, was blocked by a famished looking creature, its jaws dripping saliva, a terrifying jackal.

I raced in terror to my right, almost running into the dreadful arms of another creature, its roar almost knocking me senseless, a lion, majestic and fearsome.

I stumbled to my left in dismay, only to be stopped by a terrible stench oozing from that region, from something hidden in the depths of the wildwood, something scratching the earth ferociously as it feasted.

At that point, I was alive but like one dead, my heartbeat suspended, my nerves numb with fear.

Suddenly, someone passed by, silent and strange. “Please help! Whoever you are, human being or spirit, please help!,” I cried out.

“I’m a human being like you” the person responded. “That mountain in front of you is the only way out. Why not climb it?”

I looked where the figure pointed, seeing the rising shape for the first time.

I saw the morning rays rest on the shoulder of that peak like a cloak, majestic, the rays of that radiant celestial form which guides us as we go about our ways, sure or confused or seemingly sure but actually confused, the celestial luminary that gives us light to see as we put one foot before another, the symbol of the light we see but not with eyes of flesh as they are often known, this wonderful sight, taken for granted every day as we go about our activities, was glorious in that dread place.

This sight, commonplace but now wondrous to me in my terror, quieted me, calmed the lake of fear in my heart, the lake that had been boiling in the horror of that piteous night.

And as a swimmer, panting, from the body of water, heaves safe to shore then turns to face the towering waves of the perilous sea, looks and looks again, marvelling at the wondrous dangers he has just escaped, so, even though my soul had fled from me in terror, I was able to turn and gaze on that dread forest once more, the forest from which unguided no one yet ever came out alive.

“Could I possibly climb it? It looks so steep,” I responded to the idea of ascending the lofty height that had been pointed out to me.

“I can help you” my benefactor countered.

“Really?” I answered hopefully.

“Of course. My journey has taken me from Abonnema in Nigeria’s Niger Delta to Wall Street, from Lagos to Boston, street trading to global markets, unemployed graduate to endowed chair, transforming the seemingly impossible to living reality is my central theme.”

“Is that you Wariboko?!” I shouted, recalling that biography from long hours spent devouring his work.

That fountain of splendour, from which pours such a fantastic stream of glorious speech?”

I burst out, transfixed in awe and wonder, my dreadful situation forgotten.

“Blessing and light of all writers everywhere!

Only my overwhelming love for you keeps me standing

I would have fallen from shock!

The love distilled into me from long hours and bent brow spent learning everything

I could gain from your great words, immortal, inexhaustible!

Master of diverse knowledge whose eyes see into all corners of what can be known to be like you has been my long held dream!

From you I aspire to be active in the press of the daily round, the messy drive of human lif and yet search deeper into the hidden depths, luminous with infinite possibility.

Will I ever be able to make words like you, to sing with the power of thunder, the music of the stars?

How come you are in this terrible place too?”

“I’m passing by since I know my way. That’s why I can help you get out.”

“Truly? Is your knowledge able to? How practical is it? Your ideas are beautiful but how helpful can they be in this harsh reality?”

“Let’s get you out of here. Getting you out will show how useful they could be.”

The morning was still young, the sun climbing higher in the sky with the stars now invisible, the very stars that attended that One, the Love Divine that first moved those happy creations at the beginning of time.

The radiance of the august luminary, the thought of the beginning of all, the sense of morning yet on creation day, last of the countless mornings that have vanished, first of bright mornings yet to come, leading in his train that which is and that which is not yet, the breath, the life, again reaching us, darkness passing away and light emerging, arriving where people prolong existence, with joyous hope, all things, the glorious dawn and my savior in that wild place, the forest now seeming more beautiful than dreadful in the glory of the new born light, conspired to fill me with hope and cheerful sense of good tidings, though I was tired, all my limbs aching.

I rested for a short time. Then we set forth, one foot before the other.

Cover image

Nature-humanity integration.

An iron pole constructed in terms of a humanoid form crowned by a bird in graceful flight, surrounded by stylized, abstractly depicted birds, an evocation of the Yoruba origin Orisa cosmology deity, Osanyin, suggesting humanity's perennial engagement with nature and its quintessence represented by the forest, the scene of adventures innumerable in literature, as in the story below.

Image source : Healing Arts online exhibition, Smithsonian.