Here's the scene: I'm half-way through The Godfather, took a break to sit on the patio with a glass (or two) of merlot, and am now thinking about the world and what makes it turn. This is when I am reminded about the duende.
As a scholar of literature, I am bombarded with unanswerable questions: what makes us choose who we are? How recognizable is Every Man? Why do we make the same decisions over and over again? When we dig up the foundations that are buried beneath civilization or the myths (stories) of how the universe was created, the ideas are generally the same. Name the creator according to almost any belief you can think of, and what we try to connect with is something ethereal; some floating, celestial, heavenly being who makes the world, and then determines that the people or creations (usually made in the creator's likeness)are disappointing: we cannot resist the apple in the garden, or we accept the Promethean fire. Then we are subject to a lifetime of suffering, doomed to flirt with the divine knowledge we are not privy to here. We are left to find a way to help ourselves, to make ourselves, through a lifetime of searching, fit to enter the golden gates through redemption via a savior, or we are left to die in darkness. As I was thinking about the weight of this (and how ironic it is that though we are the wretched creation, we are still awarded the privilege of choice), I remember the duende and am comforted.
The duende is a term from Spain and is associated with the Flamenco dance which involves the stomping of the ground and the recognition of an ancient rhythm. The duende is an earthen mystique born of Gaia and is associated more with Spanish and Latin American cultures. The earth is where wisdom resides; check Garcia-Marquez, Lorca, Allende, or even Tolkien if you don't know what I mean. The duende is the ancient and the mysteriously recognizable in the earth. It comes to us through our feet (stop as hard as you can) and travels through our bodies to the heart and can overtake the common sense. It inspires passion and beauty. It is not from the heavens and operates outside of logic. It is recognizable among all people. It is dirty. It is gritty, like sand in your teeth. It lights our fires and emblazons our souls. It whispers enlightenment, is essential for creating art, and is a guide to knowing that even though we are a different generation in a different culture, we are the same as those who came before, and that's a reunion to be celebrated. Los muertes know the secrets and the answers to our questions, and we will too some day. It is comforting to know that there is a relationship between the profound earth and the hard-to-hold, airy spiritual, and there is a genuine comfort in being the wretched creation, residing in the space between the two.