beneath persona

The person, from the Latin persona, was originally the megaphone-mouthed mask used by actors in the open-air theaters of ancient Greece and Rome, the mask through (per) which the sound (sonus) came.

~ Alan Watts

Walt Whitman - 1854

There is, in sanest hours, a consciousness, a thought that rises,

 independent, lifted out from all else, calm, like the stars, shining eternal. 

This is the thought of identity — yours for you, 

whoever you are, as mine for me. 

Miracle of miracles, beyond statement, 

most spiritual and vaguest of earth’s dreams, 

yet hardest basic fact, and only entrance to all facts.

 In such devout hours, in the midst of the significant wonders of heaven and earth,

 (significant only because of the Me in the centre,) creeds, conventions, 

fall away and become of no account before this simple idea.

 Under the luminousness of real vision, it alone takes possession, 

takes value. Like the shadowy dwarf in the fable, once liberated and look’d upon, 

it expands over the whole earth, and spreads to the roof of heaven.

~ Walt Whitman

 from Walt Whitman: Poetry and Prose

 with thanks