Being, Becoming My Triple Identity by Semira Ahemed

Identity is given and perceived; we are born as we are without choosing our race, gender or family. All three are our bases to understand or realize who we are, but they are not the only identities we have. I am a woman who is black and Muslim. I have my own individual identity even if I am overlapped by group identities. However, people perceive me by the stereotypes and labels that are put on my group identities. While growing up, there were moments in which I wanted to change myself to be accepted until I realized that even if I do everything in my power it is not enough to fit in the puzzle. It is not enough even if I remove my hijab, change my dialect or adopt a stranger style. Moreover, I should not have to change my shape to fit in the puzzle when I know I can still fit in with my authentic self. People try all sorts of things with the hopes of finding their true self; for me, my journey of self-discovery has led me to college. Attending a university is my journey to define who I am, and Alan Watts, Gloria Anzaldua, and Susan Faludi have helped me to truly embrace my triple identity.

I am a person of color, but that does not stop me from engaging with people of all kinds; I have friends from China, Czechoslovakia, and Russia. I am Muslim, but that does not limit me from reasoning and enjoying freedom. Religion is not a challenge in my life; rather it is my motivation to find the truth, to find my purpose. I am a woman, but it does not mean I am weak. It is my strength to fight against all odds and to experience this world differently. I am all three of these things at once with my character, intelligence, and heart. Nevertheless, people make their assumptions by what they see without interacting with me. 

It is easy to be noticed when I am the only Muslim, black or woman in a classroom or social gathering. Yet I do not freak out being the only one because it is my opportunity to truly show and represent all three identities. It is also common to be bombarded with the following questions: Who obliged you to wear the headscarf? Are you suppressed? Are you sure you are capable of doing it? Don’t you think it is better for boys to do it? Why do you try to be the first? When are you planning to marry? People ask me if I am from Africa as if it is one country. They wonder why I raise my voice and laugh so loudly. They are confused about how I wear my hijab.
 

          

All these questions are triggered by the stereotypes and ignorance surrounding my triple identity. Then I ask: Is it a freedom to decide which part of my body to show? Cannot one see that I cover my hair and not my brain? Is it my choice to be perceived for my character and intelligence, but not for my body look? How can we as women show what we are capable of when we are not even given the opportunity to start with? How can physical strength still have such a value in the 21st century? How is it that speaking one’s mind and expressing one’s emotions are associated with arrogance? How does my skin color still create a challenge to be accepted as a human? Who are you to tell me that I am weak without knowing my background and the challenges I overcome? Does wearing my hijab like this makes me less Muslim or is it my way of expressing my religion and my origin together?

Growing up in a conservative Muslim family, there were rules and values that I had to follow. However, I never questioned my family about what was right and wrong. I never had the guts to decide for myself because I acted like every other Muslim girl in my village. I loved playing soccer, but there were no girls whom I could play with since girls stayed at home with their mothers. Indeed, it was even hard to play with boys because girls were supposed to be modest. Alan Watts in The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are writes, “It is a special kind of enlightenment to have this feeling that the usual, the way things normally are, is odd….” (Watts 11). Watts’ insight relates to me whenever I question the status quo. I did not have the opportunity to know him before coming to college, but without reading his works I related with him through my rebellious actions. I played soccer breaking the ordinary norm and led my team to win the sub-city soccer competition. Even though what I did was simple, it was my first step toward identifying who I am. An African adage says, “Until the antelope wins the fight, the tales of victory shall always be the lion’s” (African). This proverb is a constant reminder to write my own history and not to repeat the same story women before me had—a story that was written by the society in which they lived.

I never knew a woman whom I could look upon as a role model. Not seeing a person who was like me in the dreams that I wanted to achieve made it seem quite impossible. The life cycle of a girl in my village was all too predictable. She goes to school just to learn how to read and write because marriage is the obvious next phase in life after high school. Warsan Shire, a Somali-British poet says, “It is not my responsibility to be beautiful, I am not alive for that purpose. My existence is not how desirable you find me” (Shire). But in my village a woman’s beauty was more valued than her intelligence; at the end of the day, it is the man who is in charge of everything. After growing up in a village with such low expectations for women, I still do not believe that I am at Hofstra pursuing my undergraduate degree without paying anything. However, I still think about the girls in my community who did not have the opportunity like me to pursue their passion and dream. They are in a closed box which they cannot escape without doing something out of the ordinary. I now have better opportunities than ever before, but Susan Faludi, in her introduction to Backlash: The Undeclared War against Women, cautioned me not to be distracted by the media to fully achieve my gender equality. Moreover, as Malala Yousafzai said, “I raise my voice not so that I can shout, but so that those without a voice can be heard” (Yousafzai).

We only notice our racial identity when we embed ourselves with other social groups. I am from Ethiopia, a country that was never colonized, which made it easy to see people for who they are rather than their skin color. It was Hollywood movies that introduced me to the idea of color and the privilege and discrimination that comes along with it. I never had a color scanner glass to evaluate people and that has given me an invaluable chance to engage with diverse people at Hofstra. Nevertheless, most people do not wear the glasses I do, and some are colorblind to believe all should be the same with one homogenous culture and dialect. I even questioned myself if my English accent with Amharic root and some British pronunciation was not enough in America. But Gloria Anzaldua, a Chicana writer, gave me the courage not to be ashamed of my dialect but to be proud since it reflects my identity. Moreover, pursuing my undergraduate degree outside of my continent far away from my family is giving me the opportunity to define my identity independently. Developing a double consciousness is essential, and according to W.E.B. DuBois, it is the sense of looking at one’s self through the eyes of others. Just staying one semester in college helped open my eyes to see myself through the experience of others who have a completely different background, culture and identity.

           

I never thought I would question the beliefs I held true until I read Alan Watts. He challenged me to rethink if I do things out of humanity or for the sake of collecting good deeds to go to paradise. I used to do good things because my religion said so, but now in my heart I am conscious of what is right. Alan Watts helped me to see the interconnectedness in the universe and to view events without greed and ego. His book made me more responsible than I was before. I am now more sensitive to the value of the love I give to animals and people.

It would be a lie to say that I am not changing throughout my university experience. College has been more than just academics; it is a place to search my true self and transition to adulthood. Indeed, Lao Tzu is right when he said, “If you are depressed you are living in the past. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the present” (Tzu). It is now my everyday purpose to find peace within myself and to become the best version of who I am. Every person I meet and all the books I read are helping me to uncover my true personality on my continuing life journey.

Works Cited

Alake, Olu. And Who AM I? Cultural Diversity, Identities and Difference. N.p.,15 Dec.2005.

Web 5 Nov.2018

Meah, Asad. Awaken The Greatness Within. 33 Inspiring Lao Tzu Quotes. 2015. Web. 26

Nov.2018.

Shire, Warsan. Goodreads, https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/.2018. Web. 6 Dec.2018

Watts Alan. The Book; on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are. New York: Pantheon,

1966. Menantol. Web. 06 Dec. 2016

Yousafzai, Malala. Goodreads, https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/850987. 2018. Web. 28          Nov.2018

Dice Rollers (and the Lives They Live) by Benjamin Kelley Gottwald

Dice—tools of gameplay, signifiers of randomness, representatives of chance—are the very hands of fortune itself. They are volatile devices, unpredictable by nature, and outside of family board games and casinos, we seldom vest our happiness in their outcomes. Our lives would simply be out of control. We instead sequester them away, deem them only appropriate for fun and games, and test their apathy only when we want to. We base our real-world actions and perceptions in the sturdiest of foundations; we create routines, set goals, and incessantly check boxes off well-organized lists.

While the true nature of our reality is that of constant flux, the paradigm through which we experience it is tacitly of our own sturdy crafting. However, there are also those among us whose paradigms of perception are cataclysmically enslaved to the dice. Their concepts of reality are not determined by themselves, but are rather subjected at any moment to a broad spectrum of changes: drastic inflation, demoralizing manipulation, and everything in between. These unlucky minds are those ravaged by bipolar disorder, and the very lens through which they see the world, themselves, and their peers is either bent or flattened at every turn of the game. They are dice-rollers, and I am one of them.

Dice represent the all-too-random brain chemistry we live with every day. Soaring highs of mania and crushing lows of depression are regular to us, but never expected, and this perpetual cycle of boom and bust is simply a harsh variable in the formula of life. Alan Watts, in his work, The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are, described the relativism of our world with the selfsame terms I use to console the havoc of my mood:

. . . Just as the hour-hand of the watch goes up to twelve and down to six, so, too, there is day and night, waking and sleeping, living and dying, summer and winter. You can't have any one of these without the other, because you wouldn't be able to know what black is unless you had seen it side-by-side with white, or white unless side-by-side with black (Watts 17).

It is hard to find a writer who philosophizes so deeply on the pure relationships reality has entangled within itself. Stranger yet is the incisiveness with which he describes the distance between opposites—summer and winter, love and hate, rolling a twelve and rolling snake eyes.

The exhilarating crest and the paralyzing trough of the bipolar wave established their tyranny over my emotions, and mercilessly grew more variant as I first experienced college. Rising stress levels, unstructured time, and the muse of procrastination all contributed to mood fluctuations. It is a dangerous game to unwillingly roll the dice as my mind does. Each ensuing turn either rouses me to hyperactivity, numbs me into a fugue state, or places me on some part of the curve in between—descending only to suddenly skyrocket or ascending to inevitable collapse. The Chinese philosopher Chuang Tzu—whom I discovered in my new-fangled, collegiate pursuit of knowledge—offered me a tale that runs parallel to the vicious circle of mood. The legend has it that one day Chuang Tzu sat beneath a tree, and became so relaxed that he soon dozed off. In his sleep he dreamed that he was a butterfly. He did not know himself as Chuang Tzu, but instead as no more than this butterfly. Upon waking up, he instantly regained his identity, but as C. W. Chan interprets it, “He did not know whether it was Chuang Chou dreaming that he was a butterfly, or whether it was the butterfly dreaming that it was Chuang Chou. Between Chuang Chou and the butterfly there must be some distinction. This is a case of what is called the transformation of things” (Chan). My case is the transformation of moods, of mindsets, but most painfully of personalities. When the time comes again for me to slip away into the doldrums or let loose with mania, the boundaries of my identity blur and bend. It becomes unclear whether I am a sad man dreaming he is powerful beyond measure or a happy man dreaming that his happiness has vanished. I continued my search for words that could anchor me, tools with which I could pry off the two-faced mask.

I have learned to ride the waves and cope with the outcomes of the dice to some avail, but my studies and future career ask more of me. They require an anchored, steadfast me, of which I used to only dream. However, when I discovered Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself,” I realized my best defense as a dice-roller is really no defense at all.

Battles, the horrors of fratricidal war, the fever of doubtful news, the fitful events;

These come to me days and nights and go from me again,

But they are not the Me myself.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next,

Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering

at it. (Whitman)

Instead of deflecting my emotions, I found it easier to let them pass through me. In the act of channeling, I am greeted by a fresh new optimism, a new outlook which Whitman also matches:

I believe in you my soul, the other I am must not abase itself to you,

And you must not be abased to the other. (Whitman)

In my efforts to own my bipolar condition, to let it do its worst and persevere nonetheless, I have also tried approach my disease head on. Was rolling the dice truly my obligation, or only the illusion of suffering? The book, An Unquiet Mind, by Kay Redfield Jamison, showed me that transcending my dice-rolling could be a gracious process after all. She writes, “The Chinese believe that before you can conquer a beast you must first make it beautiful. In some way, I have tried to do that with my manic-depressive illness. It has been my fascinating, albeit deadly, enemy and companion” (Jamison 5). Wondering how I could possibly see my disease in that light, I welcomed the idea that bipolar disorder is a phenomenon separate from my nature. It is veritably a condition I must persevere through, but it is not me.

My nature contains my bipolar dice game, but also extends far beyond it. It is here that I currently stand, trying my hardest to let the beauty inherent within show itself. The wisdom of Lao Tzu allows me to see it. He said, “Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished” (de Botton). I know now to trust the dice game, to welcome chance into my life, with the hopes that the only person my disease will render me is, in the end, its champion.

Works Cited

Chan, W. C. "The Butterfly Dream." From the Philosopher. The Philosopher, n.d. Web. 07 Dec. 2016.

de Botton, Alain. “Lao Tzu” Youtube. The School of Life, 21 Nov 2014. Web. 06 Dec. 2016.

Jamison, Kay R. An Unquiet Mind. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1995. Print.

Watts, Alan. The Book; on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are. New York: Pantheon, 1966. Menantol. Web. 06 Dec. 2016.

Whitman, Walt. "Whitman's ‘Song of Myself’" Modern American Poetry. University of Illinois, n.d. Web. 07 Dec. 2016.

Corresponding Ideas of Nature in Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass & Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching by Emily Baksic

Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman blends right into the cultural landscape of China. Whitman has had a Chinese following for nearly a century, and during that time he has been labeled as a force of modernism, a promoter of the middle and the lower classes, and an original influence in Chinese literature (Killingsworth). Most of the world remembers the Statue of Liberty that some Chinese students created during the Tiananmen Square demonstrations in 1989. A debate developed on whether the statue was inspired by America’s symbol of freedom or if it stemmed out of Asian traditions and just looked like the Statue of Liberty to Americans (Folsom).

 

What is less well known is that a translated edition of Whitman’s Leaves of Grass by Peking University professor Zhao Luorui was going to be released when the student demonstrations started. However, the Chinese government intervened and delayed publication because a leader in the political party deemed it unwise to make Leaves of Grass available right away. A new translation of the book could threaten the student demonstrations and cause them to get out of hand (Folsom). Some conservatives viewed Whitman as dangerous fuel on the fires of reform because he held radical opinions about women’s rights, immigration, and working issues.

 

After the protests in Tiananmen Square, Zhao Luorui’s masterful translation finally appeared in 1991. The whole book of Leaves of Grass became available for the first time in one version by a single Chinese translator. Whitman became a safe and respectable foreign author during this time of capitalism and Western investment (Folsom). In recent years, scholars have discovered that a lot of American writing develops from many styles and different cultures (Carreiro). Walt Whitman now appears in many languages and civilizations. One of the most enticing prospects in literature today is the discovery of new authors like Whitman from other cultures. Guo Moruo, a Chinese author who practices Taoism, embraced Whitman right when the American poet became introduced into Chinese culture. Leaves of Grass helped Guo become a huge voice in the modern movement of Asian literature. The similarities between Leaves of Grass and Tao Te Ching reattached Guo to his original Taoist roots (Folsom). Chinese critics see Whitman’s view of god as the manifestation of the universe, just like Taoism (Chen). Guo even read "Passage to India," which embraces non-duality (advaita). By reading Whitman, Guo recalled his memories of Chuang Tzu’s philosophy and Lao Tzu’s teachings. The East reveres Lao Tzu as the father of Taoism because he developed the religion and wrote Tao Te Ching in the sixth century BC, which contains philosophical ideas, metaphors, practices, and ways of life (Verellen). Leaves of Grass basically reattached Guo to the origins of Taoist thought.

 

The enticing and thought-provoking Leaves of Grass contains numerous similarities to Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu on themes of cosmic identity, character, nature, spirit, death, and freedom. Whitman continued to rewrite the book throughout his entire life (Bucke). Whitman never identified himself as a Taoist or read the Tao Te Ching, but he definitely thought and perceived the world like a Taoist (Chen). For example, Whitman’s pleasure of nature reaches the point of a religion because he worships nature and sees god everywhere (Killingsworth). “I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass” (Whitman). This beautiful line from Leaves of Grass represents the acceptance of all life, even the physical and the sublime, along with human misery and the heavenly expressions of the divine. The grass is Whitman’s proof that everything in the world moves on in life and is everlasting: “Look for me under your boot soles.” This line echoes “Great minds are selfless, their generosity is nature’s” from Tao Te Ching. Lao Tzu’s saying corresponds with Whitman’s because he sees a person's life in correspondence to nature, since all life is accepted (Depoy).

 

Lao Tzu

 

The yin and yang accept the flow between one’s life and the universe counteracting together. The yin and yang represent the integration of opposites not merely as polarities, but as complements. Whitman embraces this idea by asking, “Do I contradict myself? I am large, I contain multitudes.” Similarly, a key principle in Taoism is self discovery, which starts from balancing the yin and yang with one’s environment (Verellen). Next, one learns that the body and the soul are equal, along with oneself and the world. Whitman knows that he is in harmony with his soul, body, consciousness, and environment (Carpenter). He has an awareness of his own mortality, which allows him to reach out, connect, and help all different people by accepting the motto of “Whoever degrades another degrades me, and whatever is done or said returns at last to me” (Whitman). Just like a Taoist, Whitman understands life is cyclical and his physical matter will be transferred to another form. This observation eases his soul because he has a sense of identity (Noel). Whitman’s ability to identify himself and others gives him insight. His humanity allows him to feel and recognize a sacred significance in all types of people, whether they are rich or poor (Noel). He is “no sentimentalist, no stander above men and women or apart from them, no more modest then immodest” (Whitman). He also lives in the present and does not dwell on the future, which is another key idea in Taoism (Bucke). “More than mortal” describes Whitman’s universal perception and comprehension, just like “the Tao as the elemental nothing from which all things are born, a deep pool into which all things go” (Lao Tzu).

 

Throughout Whitman’s life, he developed his work in the West even though his personality seems to be manifested from the East (Noel). In reality, Walt is not specifically a Christian because he sees god everywhere in nature. The poem “Greatnesses” in Leaves of Grass references Tao-like ideas, especially the acceptance of old age, wealth of the soul, and value of the earth (Whitman). Nature in relation to religion speaks to Whitman. He listened to bush crickets and recorded his feelings by stating, “The Katy-Did, how shall I describe its piquant utterance- every night it soothes me to sleep.” When talking about nature, the only tone of pathos that comes from him is the thought of losing his touch with nature during his elder years. Whitman says, “I want to get out, fly, swim, I am eager for my feet again. But my feet are eternally gone.” Similarly, Lao Tzu states, “It blunts sharpness and levels mountains. An eternal void, it is eternally filled.” Both sayings relate to being one with the universe since they are everlasting.

 

Lao Tzu defines the universe as unnamable. However, it is the same as everything in the world that is identified (Verellen). Similarly, Whitman says, “There is that in me, I do not know it is, but I know it is in me. I do not know it, it is without name, it is a word unsaid, it is not in any dictionary, utterance, symbol.” Song of Myself exemplifies Whitman's appreciation of life according to Taoism. He understands that he is one with god because humanity and the divine, as well as heaven and earth, are parallel. Whitman states, “And as to you life, I reckon you are the leaving of many deaths, no doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before.” Additionally, death does not scare Walt because he understands that death will set him free (Folsom). He even says, “To it the creation is the friend whose embracing awakes me.” Whitman believes that everyone will die, but they will always be themselves because each individual is eternal in nature (Noel). Similarly, Tao Te Ching states, “When you lose yourself you will be everywhere.” Whitman and Lao Tzu understand that the universe and everything in it are connected. “All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses, and to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier” (Whitman).

 

More similarities between Whitman and Lao Tzu include the resistance of the conventional and materialistic world, which creates a place for Whitman in the center of nature-loving people all over the world. Walt’s identity between himself and nature surpasses the average human (Killingsworth). Dr. Bucke, a friend of Whitman's, attests: “Walt’s favorite occupation was to stroll about out of doors, sauntering away by himself, looking at the grass, flowers, trees, vistas of light, and all the hundreds of natural sounds. It was evident that these things gave him a pleasure far beyond what they give ordinary people.” As a young man, Walt always found comfort laying on the sand, gazing into the sea, because of nature’s mystic beauty (Noel). When Whitman grew older, his heart kept getting larger by feeling and seeing nature all around him (Killingsworth). He discovered happiness in the bountiful air and sunshine, which created his purpose to embrace love. “The old man even drove his horse into the ocean and sat an hour enjoying the sunset and got the cold that brings on death” (Bucke). According to Tao Te Ching, “In the perfect land, there is reverence for what has come before,” which is similar to Whitman’s appreciation because he discovers himself in nature.

 

Whitman evokes Taoism in his nature poems, along with religious poems embracing Taoist elements. However, Whitman never labeled himself with a specific religion because he encountered various viewpoints and perceptions (Killingsworth) which gave him a big, open heart that led him to roads that wanderers traveled. Historically, a great many Taoists have been wanderers who no doubt would have put great stock in Whitman's opening lines to "The Song of the Open Road"—“Healthy, free, the world before me, the long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.” He grasps faith tremendously because he understands the bigger picture. For example, he is a “friend of publicans and sinners” (Noel) and can be described as an unorthodox believer, since he claims: “Divine I am inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touched from.” His faith grows out of his personality because he is unconventional (Noel). Religious ideas flow throughout "To Workingmen." Whitman starts by addressing both men and women, which shows his acceptance of gender equality. He also understands that all races and ethnicities are equal by saying, “I will be even with you, and you shall be even with me.” Similarly, Tao Te Ching states, “The needs of others are their only needs, and to them he gives alike.” More ideas in "To Workingmen" include: “We consider bibles and religions divine—I do not say they are not divine; I say they have all grown out of you, and may grow out of you still; It is not they who give the life—it is you who give the life.” Whitman explains how we create and alter religion because of the changes in the world. Change upsets the flow in us and the universe. Lao Tzu agrees: “In each change of perception, there are the seeds that follow” because adaptation is inevitable.

 

Not only did Whitman have a unique perception on nature and religion, but he also created his own literary style based on the relation between emotion and nature (Killingsworth). Whitman’s voice is a literary form of expression related to the outdoors. Edward Carpenter can attest to seeing this type of writing from Whitman. Edward was a disciple of Whitman, who would venture outside to write in Whitman's style. Carpenter says, “If I attempt to write inside, my thoughts insist on rhyming, but the minute I go outside Whitman verse is the result.” Whitman’s verse and the great serene flow like untouched facts of the Earth (Carpenter). Edward Crosby also followed Walt Whitman and appreciated his lessons and philosophy. Relating to Whitman’s style, Crosby says, “The trim balance of a Christmas tree with colored candles and gilt balls and stars is beautiful in a way, but it is the want of symmetry that helps make the oak and the pine, kings of the forest. And even blank verse with all its grandeur is too suggestive of landscaping gardening, or the studied roughness of rock gardens.” All in all, Whitman’s verse comes from the natural form of outdoor expression, which allows his ideas to derive from the feelings we get deep within our souls when we are out under the trees or sitting in the grass (Killingsworth).

 

Similarly, since property and material do not entice him, Whitman’s faith comes from nature amd grows out of the very roots of his own personality (Noel). A line in Song of Myself says, “My faith is the greatest of faiths and the least of faiths,” which attests to Whitman’s intuition of knowing that religion is ambiguous. We all believe in something, but that something vacates the truth. Similarly, Tao Te Ching states, “What is true and what is not true exist together” because some perceptions are correct, false, or both depending on one’s comprehension. Even though Tao Te Ching and Leaves of Grass are from completely different time periods, both texts refuse to sit still, which makes them similar. Moreover, the views on faith and nature in the text blend homogenously.

 

Whitman perceives the universe as a form of connection to people, god, and nature (Noel). Tao Te Ching states that everything in the universe interconnects and flows together. We might as well live in harmony if we are all connected (Chen). An example from Song of Myself says, “To me the converging objects of the universe perpetually flow.” Tao Te Ching also emphasizes the importance of living in harmony by developing a relationship with nature (Chen). Whitman agrees by saying nature “calls my name from flower-beds, vines, tangled underbrush.” Additionally, the Tao resembles the absolute principle of the world in harmony with nature (Carreiro). Te in Tao Te Ching explains the differentiation between the perfection of nature and moral virtue. Whitman desired to allocate the characteristics of peaceful harmony in nature, which comes from the concept of balance (Chen). To find a happy balance, he reached out to nature, which motivated and helped him with his writing (Killingsworth). Tao, nature, men, and women must be continuous with one another in order to discover harmony and freedom (Chen).

 

Walt Whitman discovered balance and independence by appreciating nature. Leaves of Grass revealed numerous perceptions on nature similar to ideas in Tao Te Ching. Even though Whitman never labeled himself with one specific religion, he embodied Lao Tzu because of his ideas on nature, religion, and self discovery. Most importantly, Whitman understood one’s connection to the universe. Lao Tzu would label Whitman as: “A traveler who has no destination always arrives at the right place” (Lao Tzu).



Emily Baksic

Works Cited

 

Bucke, Richard. "Visits from Whitman." The Walt Whitman Archive. Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, n.d. Web. 3 Apr. 2016.

Carpenter, Edward. "The Walt Whitman Archive." With Walt Whitman in Camden. Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, n.d. Web. 03 Apr. 2016.

Carreiro, Daniel. The Dao against the tyrant: The limitation of power in the political thought of ancient China. Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2013. Libertarian Papers. Web. 5 Mar. 2016.

Chen, Ellen Marie. "The Meaning of Ge in the Tao Te Ching." Jstor. University of Hawai'i Press, n.d. Web. 3 Apr. 2016.

Depoy, Phillip. The Tao and The Bard: A Conversation. New York: Arcade Publishing, 2013. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 3 Mar. 2016.

Folsom, Ed. "Whitman East and West." Whitman East and West (2002): 1-217. Whitman Archive. Center for Digital Research in the Humanities. Web. 3 Apr. 2016.

Killingsworth, Jimmie. "The Walt Whitman Archive." Walt Whitman and the Earth: A Study in Ecopoetics -. Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, n.d. Web. 04 Apr. 2016.

Lao-tzu, and Herrymon Maurer. Tao Te Ching: The Way of the Ways, Tao. Princeton, NJ: Fellowship in Prayer, 1982. Print.

Noel, Roden. "Essays on Poetry and Poets." Essays on Poetry and Poets. London: K. Paul, Trench & Co., n.d. Web. 03 Apr. 2016.

Verellen, Franciscus. "Taoism." The Journal of Asian Studies (1995): 322-46. Print.

 

Whitman, Walt. Leaves of Grass. New York: Vintage /Library of America, 1992. Print.