In the second passage of Song of Myself, Whitman speaks of his connection with the Earth and its atmosphere. This is a very sexual passage. His breath, in and out, is combined with the odorless atmosphere that he is so addicted to. He is completely exposed to nature in the way God first created man. Nothing stands between his nakedness and nature’s nakedness. His body is at one with nature.
Whitman is experiencing elements of nature, the rippling of water, but even more than that, the ripple he is creating with his life. He speaks of the insects flying around him in “buzz’d whispers” that make the sounds of nature in spring. The “love root” is the connection between the trees and the earth as well as his feet and the earth. It is more than
