Meditations of Walt Whitman: Earth, My Likeness

by Chris Highland

Overview

Carry Walt Whitman’s wisdom with you in this inspirational guide that features 60 selections from his most insightful poems.

Walt Whitman, the great American poet of the 19th century (1819–1892), celebrated his body, the land, the commonest of people, the plants and leaves, and the cosmos in Leaves of Grass, first published in 1855. Working variously as a printer, journalist, teacher, and Civil War nurse, Whitman traveled across the continent, soaking the ink of the wilds and the urban into his pen. His poetry is an invitation into the wilds of Nature and human nature.

In Meditations of Walt Whitman, editor Chris Highland pairs 60 short selections from Whitman’s poetry with a relevant quote from a historical or contemporary writer and thinker, from Aristotle to Alice Walker, Lord Byron to Arthur C. Clarke. Take this pocket-size guide with you on backpacks, nature hikes, and camping trips. Let Whitman’s words enrich your experience as you ponder the wilderness from riverbank, mountaintop, or as you relax beside your campfire.

Inside you’ll find:

• 60 inspiring selections of poetry from Walt Whitman
• Relevant text from other philosophical minds
• Short excerpts for convenient reading

This sampler from Whitman’s poems draws from the heart of each passage. Let Whitman’s words accompany you on your own trails of discovery and help you discover the earth, your likeness.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780899973623
Publisher:	Wilderness Press
Publication date:	10/06/2004
Series:	Nature's Inspiration
Pages:	190
Product dimensions:	4.50(w) x 7.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Chris Highland is an interspiritual chaplain, author, songwriter and poet. He completed his undergraduate studies in religion and philosophy in Seattle, Washington, before settling in the San Francisco Bay Area to complete his Masters degree. A passionate saunterer, he enjoys an intimate relation with Nature in forests, mountains and waterfalls. An avowed heretic (“one who seeks new paths”), Chris’ writing reflects his exploration of the edges of human society and his playful search for what Emerson called “high, clear and spiritual conversation,” to be had by each and every one of us as “beggars on the highway.” Chris is the author of “Meditations of John Muir: Nature’s Temple,” “Meditations of Henry David Thoreau: A Light in the Woods,” and “Meditations of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Into the Green Future,” all from Wilderness Press.

Read an Excerpt

Earth Lover

I am he that walks with the tender and growing night,
I call to the earth and sea half-held by the night.

Press close bare-bosom’d night—press close magnetic nourishing night!
Night of south winds—night of the large few stars!
Still nodding night—mad naked summer night.

Smile O voluptuous cool-breath’d earth!
Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees!
Earth of departed sunset—earth of the mountains misty-topt!
Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon just tinged with blue!
Earth of shine and dark mottling the tide of the river! Earth of the limpid gray of clouds brighter and clearer for my sake!
Far-swooping elbow’d earth—rich apple-blossom’d earth!
Smile, for your lover comes.

Prodigal, you have given me love—therefore I to you give love!
O unspeakable passionate love.

*****

“Where has nature spread so rich a mantle under the eye?
mountains, forests, rocks, rivers ...

How sublime to look down into the workhouse of nature,
to see her clouds, hail, snow, rain, thunder,
all fabricated at our feet!”

~Thomas Jefferson
Letter to Maria Cosway, Paris, October 12, 1786

Table of Contents

Introduction

A Note on Poetic Selection

Meditations

You Shall Be A Great Poem

Sources

Acknowledgments

Photo Credits

About the Author

More Meditations