Motif: God (the relationship between God and self)

Beyond humankind is the divine world of the heavens. There resides God, the omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient Father of Heaven and the Eye of the world/universe. Most people connect with God through prayers, church sermons, speaking to a priest...anything that has been considered holy doctrine and practice by a fellow human being who has the authority to share "the word of God." Throughout the poem, Whitman goes through three types of connections to God: a connection of familiarity with God, a connection with God via other human beings or as a human being distanced from Him, and affiliation through being divine(-like) as oneself directly. The first two serve, in some way, as a compare/contrast between being able to go beyond the surface of authority and dictated thought and to utilize one's own senses and the natural world around oneself to reach that celestial relationship with the divine, holy, and purity of the self and world around the self. The last one asserts the message of oneself always being grand and celebrated and that you and I are just the same and different because of said greatness and likeness to God. In essence, God is the otherworldly force that can be met through oneself, though to what degree one attains such a level depends on what kind of connection one can develop.

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Connection of Familiarity

1. "As God comes a loving bedfellow and sleeps at my side all night and close on the peep of day, and leaves for me baskets covered with white towels bulging the house with their plenty, shall I postpone my acceptation and realization and scream at my eyes, that they turn from gazing after and down the road, and forthwith cipher and show me to a cent, exactly the contents of one, and exactly the contents of two, and which is ahead?" (p.3)
2. "And I know that the hand of God is the elderhand of my own, and I know that the spirit of God is the eldest brother of my own, and that all the men ever born are also my brothers...and the women my sisters and lovers, and that a kelson of the creation is love" (p.3-4)
3. "The pleasures of heaven are with me, and the pains of hell are with me, the first I graft and increase upon myself...the latter I translate into a new tongue." (p.14)
4. "I visit the orchards of God and look at the spheric product, and look at quintillions ripened, and look at quintillions green." (p.26)
5. "And I slept while God carried me through the lethargic mist, and took my time....and took no hurt from the foetid carbon." (p.38)

Here are some instances where the speaker shares a relationship with God as equals. The speaker is sensual and embraces the divine being directly as a "bedfellow", "the eldest brother", and as a close companion with whom he may "visit the orchards of God", be carried "through the lethargic mist", and have even a rendezvous. Whitman chooses to live through nature to reach the expansive, out-of-reach experiences that distant tasks such as being indoors, busy, or under authority will always filter and dim out. In a particular regard to his preferred plan of loafing while being within nature and able to watch the "fruit" of God grow and develop into beautiful, natural sources of nourishment, beauty, and birth, he "slept" -- no rush, no worries, just being able to kick back and relax -- and there was God taking the sleeping self through "lethargic mist" -- even the mist moves slowly and lazily, still bringing in the idea of just enjoying oneself and one's senses to live peacefully and well with pleasure. All the while, he has attained a close bond with God. And through this bond, there is a connection to "all the men ever born" (and women). The relationship also introduces and maintains the idea that, even though he is still a man, he is able to feel "the pleasures of heaven" and "the pains of hell" -- feelings that many can only imagine because they possess a more distant bond with God and the divine, unknown world.

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Distant Connection through Worship

1. "Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord, a scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped, bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark and say Whose?" (p.4)
2. "They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, they do not make me sick discussing their duty to God" (p.22)
3. "Pleased with the primitive tunes of the choir of the whitewashed church, pleased with the earnest words of the sweating Methodist preacher, or any preacher....looking seriously at the camp-meeting" (p.25)
4. "I do not despise you priests, all time, the world over, my faith is the greatest of faiths and the least of faiths, enclosing worship ancient and modern and all between ancient and modern, believing I shall come again upon the earth after five thousand years, waiting responses from oracles, honoring the gods, saluting the sun, making a fetich of the first rock or stump, powowing with sticks in the circle of obis, helping the llama or brahmin as he trims the lamps of the idols, dancing yet through the streets in a phallic procession, rapt and austere in the woods a gymnosophist, drinking mead from the skull-cap, to Shastas and Vedas admirant, minding the Koran, walking the teokallis, spotted with gore from the stone and knife, beating the serpent-skin drum, accepting the Gospels, accepting him that was crucified, knowing assuredly that he is divine, to the mass kneeling or the puritan's prayer rising, or sitting patiently in a pew, ranting and frothing in my insane crisis, or waiting dead-like till my spirit arouses me, looking forth on pavement and land, or outside of pavement and land, belonging to the winders of the circuit of circuits." (p.36)

In these quotes there is a considerable reference to how people are more distant from God. In the question of what grass is, the speaker gives "the handkerchief of the Lord" as one possible idea. The hanky is lost and missing from its Owner, and is now left to be wondered and beheld by everyone curious about the grass. It is but a small sign and small possession of God that is left to no direct lead to Him -- it's left open to interpretation, much like how His doctrine and words are. Because people look for His plans, those who claim to know become an authority (the church) that people flock to -- the library of God, if you will. People are confined inside and to listen to (perhaps weekly for Sabbath) the teachings and sermons of priests and other esteemed religious leaders. This is not how Whitman would probably want to feel close to God or any aspect of nature (and beyond). He wants to be connected to him directly without the channelings of other men -- those who "translate" things for others to accept without fully understanding or embracing their own thoughts of such words. As such, animals are seen as majestic beings free from such rules and ties and expectations -- and Whitman revels and admires their freedom and bond to nature; they do no embody the pathetic image of people being trapped within concern for the concept of "sin" and of people being led to do something for God that is outside the path of directly embracing Him. This may be why there's a sense of being "pleased" with preachers full of fervor and churches (albeit "whitewashed"; scrubbed "pure" to fit into a norm of what one ought to do as their duty to God) ringing of "primitive tunes". Nevertheless, Whitman chooses to embrace his own way of faith -- and in the 4th quote, there's a sense of the list of actions going from being ancient to modern, natural/closer to the divine to man-made and farther, outside and ascetic to inside and confined not by choice but rather by submission to doctrine (movement slows down as well, leaving less space to roam, loaf, and wander). By being distant from God, overall, one deprives oneself from the natural world and divine experience -- it's all about fully embracing Him head on through oneself.

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Being Great/Divine as Self

1. "I am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth, I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal and fathomless as myself; they do not know how immortal, but I know." (p. 5)
2. "Divine I am inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touched from; the sent of these arm-pits is aroma finer than prayer, this head is more than churches or bibles or creeds." (p.17)
3. "Magnifying and applying come I, outbidding at the start the old cautious hucksters, taking myself the exact dimensions of Jehovah, lithographing Kronos, Zeus his son, and Hercules his grandson, buying drafts of Osiris, Isis, Belus, Brahma, Buddha, in my portfolio placing Manito loose, Allah on a leaf, the crucifix engraved, with Odin and the hideous-faced Mexitli and every idol and image, taking them all for what they are worth and not a cent more, admitting they were alive and did the work of their days, (They bore mites as for unfledg'd birds who have now to rise and fly and sing for themselves,) accepting the rough deific sketches to fill out better in myself, bestowing them freely on each man and woman I see, discovering as much or more in a framer framing a house, putting higher claims for him there with his roll'd-up sleeves driving the mallet and chisel, not objecting to special revelations, considering a curl of smoke or a hair on the back of my hand just as curious as any revelation, lads ahold of fire-engines and hook-and-ladder ropes no less to me than the gods of the antique wars, minding their voices peal through the crash of destruction, their brawny limbs passing safe over charr'd laths, their white foreheads whole and unhurt out of the flames; by the mechanic's wife with her babe at her nipple interceding for every person born, three scythes at harvest whizzing in a row from three lusty angels with shirts bagg'd out at their waists, the snag-tooth'd hostler with red hair redeeming sins past and to come, selling all he possesses, traveling on foot to fee lawyers for his brother and sit by him while he is tried for forgery; what was strewn in the amplest strewing the square rod about me, and not filling the square rod then, the bull and the bug never worshipp'd half enough, dung and dirt more admirable than was dream'd, the supernatural of no account, myself waiting my time to be one of the supremes, the day getting ready for me when I shall do as much good as the best, and be as prodigious; by my life-lumps! becoming already a creator, putting myself here and now to the ambush'd womb of the shadows." (p.33-34)
4. "Our rendezvous is fitly appointed...and God will be there and wait till we come." (p.39)
5. "And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one's-self is" (p.41)
6. "And I say to mankind, Be not curious about God, for I who am curious about each am not curious about God, (No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about God and about death.) I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least, nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself. 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." (p.42)

You are Me, and I am You. In accordance to Whitman's main idea of him celebrating himself for being grand and also stating that the reader is both different and just as special, God becomes both a being that leads all to become divine, and a sort of marker that signifies that oneself can be even greater. At times throughout the poem as well, "Me" can be found capitalized, a sort of comparison to how any pronoun or word related to God is also capitalized. The self is just as great (if not greater) than He is because, not only does one (if one does) embrace the divine power and nature He possesses through one's own senses (and thus being in tune with nature and its origins),  but one also can be familiar with God (as mentioned before) -- the only difference is that, instead of just being a familiar, one is equal or even a superior. Thus, through nature, one becomes more holy (more so than from just following the man-made words of "churches or bibles or creeds." In addition to that, even if that may be so, one may always be connected to God and also have "something of God each hour of the twenty-four" (I believe it is said that humans are crafted in God's image, and so that and the idea of "in the faces of men and women I see God" sort of adds to that likeness of being holy and divine). A person can be considered both a mortal for realistic reasons and also immortal as the race has lived on for so long and it is possible for someone to be acknowledged and remembered eternally. While it may not be only God, the 3rd quote brings in other grand deities from different cultures and time periods; Whitman lists some out and explains how their influence and his beholding of their beings becomes a part of himself -- even to become "already a creator". It is a process described in detail of experience (through senses and with natural forces) of life until the point of epiphany and becoming familiar with that divine self -- worship yourself, but also remember to keep close ties with God and the divine, the natural, and the universal to achieve that bond and freedom and power -- and that all men are created equal in this regard so respect the "temples" of others. A sort of short aside that also comes up relates to the 4th quote; God is said to wait for the speaker and reader, a sign of familiarity. However, if one looks at the very last line of the poem, the speaker tells the reader that, "I stop somewhere waiting for you." (p. 44) The speaker now takes on the role God has previously and becomes a benevolent force aiming to help all and anyone (this also flashes back to other instances of helping others, such as the runaway slave). Now the cycle continues on, as hopefully the reader will learn to have embraced him/herself and follow the same route and path to become both closer to God and to worship him/herself in a way to remember that one is greater.