The once reluctant mystic

Going through my bookhoard is like going through past lives, I leaf through my own leaves of grass. Whisperings of so many interests unpursued; so many possibilities and pathways. Many chances I had at living out my personality in the old world, a career I might have had or a book I could have written but I didn't. 

Why not then if all these subjects are so interesting and worth looking into? 

They all wither in the face of my awakening. They all fall short in the light of my transition. Even the deeper layers of personality and preference feel shallow and even pitiful as my consciousness returns from other dimensions. We are in a spiritual war, this is a prison planet.

Yet here they remain, remnants of my identity on which I can comfortingly reminisce. 

Everything academic has been reduced to hollow pretense, what once seemed so worthy now subtracted from what really matters. Aware I am of how mechanical this density has become to me. The inner voice becomes louder each day and now I can proudly say: I am not of the world although I am still in it.

I heard the call, many trumpets in the sky. 

A Walt Whitman Novel, Lost for 165 Years, Clues to 'Leaves of Grass'

In a Walt Whitman Novel, Lost for 165 Years, Clues to 'Leaves of Grass' is Being Revived -- Secret History  ...now comes another rich revelation: The anonymously published tale was nothing less than a complete novel by Walt Whitman.

Poet Walt Whitman health tips unearthed

A trove of journalism by the great US poet Walt Whitman is being published online after lying in obscurity more than 150 years.

The 13-part series "Manly Health and Training" was written under a pseudonym for a New York newspaper in 1858.

It contains multitudes of tips on topics such as diet, sex, and hygiene.

The 47,000-word series, which survived only in a few libraries, was discovered in a digitalised newspaper database by a graduate student last year.

It is now being published by the online journal The Walt Whitman Quarterly Review.

US commentators point out that some of Whitman's health advice sounds surprisingly modern.

"Let the main part of the diet be meat, to the exclusion of all else," one entry reads - a exhortation that both The New York Times and Time Magazine say would be endorsed by today's paleo-diet advocates.

Whitman also recommended the general use of the comfortable shoes "now specially worn by base-ball players" - trainers, as we would call them today.

He also warned against the ravages of desk jobs. "To you, clerk, literary man, sedentary person, man of fortune, idler, the same advice. Up!"

Whitman is regarded as one of America's literary giants, but for many years he scraped a living as a journalist, and achieved success as a poet late in life.

He began writing "Manly Health and Training" for The Atlas, a small New York newspaper, after the flop of Leaves of Grass - a collection now recognised as his masterpiece.

Ed Folsom, editor of The Walt Whitman Quarterly Review, told the New York Times that some of the journalism echoes the themes of self-improvement and homo-erotic love that are central to the poet's work.

BBC

"I HEAR AMERICA SINGING" (1860)

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,
The wood-cutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.

Freedom: to walk free and own no superior

I am all of those men, all of the potential of man moves within me and yet I know that this lifetime is not to be wasted on these archetypes, on these prototypes, I have been all of these passions. I have spent lifetimes in these desires, whole cycles in these persuasions. I have been all men and all woman.

The mystic knows that this life is about transcendence of this performance, moving beyond the traumatic mastershow of survival. The mystic knows that all of this is seperation, fear and vanity, for he knows the life beyond. He knows he is nearing the end of matter and moving into spirit, moving into balance.

The maya is so incredibly enticing, the drama is so familiar, the beauty of this life is just mezmerizing. It is not without struggle for the moves come natural; being the human comes easy. Deeply engrained in the body and the many lives; the habitual persistance of roles.

There could be great success from some perspectives, if he would just entrain to the game but he cannot. He must leave all to become all, this much is true, he looks at each path and laughs knowing all are filled with many attachments and equally filled with pleasure and pain. He knows he has had enough, he has had his fill and now it is time to transcend all of them, devote himself to the freedom timelines.

The dance, the eternal dance, who can escape?
Who of us will stand like stone as the music plays and we feel forced to dance?
We choose to dance? 

vaguest of earth’s dreams

There is, in sanest hours, a consciousness, a thought that rises, independent, lifted out from all else, calm, like the stars, shining eternal. This is the thought of identity–yours for you, whoever you are, as mine for me. Miracle of miracles, beyond statement, most spiritual and vaguest of earth’s dreams, yet hardest basic fact, and only entrance to all facts. In such devout hours, in the midst of the significant wonders of heaven and earth (significant only because of the Me in the center), creeds, conventions, fall away and become of no account before this simple idea. Under the luminousness of real vision, it alone takes possession, takes value. Like the shadowy dwarf in the fable, once liberated and looked upon, it expands over the whole earth, and spreads to the roof of heaven.

– Walt Whitman, from Democratic Vistas

they descend in new forms from the tips of his fingers

Wherever he goes men and women accept and desire him,
They desire he should like them and touch them and speak to them and stay with them.

I see you understand yourselves and me

And that my steps drag behind yours yet go before them,
And are aware how I am with you no more than I am with everybody.

Henceforth I ask not good fortune--I myself am good fortune.

Walt Whitman

this is what you shall do

by Walt Whitman (from the preface to Leaves of Grass, 1885).

"This is what you shall do;
Love the earth and sun and the animals,
despise riches, give alms to every one that asks,
stand up for the stupid and crazy,
devote your income and labor to others,
hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people,
take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men,
go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families,
read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life,
re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book,
dismiss whatever insults your own soul,
and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body."

addiction inbox on independence day

He ahold of my hand has completely satisfied me

A glimpse through an interstice caught,

Of a crowd of workmen and drivers in a bar-room around the stove late of a winter night, and I unremark’d seated in a corner,

Of a youth who loves me and whom I love, silently approaching me and seating himself near, that he may hold me by the hand,

A long while amid the noises of coming and going, of drinking and oaths and smutty jest,

There we two, content, happy in being together, speaking little, perhaps not a word.

I swear the earth shall surely be complete to him or her who shall be complete, the earth remains jagged and broken only to him or her who remains jagged and broken.

Red Tree Times

They are not the Me myself

Trippers and askers surround me,

People I meet, the effect upon me of my early life or the ward and city I live in, or the nation,

The latest dates, discoveries, inventions, societies, authors old and new,

My dinner dress, associates, looks, compliments, dues,

The real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love,

The sickness of one of my folks or of myself, or ill-doing or loss or lack of money, or depressions or exaltations,

Battles, the horrors of fracticidal war, the fever of doubtful news, the fitful events;

These come to me days and nights and go from me again,

But they are not the Me myself.

Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am,

Stands amused, complacent, compassioning, idle, unitary,

Looks down, is erect, or bends an arm in an impalpable certain rest,

Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next,

Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it.

Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog with linguists and contenders,

I have no mockings or arguments, I witness and wait.

- Walt Whitman - Song of myself (4) -

element of self-definition

Long was I held by the life that exhibits itself, By what is done in the houses or streets, or in company,

The usual adjustments and pleasures - the things which all conform to and which the writers celebrate:

But now I know a life which does not exhibit itself, yet contains all the rest,

And now escaping, I celebrate that concealed but substantial life,

I celebrate the need of the love of comrades.

(Walt Whitman, Calamus)

Adhesiveness 1856

There is that in me . . . I do not know what it is . . . but I know it is in me.

It is without name . . . it is a word unsaid.

It is not in any dictionary . . .

(Walt Whitman, Song of myself)

Sexual Nature

Man or woman! I might tell you how I like you, but cannot,

And might tell you what is in me and what is in you, but cannot,

And might tell you the pinings I have . . . the pulse of my nights and days.

(Walt Whitman, The Sleepers - 1855)

and we shall continue our annotations and questionings!

I teach straying from me, yet who can stray from me?

I follow you whoever you are from the present hour,

My words itch at your ears till you understand them.

(Walt Whitman, Song Of Myself, v. 38)

the way is suspicious, the result uncertain, perhaps destructive

Whoever you are holding me now in hand,

Without one thing all will be useless,

I give you fair warning before you attempt me further,

I am not what you supposed, but far different.

- Whitman (leaves of grass)

need no assurances

I NEED no assurances—I am a man who is pre-occupied of his own soul;

I do not doubt that whatever I know at a given time, there waits for me more which I do not know;

I do not doubt that from under the feet, and beside the hands and face I am cognizant of, are now looking faces I am not cognizant of — calm and actual faces;

I do not doubt but the majesty and beauty of the world is latent in any iota of the world;

I do not doubt there are realizations I have no idea of, waiting for me through time and through the universes—also upon this earth;

I do not doubt I am limitless, and that the uni- verses are limitless—in vain I try to think how limitless;

I do not doubt that the orbs, and the systems of orbs, play their swift sports through the air on purpose—and that I shall one day be eligible to do as much as they, and more than

they

Walt Whitman - Faith Poem

Leaves of Grass (1856)

To Him That Was Crucified

My spirit to yours dear brother,

Do not mind because many sounding your name do not understand you,

I do not sound your name, but I understand you,

I specify you with joy O my comrade to salute you, and to salute those who are with you, before and since, and those to come also,

That we labor together transmitting the same charge and succession,

We few equals indifferent of lands, indifferent of times,

We, enclosers of all continents, all castes, allowers of all theologies,

Compassionaters, perceivers, rapport of men,

We walk silent among disputes and assertions, but reject not the disputers nor any thing that is asserted,

We hear the bawling and din, we are reach'd at by divisions, jealousies, recriminations on every side,

They close peremptorily upon us to surround us, my comrade,

Yet we walk unheld, free, the whole earth over, journeying up and down till we make our ineffaceable mark upon time and the diverse eras,

Till we saturate time and eras, that the men and women of races, ages to come, may prove brethren and lovers as we are.

Walt Whitman