more ubuntu, less duende

Duende.1.1: a modernist, tactically vague aesthetic descriptor whose effective purpose was to attribute a non-categorical, non-assessable, non-confirmable and ostensibly occult quality to a work or author, in order both to mark that work, author, or affiliated group for social distinction and to legitimate the fetish of author, text, technique.  Descriptors like duende are pseudo-concepts created in the struggles for recognition within literary communities.

Duende.1.2: that quality of any artistic group enthralled by its own artifacts, objects, actors and battles for distinction whose presence makes it difficult for that group to cultivate genuine warmth, affiliative emotion, ethical activism, love, interconnectedness, cooperation. 

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A person with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished....

- Archbishop Desmond Tutu, 1999

One of the sayings in our country is Ubuntu - the essence of being human. Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can't exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness. You can't be human all by yourself, and when you have this quality - Ubuntu - you are known for your generosity.

We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole world. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity.

- Archbishop Tutu, 2008

A traveler through a country would stop at a village and he didn't have to ask for food or for water. Once he stops, the people give him food, entertain him. That is one aspect of Ubuntu, but it will have various aspects. Ubuntu does not mean that people should not address themselves. The question therefore is: Are you going to do so in order to enable the community around you to be able to improve?

- Nelson Mandela

Ubuntu! Ubuntu! Ubuntu!

- Boston Celtics, 2007-present

But there will dawn ere long on our politics, on our modes of living, a nobler morning..., in the sentiment of love. This is the one remedy for all ills, the panacea of nature. We must be lovers, and at once the impossible becomes possible. Our age and history, for these thousand years, has not been the history of kindness, but of selfishness. Our distrust is very expensive....Let our affection flow out to our fellows; it would operate in a day the greatest of all revolutions....Let me feel that I am to be a lover. I am to see to it that the world is the better for me, and to find my reward in the act....It is the symbol of the power of kindness.

- Emerson, "Man the Reformer," 1841

"have I not taught from the very beginning

that with all that is dear and beloved

there must be change, separation, and severance?"

 - DN 16 PTS: D ii 72, v. 58

congratulations on being here

Celeb.ration "is"."se

lf.res.traint, is a

t.ten.tiveness, is qu

est.ioning, is medi

tating is a

waiting" is a per.son

’s .body a[t] large, [a] mob.ile collect.ion of molecule. We congratulate th.is

id.ea.of.body.

That "a wo.rld is wor.lding,"

rehearsing in fact .that we a.re."here."

We congrat.ulate "th.at the.re a.re be.ings at all"

th.e not.ion of hereness, of here.

A, boulder,'s a large, part.icle. We congratulate, this accident, of boulder.

.

We congratulate a Vermilion, River. We kayak. We congratulate, a bridge, thanks, you carry, us, the bridge, for holding, I saw them the, mo.ving babies, we mean, it even today, the Mill St, bridge at Pontiac. Illi.nois. And, that guy, who honked, you, honked, your honk, reverberating on the dam wall, thank you, we're in y.our, mid.st.

All, of the daughters, in the waters, all, of the brothers, with the, others: you, are con.gra.tulated: thanks.for h.old.ing love,s tho, you, do.n’t, think of it, like that, maybe, my youths I, congrat.ulate, you, for, depositing my selves, in this, “time place,” I congratulate, the waters, of Evergreen, Lake, Co.mlara’s Park for supporting, the gramanoid weights, of for.aging hundred, and then thousand, of our, medium geese, crissum, crown and occiput, who are, little little, meat boats. We congratulate, the geese, thems.elves, for having, such little he.arty legs. You’re all, scaly and nude, and knobby legged, you pinioned, you squamous senators. Yo.ga, because, yo.u are, in this w[hurl]ed, I congratulate, you, all your, lo.vely te.[ache].rs. I congrat.ulate ants, for being cut.e, I have never seen, an ugly ant, even up, close, in those photographs, by E. O., Wilson.

I congratulate Clio, Byrne-Gudding, d[a[we]][la]ughter of G.ab[e]riel Gud.ding, a.nd, Ma.iréad Byrne, you have done, so well, in yr 12, yrs, sis.ter, of Mar.ina, Byrne-Folan, for you, as we.ll, as Ma.rina, a.re a, ch[isle]ld, of letters, of ladders, child of answers, of elbows, child of apples, of bellows, child of rivers, of otters, child of sunspecks, of waters: child of tendons, thin, springing, both the tendons, of her ankles, and the tendons, of the allosaur: I congratulate, Clio and the arrangement, of things, that made her. You, are a child, of that cloud and that cloud and that cloud. You, are a sister, of that chicken and that chicken, you are a sister, of a sister. You, are a child, of fat and wheat and wide fish. You are, in no way, related, to any dogs, but all cats, at once. Child of purple, child of cool canal.

For Clio, and the distance to her, the ac.cident, of her, the int.ention of e.very mindhe.art that ma.kes, we congratulate J.ohn Mui.r, the pays d'en haut, mud as a colloidal fruit, the river as a lung barn, angry people, seven little bit, seven clam river, theoretical hull speed, that we clean the toilet, the mantle, the honey cell, the ladle, a columnar crown, the fouled animal, bird work and culvert fuss, bilge arts, bioaccumulate, echinodermata your sister. We hoist Clio. We hoist house and unhouse: your unreadable library. "All that is beloved must be changed, separated, severed." Whatever causes the weapons to sparkle. It is remarkable there are stupid maidens. Camp on the muddy feather. Be sad as in a zoo. As in a leaving outward. Potamalalia, outmouth. The horses touch our gravel. Riparian accipiters. Franz Joseph rifle. Accepting misfortune cheerfully in the pleasant saloon. All of it. Peristalted.

The globe

's a fruit, a hive

of pity : inviting

to demand, peppered

in moth, smeared

in wind

The globe's a fruit + a hive of pity

: lacquered in sun, stitched in genital

against destruction

where living

w/ brightened mind

is enough

an exit for sorrow

so congratulate

the worx

of compassion

what is this basket of horses?

[if a world]

what is this bedaisy’ed

casket of gristle, stowed

in skin?

[if a body]

if we, are each, a novice and continue to sleep

our days a stream of morals, a string

of what use is this childhood

if we just assemble love

around us

to die from it

or watch it die?

p. 44, Love and Sympathy in Theravada Buddhism by Harvey B. Aronson

We must delight in each other, make others’ conditions our own, rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work, our community as members of the same body. So shall we keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.

- John Winthrop, first governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony

happy birthday, Gandhiji 1869-1948

Kabira kharā bāzārameṅ, liye kuḷhārā hātha. 

Śiśa utāre, bhuīṅ dhare cale hamāre sātha.

Kabīr says, "I am here calling you, but I have an axe in my hand. 

Only one who is ready to chop off his head and throw it in the dust can come with me."