". . . this is what you shall do: love the earth and the sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone 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. . . "
Walt Whitman
Alice Walker posted this piece on her blog a week or so ago - The Cushion and the Road: Meditation and Wandering As the Whole World Awakens to Being in Harm's Way. I go there often and always find succour. She reminds me of things I know and hold dear but sometimes lose sight of. She reminds me to look inside and outside, both. Her Chicken Chronicles: A Memoir (a tender and unhurried unfolding; each new chapter appears on the blog as it comes to her) is especially penetrating and affecting.
And - oh, oh oh - you have to read this poem. . . Loving Humans
