Kärlek Med Öppna Armar

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.

Through the twenty first part of the poem Song Of Myself, Walt Whitman conveys that all humans should respect the earth as we will all eventually become part of it. Whitman believes that nature should be appreciated and embraced as someone dies. The word Earth is used to refer to nature in the poem.

Whitman writes about nature at night as death. Whitman sets up death/night as his lover to promote the idea that nature gives us life and in death we repay it.

This poem also shows how Whitman would likely agree with modern day environmentalists. For example, the poem indicates that the passionate love Whitman promotes is being buried in the ground without a casket. This allows someone to decompose and become one with nature. This decomposition makes it less wasteful than a casket burial. Whitman’s praise of nature also sounds a lot like the way environmentalists would describe nature. Due to this I believe that Whitman would also be opposed to humanities ravaging of earth’s land and resources for personal gain. He seems to believe that humanity and nature should coexist in harmony. Whitman clearly believes that the relationship between man and nature should be that of lovers not fighters.

Styrenheten

I got a head injury that my mind block the memory of the actual event of. I remember the aftermath of going to the hospital and getting a cat scan, but the fall that caused me to hit the back of my head and about the 5 minutes of my life that followed were never stored. It was freaky to me because I “woke up” as I was conscious and walking. I had no idea what had happened, but the people around me said I was conscious and talking moments before. I felt as if that past me was another person that was using my body without my control. That experience got me even more into how the brain works, but more importantly it reinforced my feelings of not being in control of my life. I feel that I my body is not fully controlled by me and I fear what the true controller may reveal about my identity. Am I merely a product of this body’s memories and brain or am I in control of my brain and by extension my body?

Delning

I found the idea of the segregation of races on Mars bringing peace interesting. It is as if the book is saying that the mixing of different cultures on earth contributes to our problems. On Mars the races are separate and only interact when necessary. I agree that when cultures are separated there is less fighting. Yet societies advance through the merging of cultures. For example the mix of cultures in Europe lead to it having some of most powerful countries in the 1500s to 1700s. Cultures may clash, but in the end the rebuilding that happens afterwards helps humanity evolve.