The leaf of grass, his guiding poetic conceit in "Song of Myself," is not the dross of the earth but "the
journeywork of the stars," just as "the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren," and so on (LG1855 34).
14- Availability of buying land and lodge without using payment without
journeyworkTo top it all, he allowed "his eccentric personality and unwelcome ideas to intrude even upon his
journeywork." (Townsend 1961: 320)
"Differences of Degree."
Journeywork 1 (Fall 1984).
His music aids in deep inner exploration, breathwork, shamanic
journeywork, body therapies, meditation, and the healing arts.
In "The Raven's Book," a dying wife, writing to her missing husband, muses, "If you are alive / you are looking at the moon // and I can trace the isosceles of our seeing." Her use of "isosceles" is typical of the kind of smart, multi-layered image of which she is capable, as is her reference in "Last Words" to the process of watching a loved one die as "the inverted
journeywork." Her style of expression is so exact as to be breathtaking, and she does it without the self-conscious irony so present in poetry today.
"My duties were mostly 'a job of
journeywork' - very enjoyable work travelling around Ireland and many parts of America, England and Scotland recording traditional music and song."
Justice's connection to Welty's writing, however, goes deeper than these instances of
journeywork. It may be found woven inextricably into the fabric of his poems: in his music teachers and Victrolas, in his shaded lawns, his porches and weedy lots.
Remember Walt Whitman's line that a leaf of grass is the
journeywork of the stars?
In shamanic practices the shaman does the
journeywork. In HCH the client is put in an altered state or trance, encouraged in finding an ally (a healthy adult) to have in reserve for use in the healing work and later to elicit in day-to-day activities.
And saw the
journeywork of suns and systems of suns,
For Whitman, a leaf of grass offers, for our contemplation, an instance of organic continuity through change: it is "the flag of my disposition," "a uniform hieroglyphic," "the beautiful uncut hair of graves," and "
journeywork of the stars." Whitman imagines a human universe in which I take a part in all things: I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your bootsoles.