Soul Sight is Creativity
“There is apart from mere intellect, in the make-up of every superior human identity…a wonderous something that realizes without argument…and intuition of the absolute balance of the world; a soul sight of that divine clue and unseen thread which holds the hold...
Whitman’s Tomb
Beginning in the mid-1990s, I began to make pilgrimages to Whitman's tomb in Camden, New Jersey. The purpose is to pay my respects to the master and also to clean up the area around the tomb. This is an article that ran in the Washington Post shortly after I began...
Spiritual Democracy
Learning from Walt Whitman and Thriving in the Trumped World Neil Richardson and Steven Herrmann “In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass” Walt Whitman expressed a kind of Spiritual Democracy in his prose and poetry that can help guide...
Tocqueville, Whitman and Enlightened Self Interest
Is Tocqueville’s concept of enlightened self-interest still a useful way to think about democratic citizenship? Perhaps Walt Whitman has something to say about this? Citizenship implies myriad things and practices. To some it’s simply voting...