The Topic of Self-Actualization

"Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" is a coming of age poem by W. Whitman.

This poem is about Whitman finding his calling as a poet, inspired by the longing calls from the he-bird to his missing mate. Whitman was not haunted by the longing of his brother. Instead, he identifies with the callings in a way that connects him with his soul or "original self", thereby connecting him with the eternal. He experiences "self-actualization" in the experience, because he finds the one thing his very soul was meant to do, thereby connecting his temporal life on earch with the eternal. His life is one that rocks continuously back and forth between death and life, the eternal and temporal.

The eternal is made natural as the ocean and the moon. The ocean is also representative of Death, as well as the serpent that hisses to Whitman the fact that he must choose between "the demon or the bird". The serpent could representative of the Eden snake that revealed the tree of knowledge to Fallen Man. However, there lacks evil overtones to Whitman's snake and suggests rather another brother in nature. Self-awarness, after all, is the natural state of Fallen Man. The bird is symbolic of love, also something eternal, but also the bond that connects beings.
Whitman's choice is one of self-actualization - life as the voice of nature (lonely poet? - word) or life like his he-bird friend that knows the bonds of love. Whitman obviously chooses the voice of nature and eventually declares his love for nature and the natural state of humans. In "Songs of Myself," Whitman praises plumbers, farmers and businessmen for the self-actualized states. A plumber is a plumber for the same reason his he-bird brother is a mockingbird. He praises this natural state as a spiritual experience. For Whitman, a spiritual connection, one with nature, was made when Man's soul realized its innate potential.

In this early work, Whitman announces his kindredship with nature as a brother to a he-bird from Alabama.