Irony — life is full of it, isn’t it? On this date 151 years ago, Abraham Lincoln died as a result of his heart belief that “A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free” (Lincoln, House Divided Speech). Because of that stand, on the exact same date 82 years later, Jackie Robinson would be able to step out and contribute as one of the most significant figures leading to the end of a segregated society. Orville Vernon Burton’s The Essential Lincoln: Speeches and Correspondence shows that Lincoln acted as he did based on his heart. (By the way, credit: Burton’s book has been the source of my Lincoln quotes). Walt Whitman understood that. In one of his most moving poems, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d,” Walt takes symbolic meaning of three natural elements that express his grief, his thoughts, and his conclusions not only about Lincoln’s death but also about the death of so many others during that time. He realizes that for the last month before writing, he had been watching bright Venus in the western sky gradually fade into the horizon — a sign of the bright star of Lincoln disappearing. He says, “O powerful western fallen star! / O shades of night — O moody, tearful night! / O great star disappear’d…” He also refers to the title bush, the lilac: “…with many a pointed blossom rising delicate, with the perfume strong I love, / With every leaf a miracle…With delicate-colored blossoms and heart-shaped leaves of rich green, / A sprig with its flower I break.” He intended to lay this on the coffin of President Lincoln as the mourning train traveled past his city. He ultimately offers it up symbolically not only to Lincoln but also to death itself seen in all the coffins of all those slain in the war. Then, under the darkness of evening he attempts to reconcile all this as he walks along a path close to a swamp and hears the song of the thrush which echoes his song to death: “Approach strong deliveress, / …when thou hast taken them I joyously sing the dead, / Lost in the loving floating oceans of thee, / Laved in the flood of your bliss O death.” He sings a carol to death using the voice of the thrush because he realizes that death frames and showcases all that one’s life was about; it allows reflection and evaluation. Without that, our lives are meaningless. Are you dealing with sorrow of any sort? Question your own heart and then give your heart a means to speak to you. Walk and observe and listen to life all around you. Messages to you personally are there, waiting. If you walk in ego, you will not hear them. Walt Whitman was unrestricted and didn’t care what anyone thought of his poems. He wrote based on his heart. Jackie Robinson played baseball based on his heart. Abraham Lincoln lived based on his heart for millions upon millions of people. Know that death is not the end; death itself is always operative, therefore, alive itself; cessation of life energy in the body does not mean it’s over. Use death as it wants to be used: reflect, evaluate, and value life. Remember that Walt saw every leaf of the lilac as “a miracle”! “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” contains sorrow but victory in the poem and in death, and it ends like this: “Comrades mine and I in the midst and their memory ever to keep, for the dead I loved so well, / For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands and this for his dear sake, / Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul, / There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim.” We need both sorrow and victory. In the end, they yield miracles.
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Do you know what it takes to be great? Knowing and living Self. That is it. Notice, I didn’t say important, nor did I say famous. Great. Abraham Lincoln was great. People who are great want others to be so, too. In an 1859 speech, Lincoln said “that by the best cultivation of the physical world…and the intellectual and moral world within us, we shall secure an individual, social and political prosperity and happiness whose course shall be onward and upward… .” Yesterday, I said that for this nation to function in the unique democratic form the founders intended, we needed to live idealistically. Why? This republican democracy depends on us being in the state to which Lincoln referred: progressing, moving onward and upward individually, socially, and politically. Not only did Lincoln recognize that, but also Walt Whitman, Lincoln’s contemporary and the great American poet, did, too. That progress depends on becoming self-aware, knowing who we are, and realizing that all is for and to the individual. Only then, in that self-awareness and self-knowledge, can we be open to everyone and everything else in life. Walt’s exploration, intuitive understanding, and total search for self opened his heart to all. In “By Blue Ontario’s Shore,” Walt says, “I reject none, accept all…All is eligible to all…For the great Idea, the idea of perfect and free individuals” will “Produce great Persons,” and then, “the rest follows.” The governance, progress, and greatness of this country depends on individuals living their highest, their true Self. In some ways, I wish I knew how Abraham Lincoln reconciled the orders that he had to give to living his heart. No criticisms here — just wondering. He and Walt were great people, as were many women and men of that era. However, they gave us examples and words. I am more concerned about “the great Idea” being played out now. I ask you the question Are you great? You are the only one who can answer that? Have you spoken with your heart and come to know You? Have you decided on and therein discovered your life purpose, one that allows you to express You? That is the greatness. That will allow all good things to follow for you and those who you touch. One hundred and fifty-one years ago tonight, a great person was struck by an assassin’s bullet. That assassin might have had a cause, might have been intelligent and talented, and certainly became important. However, he was not great. He was living a purpose determined by others and their causes. Lincoln suffered over decisions that would cause destruction; he had many proofs of living Self. John Wilkes Booth did not. We can only experience “the great Idea of perfect and free individuals” when we live the heart and not the ego. Who, then, is great? “It is I who am great or to be great, it is You up there, or any one…” I hope we can move together, as was Abraham Lincoln’s wish, Onward and Upward! On April 9, 1865, Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant, effectively ending the Civil War — not officially, I know. Less than a week later, Abraham Lincoln was murdered. What does this have to do with National Poetry Month? Walt Whitman, the great poet of America, lived through the times and conflicts leading up to that war, served as a nurse for wounded soldiers during the war, and saw the aftermath of the assassination of Lincoln. Some of Whitman’s most dramatic poetry had its roots during this time. A poem placed at the end of “Memories of President Lincoln” ends the two books of his Civil War poems in his epic collection, Leaves of Grass. Whitman felt the life drain from many wounded soldiers, both Union and Confederate, as he held them or looked into their eyes; he felt the very last breath they took. Walt believed in the cause of preserving the Union and was enthusiastic in that support because he believed that the foundations of America were unique in the history of the world. However, he in part recognized that the founding principles and their preservation and extension were idealistic. He became the poet of America, promoting that idealism — and let me make this clear, crystal clear, right here and now — America, as it was intended will not work without the reality of this idealism being lived by a significant part of this country. That idealism? Knowing and living one’s true self, which means that we accept, appreciate, and even love those who don’t live their true self or who don’t agree with us. How to decide national policy based on idealism becomes nearly irreconcilable to those following their hearts. Let’s turn to Walt’s words now in “By Blue Ontario’s Shore.” Near the end of the poem, he writes these words: Underneath all, individuals, I swear nothing is good to me now that ignores individuals, The American compact is altogether with individuals, The only government is that which makes minute of individuals, The whole theory of the universe is directed unerringly to one single individual — namely to You. (Section 15 — emphases are mine) He comes to see that America’s founding compact, the base principle, is to allow individuals to realize and live their greatness — “…Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” All. All. All — each individual. AND this is the edict not of a government but of the whole Universe. A government is designed not to control and subjugate but rather to free and enable individuals to know self, live self, and prosper with one another in that atmosphere. Following this, he says, “Underneath all is the Expression of love for men and women… .” He accepts all in their failings and foibles. He knows that this kind of democracy is a messy business, but to change the focus to the nation rather than individuals destroys it. He accepts the ugliness with the beauty and says that we cannot lose sight of the individual. I cannot convey the depth of spirit that moved Walt Whitman and that moves me. I would ask you, though, when faced with difficult current issues, do we just listen to loud-mouthed politicians who have little sense of these sorts of sentiments? Do we consider the quiet but insistent and persistent voice of our own hearts? Do we consider legislating against whole sections of society or discriminating against sub-cultures who don’t fit our mold? Do we consider increasing government’s size that will limit the heart and growth of individuals? Do we wish to legislate morality? Messy questions, a messy nation, a messy process is democracy — but a spirit that was envisioned from the beginning. Don’t wish it away. The answer is to know self, love self, love others, live Self — “The whole theory of the universe is directed unerringly to one single individual — namely to You.” Without You, without Me, it’s nothing! Let’s put this in the affirmative: You, Me — we are everything. It’s all for us! Your physical heart health is directly related to your spiritual heart health. We know the deleterious effects of stress on our hearts, stress produced by feelings of just wasting our time, of doing things that don’t seem to matter, of working at something that we just hate. Part of the reason that I have spent this month referencing poetry is to present some positive ways to discover heart-healthy alternatives to being down, depressed, and stressed. Poetry can serve as spiritual food that nourishes our heart; it can give us a medium that creates dialog with our own hearts. Even though I marvel at the poetry that I have shared, my main reason for sharing it has been to help you establish that dialog. I always gave my students a framework to help them think about literature, and I had them analyze it to discover the primary purpose, which is to give us insight into who and what we are as human beings in a myriad of ways. I think this is exactly what Walt Whitman has in mind when he writes that the reader has as much work to do as he did in writing. We need to make meaning for ourselves, relate it to us, our world. Until then, writing is incomplete, and our hearts have no nourishment if we don’t think about what we read. So, when we read, we should think not only about the insight into humanity that the author wants us to gain, but also we should consider how the literature works — or not — to help us express our heart’s core Self. In one of Walt Whitman’s most triumphant poems, “Song of Myself,” the end of Section 48 contains lines that are good conversation starters with your heart. “Why should I wish to see God better than this day? I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then, In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass, I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is sign’d by God’s name, And I leave them where they are, for I know that wheresoe’er I go, Others will punctually come for ever and ever.” Do you see divinity when you look at others? Are you aware of god in you? Do we have any idea how wonderful all of this life can be? Do we appreciate the power that we have to create ourselves by living according to the counsels of our heart or the power to create the type of life we wish to have? Does that mean that life is perfect? No, but our hearts are. We can choose how we react and respond to whatever comes our way. We can choose to listen to our hearts about anything, but it’s not always easy to do — not for Walt Whitman or anyone else. It is, however, always rewarding. It’s what I wish for each of us. Self-awarenessPositive ThinkingRelationships The rich, deep imagery of nature in Walt Whitman’s “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking” speaks to the poet’s heart. In the poem, he recounts how he awakened to his heart and how he discovered his life purpose. Whitman relates this awakening through the experience that he had as a young person when he kept track of a mating pair of mockingbirds on the sea coast. One day the female vanishes, and he believes that the seemingly incessant call of her mate is directed at him. The poet realizes that the sea and the bird speak directly to him. His heart applies them to his life. We can see this in the progression of revelation: “Demon or bird! (said the boy’s soul,) / Is it indeed toward your mate you sing? or is it really to me?…now I have heard you / Now in a moment I know what I am for, I awake…A thousand warbling echoes have started to life within me…” He knows! Life purpose to express his core Self in poetic voice. How, though, would that voice be freed? He knows he needs something else, because he cries out “O give me the clew [clue]!]…O if I am to have so much, let me have more! / A word then…final, superior to all…” What is that word? “Death, death, death, death, death.” Ego had to die to free the soul, the heart, the life purpose. And who is whispering it for him to hear? The sea, characterized as “some old crone,” who is rocking the cradle of his new understanding, nurturing and caring for him in his new understanding — she softly, gently speaks. He knows it, for “the sea whisper’d me.” He seeks meaning; he listens; his heart assures him. Are you looking for a life purpose? You can create it. There is more than one way, but if you are questioning, searching you might consider our poem today. The poet, looking back on how it happened for him, gives us some “clews” (the way Whitman spelled it, at least in this poem!). If you try the following with the intention of discovering self, you might be surprised! Spend some time in a natural setting very close to home so that you can visit regularly for some time. Intend to find purpose, discover Self, but don’t insist. If something appeals to you, attracts you, in some way, speak to your heart, listen intently for an answer. It could be as soft as a whispering leaf or as loud as a thunderclap. If you discern a message for you, write it down. And be happy! |
Questions to consider:How many times have you asked yourself or simply thought about the following questions?
Who am I, really? What is my truth? How do my actions reveal what I really feel and believe? What would I do with my life if I could do anything? What is my passion? Why am I here? How can I discover answers to any of these questions? If you have considered any of these questions, I hope that my experiences and writing will give you some guidance. Please read my blog and comment and share your thoughts. I would love to hear from you! Archives
December 2019
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