Walt Whitman and the idea of togetherness

First of all, I’ve decided to choose this topic because, when reading Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself, it really caught my attention the many references to the self as an individual but at the same time in harmony with the universe forming a whole in connection with nature, which is precisely what is needed in today's society, go back to simplicity, be one with others and nature, and, by doing that, regenerate our damaged society, so in order to make my point clear, I should probably start by briefly describing what transcendentalism is.

Trascendentalism

Well, transcendentalism “is an American literary, political, and philosophical movement of the early nineteenth century” (Goodman, 2013) which main representatives are Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and Margaret Fuller, among others. This movement attempts to bring the subject and the community or society in general, back to the simplest and natural beliefs that influence mankind's behavior in order to promote a better and healthier society
Trascendentalism includes ideas of self-reliance, which refers to the principle that the best way of doing things is to go your own way; simplicity; nature and optimism.

Furthermore, in the poem Song of myself, there are a lot of references to the self starting by the title and at first sight I, as an inexpert reader, thought that it was a little bit too centered on the self. However, after reading it and listening to the explanation of the teacher, I realized that the self is not disassociated from the whole, since, for the author, the self refers not only to the personal dimension, but also to the universal one. Therefore, as an individual subject we all have our own personalities, perspectives and identities, but at the same we are part of something bigger, the universe, which is interconnected and cannot be separated from us. Through the poem, Whitman is trying to express the idea that every person is an individual but, at the same time universal and that you cannot talk about yourself without talking about the universe, owing to the fact that there was a union between the self and a bigger entity, a sort of higher self, and this serves as an example of the unification of the subject and a community which is made through a key element.

Nature

The rol of nature in trascendentalism is a central one, since it is a sort of the conductor to a greater truth, a higher state of the being, since it laws and items are perfect and function flawlessly, thus, observing nature is not a pointless action since you're seeing a the universe itself in front of your eyes and through ourselves when we are one with nature, as Emerson said "the currents of the universal circulates through me" 

Whitman employs nature in the poem Song of Myself as the starting point for contemplating, thinking and meditating as in the first section of his poem in which he invites his soul and observes the grass

"...I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass..."(Whitman, 1855:1)

As nature is the starting point for contemplating and getting to this greater self and also the start of this poem which is a journey in which the author wants to describe and explain how each one of us is unique and irreplaceble, but simultaneously, united in and with nature, which is represented by the grass, an element which includes and links all people as a group, as part of the same energy, as mentioned in section 6 of Song of Myself, when a child asks him what the grass is

“…Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,

And it means, sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow

Zones,

Growing among black folks as among white,

Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same,

      I receive them the same…” (Whitman, 1855:8)

Furthermore, this union with nature is the result of the experience of self-referral consciousness (a state in which the conscious is open to the self only) which allows you to experience the self of everything, meaning, the “self-referral functioning of nature itself” (Setzer, 1999). In plain words, as I understand it, this means that by being conscious of yourself, you can understand everything which means comprehends nature.

All in all and as a final thought, as Whitman wanted to unite America on the basis of nature, we should also try to turn ourselves into nature, make the journey, try to go back to the simplicity and the natural principles and ideas, look ourselves as equals united in this same energy called universe in order contribute to a better and healthier society.

References:

http://jayroc.lookingforwhitman.org/2009/09/24/transcendentalism-in-song-of-myself/
http://www.articlemyriad.com/transcendentalism-transcendentalist-movement-whitman/
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/transcendentalism/
http://maharishi-programmes.globalgoodnews.com/vedicscience/programmes.html
https://www.mum.edu/pdf_msvs/v09/setzer.pdf