A New Start

First Steps

Yesterday a new year began.  

With it this blog, eminating from the beginning of the world at Mile Marker 0.  

This will become a place of daily reflections from the perspective of someone who is both deeply embedded in a universal culture and seperate from the mainland of thought and experience. 

Sometimes I will passionately expand on what is true for me.  Other times I will equally passionately explore concepts and ideas which are not (or not yet) true for me.  From the beginning of the road it is always important to know that anywhere you go you explore; one cannot claim any place or time or idea as set forever. 

We shall see where this new road will take us.

As Whitman said: (a bit abridged - sorry Walt)

Allons! whoever you are, come travel with me!
Traveling with me, you find what never tires.  

Allons! we must not stop here!  
However sweet these laid-up stores—however convenient this dwelling, we cannot remain here;  
However shelter’d this port, and however calm these waters, we must not anchor here;  
However welcome the hospitality that surrounds us, we are permitted to receive it but a little while.    
Allons! the inducements shall be greater;
We will sail pathless and wild seas;  
We will go where winds blow, waves dash, and the Yankee clipper speeds by under full sail.  
  
Allons! with power, liberty, the earth, the elements!  
Health, defiance, gayety, self-esteem, curiosity;  

Listen! I will be honest with you;  
I do not offer the old smooth prizes, but offer rough new prizes;  
These are the days that must happen to you:  
  
You shall not heap up what is call’d riches,  
You shall scatter with lavish hand all that you earn or achieve,
You but arrive at the city to which you were destin’d—you hardly settle yourself to satisfaction, before you are call’d by an irresistible call to depart,  
You shall be treated to the ironical smiles and mockings of those who remain behind you;  
What beckonings of love you receive, you shall only answer with passionate kisses of parting,  
You shall not allow the hold of those who spread their reach’d hands toward you.  
  

Allons! after the GREAT COMPANIONS! and to belong to them!
They too are on the road! they are the swift and majestic men; they are the greatest women.  
Over that which hinder’d them—over that which retarded—passing impediments large or small,  
Committers of crimes, committers of many beautiful virtues,  
Enjoyers of calms of seas, and storms of seas,  
Sailors of many a ship, walkers of many a mile of land,
Habitués of many distant countries, habitués of far-distant dwellings,  
Trusters of men and women, observers of cities, solitary toilers,  
Pausers and contemplators of tufts, blossoms, shells of the shore,  
Dancers at wedding-dances, kissers of brides, tender helpers of children, bearers of children,  
Soldiers of revolts, standers by gaping graves, lowerers down of coffins,
Journeyers over consecutive seasons, over the years—the curious years, each emerging from that which preceded it,  
Journeyers as with companions, namely, their own diverse phases,  
Forth-steppers from the latent unrealized baby-days,  
Journeyers gayly with their own youth—Journeyers with their bearded and well-grain’d manhood,  
Journeyers with their womanhood, ample, unsurpass’d, content,
Journeyers with their own sublime old age of manhood or womanhood,  
Old age, calm, expanded, broad with the haughty breadth of the universe,  
Old age, flowing free with the delicious near-by freedom of death.  
  
Allons! to that which is endless, as it was beginningless,  
To undergo much, tramps of days, rests of nights,
To merge all in the travel they tend to, and the days and nights they tend to,  
Again to merge them in the start of superior journeys;  
To see nothing anywhere but what you may reach it and pass it,  
To conceive no time, however distant, but what you may reach it and pass it,  
To look up or down no road but it stretches and waits for you—however long, but it stretches and waits for you;
To see no being, not God’s or any, but you also go thither,  
To see no possession but you may possess it—enjoying all without labor or purchase—abstracting the feast, yet not abstracting one particle of it;  
To take the best of the farmer’s farm and the rich man’s elegant villa, and the chaste blessings of the well-married couple, and the fruits of orchards and flowers of gardens,  
To take to your use out of the compact cities as you pass through,  
To carry buildings and streets with you afterward wherever you go,
To gather the minds of men out of their brains as you encounter them—to gather the love out of their hearts,  
To take your lovers on the road with you, for all that you leave them behind you,  
To know the universe itself as a road—as many roads—as roads for traveling souls.