contradictions

The earth is my body, my body is the earth. Compassion rises out of this awareness. Pain arises out of the knowledge that the people hurt and are dying in Haiti, pain arises out of the knowledge that down the street two men were murdered as they simply minded their own business. Joy arises at the thought of the rivers cascading down the Sawtooth Mountains into Gitchee Gumee, joy arises out of the thought of a morning making food with a friend.

"The past and present wilt—I have fill’d them, emptied them,
And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.

Listener up there! Here, you! What have you to confide to me?
Look in my face, while I snuff the sidle of evening;
Talk honestly—no one else hears you, and I stay only a minute longer.

Do I contradict myself?
Very well, then, I contradict myself;
(I am large—I contain multitudes.)"

-Walt Whitman