Song of Myself

"I exist as I am, that is enough,
If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
And if each and all be aware I sit content."
~ WW

Song of Myself was... long.  That's about all I got.   I didn't note much, and the notes all struck me in different ways, so I can hardly construct an entire post out of it.

"All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier."

 "There was never any more inception than there is now,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now,
and will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now."

A lot of the passages are very open and spiritual, but a lot are also very rigidly religious, and I don't know him well enough to know whether he is simply citing what the people know, or if he was actually a very Christian man, which baffles me.

 One thing that has really bothered me about his writing is the connection of body and soul, as if they are the same thing.  I have never know anyone with half a brain to think that, unless they are referring to the body, and care of, being a reflection of the soul.  I guess I am still taking this voice in.  On the whole, though, my note for this work would be of the same tone as the Emperor's note to Mozart, as one who truly does not understand the work: there are too many notes.  This was just one 1,346 line poem of 84 works I've read thus far, but it was one that I was excited about, which might explain my mild disappointment.

"Have you ever loved the body of a woman?
Have you ever loved the body of a man?
Do you not see that these are exactly the same to all in all nations and times all over the earth?

If any thing is sacred the human body is sacred..."
~ I Sing the Body Electric

We met some folks on our empty beach this time.