Excerpt from a journal entry of July 20, 1981. . . .

I am responsible for who I am.  The responsibility cannot be assumed by an other.  I may be an alien in this world, but this world, this beautiful world is not an alien place.  It is here to sustain and nourish and be here for me.  I created my reality.  How can I say without appearing to be out of my mind that Jesus knew of what he spoke and that the veil can and will be lifted or torn away and you too will see and hear?  That revelation was not concluded with the bible and is an ongoing thing with the individual. . . .

(The following poem was written in February of this year, 35 years after the entry.  It was an awesome, heart rending experience for me in the midst of a wood of Spanish Oaks with their windswept moss.  I could not be prepared for what was outside my frame of thought at the time.  The surprise of it all?  That I stood and did not go into cardiac arrest.  And did not babble incoherently. This poem was a Given.  Taken down as I heard it with my inner hearing.   The result?  The serenity.  Just the serenity.  With my heartfelt Thank You.)

It Makes Little Difference

It makes little difference
the road one takes to master this.
For to get to where you are,
the way makes no matter
but the destination
is what leaves its mark.

Centuries on the road
brought this to you, this awesome view
that struck your heart to shatter it.
You went down on knees too stiff
to note the pain but surely the heavens knew
the custom derived from pain.

We cherish the journeyer, the traveler,
the one who found no words to match
the awestruck heart.
It makes little matter for what touched home
in the trunks of the trees, in the music of the wind
rising to the acappella;  rising, still rising,
to the onrushing tears.

We are home.  We are home
and nothing else matters,
other than we set the bar for others to cross.
They will, but not until
they know that the pursuit

begins in the heart. . . and ends there.

Painting by Claudia Hallissey