Having mentioned some teachers of my youth and still going back to
more than forty years ago, I am feeling quite remorseful about all the
other good and great ones that I didn't give place of honour – such as
Professor Jack B. Moore, Jack Goody, Victor Le Vine , Michael Crowder,
Kwabena Nketia, Jawa Apronti, John R. Cartwright, Miss Dolphin ( Greek
and Roman Culture), Glanville, Graham, Carter, Evans, Rev. Ferguson
who looked like W. H. Auden, but taught essential Bishop Berkeley.
I hope that others do, but I don't quite follow your latest, here
( about Dennis Brutus etc)
Amanda Ripley's article was straightforward enough
Like a straightforward English man proceeding straightforwardly, what
I meant by a simply stated opinion "does not have to be taken as
poetry, or as a poetic statement", is that with reference to your
flippant or initially ambiguous one-liner that ignited so many
learned interventions, it is not every simple, straightforward
statement that has to be subject to literary criticism and
philosophical analysis. Should we subject very politician's oratory
(Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Sir Winston Churchill, or nutty Sarah Palin)
to that sort of analysis, it would be a very tedious project indeed
and that would leave us with precious little time to get to the heart
of any matter.
In other words we are to accept the import in what is said (even YOUR
intention) at the superficial / surface level of everyday speech -
- but we may ( are free to ) psychologize your motives, honestly – or
for fun – or even with good/ evil intent, to suit our own agenda.....
Still in the political public realm, we have this sort of statement
which has to be disembowelled and which I address here: It's the
facticity and not the poeticism that has to be addressed . According
to Wikileaks, said of our able foreign minister Carl Bildt, " "A
Medium Sized Dog with Big Dog Attitude":
Consider:
"While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have to stand naked " ( Bob Dylan)
"Well, the Book of Leviticus and Deuteronomy
The law of the jungle and the sea are your only teachers
In the smoke of the twilight on a milk-white steed
Michelangelo indeed could've carved out your features
Resting in the fields, far from the turbulent space
Half asleep near the stars with a small dog licking your face " ( Bob
Dylan)
On 5 Dec, 18:07, toyin adepoju <toyin.adep...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> Cornelius,
>
> I am pleased we are on a similar page on good and possibly great
> teachers,including Abiola Irele,whom we have in common.
>
> Thanks for telling us about your excursions through schools of thought that
> enlighten our world.It must have been wonderful.
>
> You state that your reference to goodness on this subject does "not have to
> be poetry, or a simple poetic statement".
>
> I wonder if we are together on that point.
>
> Into my mind comes Virginia Ola,responding to Dennis Brutus's
>
> "The clammy cement sucks our naked feet
>
> the still,frosty glitter of the stars
> the Southern Cross
> flowering low"
>
> exclaiming 'even in the profound discomfort of the prison his spirit
> refuses to be crushed!'
>
> I can still recollect the emotional imprint of her response on that day,when
> the poem moved her,even though it was many years ago on the first year of my
> BA at the University of Benin.
>
> To some people,the experience might have been a molehill. But to a person
> who will always remember the experience,it is a mountain that he continues
> to climb....
>
> *There is nothing like a good teacher.*
>
> That sense of nothingness,is that not the fecundative emptiness at the
> centre of the opon ifa,the spatio-temporal configuration at which the past
> meets the present within the armbit of eternity,as
> Orunmila,Setilu,Gbongan,Adeforose,Iyapupa,Anjantala and others from the
> unrecorded beginning of the tradition,moving across the ages, make
> themselves present,unseen but concrete,embodied in akara ogun, the sphere of
> power, as they are called upon by the desire of the student?
>
> On self transformation,the snake that reinvents itself and yet remains the
> same,the calabash that displays the distinctiveness of its various sides
> even as they run into one, it could be helpful to study the great Muslim
> polymaths,who, well before the European Renaissance,actualized
> the Renaissance ideal of the uomo universali,the universal man,in terms of a
> scope ,that,as far as I know,was not realized in Europe:Ibn
> Sina<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avicenna>
> , Omar Khayam <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_Khayyám>,Ibn
> Khaldun<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Khaldun>
> , Al-Ghazzali <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghazali>.....
>
> Salutations brother
>
> Toyin
>
> On 5 December 2010 12:38, Cornelius Hamelberg
> <corneliushamelb...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
>
>
> > Please permit me to be personal:
>
> > Wonderful Toyin,
> > Slayer of demons,
> > Champion elucidator of comparative esoterics
> > Restorer of chimps to the jungles to which they belong.
>
> > I had wanted to add, "slayer of dragons", but then again the dragon is
> > one thing in Chinaman's lore and something else to St. George…..
>
> > Indeed, Toyin, you are not toying when you say, "There is nothing like
> > a good teacher." In the sense in which you speak, a good teacher never
> > dies.
>
> > (During the month of June, 1981 I lived in Ahoada in Nigeria and would
> > be woken up at 5.30 every morning by someone going past my little
> > bungalow (a madman I thought) who would be shouting at the top of his
> > voice, "I am the light of the world." Sometimes he'd wake me up with
> > "I Am the Alpha and the Omega". It's only once when I got up and went
> > outside to behold the fellow that I realised that I couldn't tell him
> > to shut up; he was doing his rounds, what he called "Morning Call" and
> > was not making any personal statements "I am the everlasting etc" but
> > only quoting from the Gospel, and calling on Nigerians to repent and
> > follow Christ….)
>
> > Speaking of contemporary secular times, I count Mr. Bankole Thompson,
> > Mr. T. C. Deigh, Major Von Bradshaw, Michael Brunson, Professor Eldred
> > Durosimi Jones, Eustace Palmer, Derek Elders, Chief Abiola Irele,
> > Gerald Moore, Hugh Kenner, Miss Robertson, among the many good
> > teachers who taught me live and direct, once upon a time.
>
> > Thanks for wonderful examples from two traditions that are familiar –
> > the Faith of Israel and with reference to everybody's Milarepa also
> > embraced by the Vajrayana Order (the Diamond Path) of great Karma
> > Kagyu teachers with whom I spent some years of instruction – and
> > practice.
>
> >http://www.chabad.org/search/keyword_cdo/kid/9208/jewish/Rashi.htm
>
> > Of course there is no Torah portion that I study that is not
> > accompanied by among others, Rashi's commentary - in fact side by
> > side with the Stone Edition Chumash which contains some of Rashi's
> > commentaries, I also read the Chumash with Rashi's commentary -
> > exclusively Rashi, ( edited by Rabbi A.M. Silbermann).
> > In the Chabad website the Torah portion is accompanied by Rashi's
> > commentary which is a most essential commentary, since it was not
> > addressed only to the learned, but to everybody, what in Christian
> > parlance includes "the laity."
>
> > You say that "Rashi, as a part time student, had made notes which he
> > studied and expounded to his sheep in his job as a shepherd because he
> > could not
> > afford full time study."
>
> > I'm not comfortable with your shepherd - sheep metaphors. In Christian
> > parlance, be it Jesus or Pastor Adeboye, both are identifiable as
> > Shepherds of their sheep/ flock, but from a Judaic point of view, and
> > here I am speaking personally – in the words of King David which we
> > all know so well, " The Lord ( HASHEM) is my Shepherd" – we are His
> > sheep , so to speak.
>
> > I have seen but never been to the women's section of the synagogue.
> > Good thing.
> > However at home I do have an empty chair for the Prophet Elijah……but
> > that's another story……
>
> > It's significant that one example you give is of an explicator of
> > Scripture (a scripture often couched in what may be apprehended as
> > poetic terms, symbolic language (The Torah = water) – even coded
> > language – giving headaches and presenting misunderstandings,
> > especially to ignoramuses and hard –hearted literalists) – and the
> > other example that you give is that of Milarepa the poet- philosopher.
>
> > I myself got into Buddhism accidentally, through literary encounters
> > with Buddhist thought, the rather pacifistic Herman Hesse, Jack
> > Kerouac (believe it or not), Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, the Naropa
> > Institute – and Zen Buddhism which ( in short) has flowered - in my
> > opinion, mostly as a literary movement so to speak, in which poets can
> > spout reflected or unreflected profundities – have composed a number
> > of Haikus myself : have always approached scriptural texts as poetry -
> > eventually attended retreats of the 16th Karmapa and Kalu Rinpoche,
> > 1974-1975.
>
> > Yet one has to be careful about accepting what we all do,
> > uncritically, some of what we accept as the profundities of Buddhist
> > philosophy in the areas described as " the void," "ultimate reality" –
> > much of what has passed into contemporary American Literature, as
> > unexamined givens…
>
> > After your explanation that "a good teacher is incomparable", Foday
> > Morris comes back with "If he (Toyin) had initiated the conversation,
> > say in a poem, it would have been a totally different matter."
>
> > Ditto I suppose with "There's nothing like a good politician" - that
> > too – that opinion does not have to be poetry, or a simple poetic
> > statement.
> > Some people are good at performing the miracle of trans-formation - of
> > making a mountain out of a molehill.
>
> > Please forgive me dear Toyin, but exercising some basic self control,
> > you notice that I have refrained from commenting on other
> > transcendental matters that you have touched upon here…
>
> > On Dec 4, 9:57 am, toyin adepoju <toyin.adep...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> > > Let me honor your declared leaning towards Jewish culture and give an
> > > example from there,Cornelius.
>
> > > In a section of the Worms synagogue,there is a chair,empty,and as far as
> > I
> > > know,unused.It is the chair of Rashi,Rabbi Shelomo Ben Isaac.Why is
> > Rashi's
> > > chair in the synagogue?
>
> > > It is there in honour of the fact that,among other fundamental
> > > accomplishments,centuries ago, Rashi was able to ensure the continuity of
> > > Jewish education based on Jewish sacred texts in that part of Europe when
> > > the teachers were killed in a pogrom,thereby endangering the continuity
> > of
> > > the tradition,since a good part of the learning and recording were
> > largely
> > > oral.Rashi,as a part time student,had made notes which he studied and
> > > expounded to his sheep in his job as a shepherd because he could not
> > > afford full time study.
>
> > > At the death of the teachers,the students came to Rashi.Today,on the
> > margins
> > > of these texts,the main text is often accompanied by Rashi's
> > > commentary.This is as far as I have read of the great teacher and
> > > exegete.Research online suggests that story I read in the Encyclopedia
> > > Britannica 1971 edition might not be accurate.It remains inspiring for
> > > me,though.
>
> > > There is nothing like a good teacher.
>
> > > May that nothingness,that escape into incomparability,that transcendence
> > of
> > > all categories,not be linked to Ain Soph,the Qabalistic
> > unconceptualised?In
> > > the poetry of the Tibetan Buddhist poet Jetsun Milarepa,the teacher and
> > the
> > > Primordial Buddha,the manifestation of ultimate reality,beyond being and
> > > non-being,are identical.
>
> > > He calls continually to the adepts of his Kargyutpa lineage. They are
> > > physically departed, yet present,invisible yet palpable:
>
> > > "Vouchsafe your waves of power,O gurus....."
>
> > > toyin
>
> > > On 3 December 2010 22:22, Cornelius Hamelberg
> > > <corneliushamelb...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
> > > > Toyin,
>
> > > > All the artsyfarsty philosophizing about "There is no such thing as a
> > > > good teacher." What are we talking, Nigerian English or mere
> > > > gibberish?
>
> > > > Where is Farooq Kperogi the language analyst when we need him?
>
> > > > Knowing you as I do, I intuit that you mean " There is nothing you
> > > > could be more fortunate to have than to have a good
>
> ...
>
> läs mer »
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