Her grey hair was tied up in a knot with an elastic band with wisps circling her face.
Not neat in any way but ends swinging as if the haircut was long overdue but her smile was now and the joy present. Her long coat swung, circling her ankles. His coat also swirled close to the ground; his beret rakishly setting low on one brow.
His smile matched the rakish set of his beret and their hands linked to each other swung happily between them.
I want to grow old like that, I said and knew you saw them as I did. You grinned. Like that you said and saw they were happy, joy filled.
We shed our stifling cocoons for a time that day but we did not grow old as what we saw could be.
It could not anymore be yours than mine. If we had, and truth be known,
I would have walked on water for you.
Heart art by Veronica
Veronica Hallissey has been writing since the 1960s, with her poetry published in a variety of small press magazines. Born into a farm family in Lockport, NY, and educated at the University of Buffalo and other midwest institutions, she brings and unusual point-of-view to her poetry, combining strong natural images with a deep spiritual language. She lives in Ramona, CA.
We have put so much faith in the medical profession and they do not deliver us from death which of course is what we want in our final go round. In fact, the agonies are prolonged for just one more minute of breath before our departure. And our departure is fraught with negatives. The biggest being our inability to leave with dignity.
For then we are stripped of our freedoms, the largest one being the freedom to leave with a mind intact. What we see is a person stripped of a mind still functioning. Is this the purpose of a life? Is death so ominous that a breathing body vacant of spirit is preferable?
Is the memory of a wretched, unthinking cell consciousness preferable to a vibrant picture of a loving personality? Has medical science made it easier for leavetaking when what we as a body are no longer recognizable with a spirit far from the beloved we knew? Does it truly help when our memories of the beloved are trampled with the last months and sometimes years of pain distorting the image of the one we held dear? And leaves us with a distaste and a revulsion for the whole process of dying to make us more skeptical of the medicine which we have asked for?
One more day of what? Of a wretchedness that negates all we tried to do in life? When the body is programmed for long life, it would be best if we also programmed the mind. With so much emphasis on the body, we have left no time to fill the mind with nourishment that would befit a body determined for immortality. The spirit makes the break.
Little by little in the process of dying, the time spent away from the body is longer and longer. The tenuous thread, the linkage to the body for we are responsible for our creations, is held until the heart in desperation stops. And by that time, who we were can no longer be recognized. The civilities, the niceties that we encouraged through our lifetimes have departed with the spirit intact. These are the things that moth and rust do not destroy.
These are what makes us humane, civilized and what is left is Cro-Magnon. A wonder we cannot be recognized but are despised. And are we not then a wonder of medical science? The mind that has been fed, that has been nourished, has the right to what medical science offers. But this mind will also call a halt to procedures that no longer give sustenance but instead steals from it its dignity.
The population at large has not availed itself to study man’s place in the universe. Has not availed itself to what has been offered as guidelines, as nourishment for the spirit. It has not taken what we all should know from the time of birth. That death too is part of the living process, the earth process. And if we have accorded dignity to life itself, then death must be included.
To program a body for long life but starve a mind is criminal. Yet we do it all the time. We are deluged with information as to what to do to keep the body active, to keep it healthy. We are a world of proof that a healthy body, one told that to eat such and such will result in a body that fights diseases, that will be able to withstand everything.
And yet we will meet death, if not in our youth by misfortune, then in our dotage with a body so well taught that it will continue to do what it is we taught it to from day one. Yet the mind, the spirit has subsisted on kindergarten fare. On pablum. And we are left to wonder why mother or papa are not the person we knew and if we loved them so much yesterday, how could they change so fast to being so mean and ugly today?
And where the peace and resolve of the unresolves that are suppose to occur at the bedside? Where the reconciliations when the unable in body are also unable and absent in mind? And where the spirit of the beloved who has nurtured us in ages past, the linkage to what was, as our children are the link to the future of what they were?
The last memories will be the only memories for some and for the others, the last memories will be wiped out as not being part of life. And both are damaged, for unless we rearrange our priorities, reprogram ourselves, rewrite the lesson plans, the last memories will continue to be part and parcel of life in this twenty first century.
What to do? Feed the mind as well as the body. As we stretch the body, we must also stretch the mind. New concepts, old ideas made relevant, religions made vital for those with vested interest, philosophers resurrected and visionary poetry made mandatory.
The desire to learn must be fed to the child along with the graham crackers and milk. It must be made exciting and a vital part of life so that it becomes secondary to breathing.
The why question must be followed by research and never dismissed. There is a lesson in everything and we must be eager to learn. Literature needs to be taught and understood with today’s technology; in today’s high tech world, literature has application in the dailyness of each of us.
Along with the mind’s ability to compute anything and everything, it should also include the mind’s ability to grasp spiritual concepts to enrich the person. It will prove to be practical in the long run. And the result will be characters of substance befitting the body programmed for life everlasting.
Our children should grow up seeing us with an open book in our hands.
Veronica Hallissey has been writing since the 1960s, with her poetry published in a variety of small press magazines. Born into a farm family in Lockport, NY, and educated at the University of Buffalo and other midwest institutions, she brings and unusual point-of-view to her poetry, combining strong natural images with a deep spiritual language. She lives in Ramona, CA.
(4/11/24. . . please keep in mind that I have used the male gender as my subject with understanding of this evolutionary leap of humanity because little is understood of what we females responsible with children and aspects of quality to ensure the family in civil community life with compassion when we are leveled with this. Yes, school is in session, and the garbage must go out Monday morning and we will mow the lawn today, so we won’t look shabby. And are we not lucky the supermarket is open round the clock and your uniforms will be clean for gymnastics. My appointments are covered, and I get to see Dr. Heinz today and yes, of course I am fine. With pot-roast for dinner. Amen and Amen.)
March 19, ’81
Five of the hardest days I have encountered had no one about. I look about me and see VIP’s and wonder how they could have grown so large and so unapproachable? The whole process of honest self-examination is painful. The key word is honest. One carries everything to its ultimate conclusion. But why punish oneself? They fill lives with good works and activities and think that physical speed denotes progression. It is easier to blame others for one’s misery.
As a child I made the error in thinking that I was like everyone else. In adulthood the error was in thinking that everyone was like me. Arrogance? Hardly. Doubt sits beside me and questions my every word. Since the time the top of my head was seared off and I walked for days in a world that had no beginning and no end, and I felt that I was one with the universe and there was no mystery, no evil, no beginning, and no end. Just love . . . sustaining and supportive. That year of cosmic consciousness stays with me. The impact dulled for a time when I shouted after my breakdown close up my head! Close up my head. . . . Why me?
Still, I have to ask why not me. But those who have experienced this, and they write mostly about men who do not have the daily care of young children. I continued with my responsibilities under stress and broke up in a million pieces. To whom did I say close up my head and how did I know that my brain was opened to a greater degree than the average person?
A minister friend could only say I had a mountain top experience. He said he has read of it and wished for it. I envy you he said. The men of this experience took off for the hills, or the privacy of the forests and contemplation. Even the biblical Paul took a year off to accommodate this experience and was attended to. When one is born with a brain working at 7 percent instead of the average 5, the 2 percent difference is unbelievable.
As a child one learns to accommodate oneself. What of the adult who because of stress or injury finds himself open to more than was ever imagined, who to go to for guidance? The physicists who sit in their laboratories and play mental games with the idea of impinging universes are lauded for their mental agility. Yet what of those of us who are visiting and have visited other worlds and see and hear and are labeled insane?
My heart breaks for those who lock themselves away and cannot participate wholly for fear of giving themselves away. And those sedated beyond reach who cannot say it is all for real and I am not imagining all this.
How can the Powers That Be measure the scope of the operational brain and unlimited mind? Unless they themselves have experienced any of it , they cannot do ought but label abnormal what is outside their frame of reference. The instability of the emotional creature who has been opened up still remains a constant source of worry to himself. Will I break up again, he says. What are my limits and how much stress can I handle?
And the questions themselves are enough to make him tremble as he reaches for medication. He yearns for flight and there is no place that quiets him. Like being seasick in the bow of the ship during a storm which appears unending. Dulling the brain to ensure that the full impact of events will not undo him is the only way he can see to function. Because the full impact is what he feels and sees Others do not. And this is the problem.
He continues to blame himself for what he considers his weakness and inability to cope when his specialness is his problem. And even that he finds difficult to assimilate. To be special means to be different. And who of us can comfortably accept the fact that we are not like everyone else? The very fact that he has come through such a trauma is to his credit but who will grant him that? Who will sustain his belief in himself and his ability to survive?
Where is the doctor or help for him to reestablish his individuality and yet allow him to feel part of humankind in evolution? The books are not closed yet on us. Something is very wrong in the way we treat those who appear to be different. We should be asking ourselves to reexamine our philosophies. Man will grant to his gods eternal life and the powers to influence for good or ill.
At the same time, they deny the eternal life for themselves and the abilities to do the same. There is a large gap in man’s ability or inability to go beyond physical death. He would allow himself the grace to go somewhere and basking in a large cloud forever seems to be the extent of his imagining. That we go to other worlds and these worlds are peopled for want of better words, like intelligent beings, does not occur to them. That there are those of us who can be attuned to other than the physical automatically puts us in an abnormal category.
The physicist gains applause for his musings. The individual who experiences these worlds and can give substance to them, does not.
There is a depth, a width, a breadth that escapes many of us. And those who are aware are shaken to an inch of their very selves. The spirit continues to teach, often with taking dictation. Joyce Carol Oates in an interview stated she sits at her typewriter table with a ream of paper and begins to write what is mentally dictated. And for such a prolific writer, those of us who know how it is done, understand. For all of us, it is still a mystery how our human brains operate. No doubt the public acceptance of her work has bridged whatever trepidation she feels, if she does.
And others, who put out mountains of work, or even minor works, do it the same way, though few speak of it for fear of being thought odd. The question to be confronted is, who does the dictating if anyone does, or is the mind such that it dictates to itself? Both premises are unsettling if one actually confronts them. Or the individual is especially secure and has put to rest all the questions arising. I go back and reread and find the material fresh.
I wrote a poem in the meantime.. . . .no title yet. And an Amen.
Veronica Hallissey has been writing since the 1960s, with her poetry published in a variety of small press magazines. Born into a farm family in Lockport, NY, and educated at the University of Buffalo and other midwest institutions, she brings and unusual point-of-view to her poetry, combining strong natural images with a deep spiritual language. She lives in Ramona, CA.
Mar 10, 2024. . . it seems I repeat and repeat. We are not a stupid people, yet why do we act so? I received an email from a daughter which was written on my forehead. (it seems so anyway because I remembered it immediately. words were thus. . . no matter how broad the hammer nor how hard we pound, we cannot put common sense in stupid people!!! ) To say humans disappoint me has me wondering what I saw as their potential to alibi them so long? To say I need a psychiatrist? I have had them for half my life. My beloved Dr. Heinz told me he had met a patient like me 4 or 5 times in his life but only in medical books. He corrected himself when he said Europe was the only place to accept me, because he said he was conscious of too many changes even in his Vienna.
He was conscious acutely of character and would not hesitate to shout BETRAYAL when told of contradictory behavior. Behavior changes are only as good as observable changes with no remorse and regret when the bar for change is deliberately lowered with an I’m only human excuse. It doesn’t hold water, sorry. Please don’t take my time. I have so little left.
Will our daughters who become mothers of sons need to shout that the behavior of a rotter wordly high official does not give an okay to their son to behave like him! Because I said so! And I am YOUR MOTHER!
July 8, 2021 . . I need to put this down before it goes into the forget pile. As most things do nowadays. But this I think is most important because we as a nation are becoming most distrustful as well as unforgiving about differences within even our families. It is a despairing situation, and I worry about the children growing up within families that don’t allow even for the genetic mayhem happening randomly with no ill intent.
My favorite philosopher, Ashleigh Brilliant, would no doubt label my perspective and me as God’s Mistake. And the psychiatrist whispers that I am lucky to be alive. But you see, I think this country is the most magnificent Rehab Unit in the world. We are all here because of courage to vacate situations which were the death of all of us. Whether the conditions were familial, or country, or monetary or healthwise; no matter. They were not life giving but life taking.
I read I had awakened from a teaching dream taking most of the night and written down all the memorable elements. And ended with these last words my brother Stanley saying ‘it is enough for here and now. Let’s just get this life, this world, right.’
And following that segment, I wrote. . . (there were faces that passed by me, from handsome and beautiful to strange and weird and then to beautiful again. It was a most fluid scene. Now the thought occurs that this is what life is about. That fluidity, the ability to see change and not be averse to it, not be repulsed by what life is in all of its worlds.)
I scribed the teachers April 17, 2018. . . It would seem that repulsion should be part and parcel of what you saw. Yet the introduction is given where you are and the majority of people have their favorite prejudices. They avoid what it is that is not like them. Whether color or patterns of behavior, etc. Yet we realize that for civil life to go on unobstructed there must be a mean behavior attended to. There must be a behavior which will not obstruct human justice or civil life, mannerly life. Else as you say, civilization goes down the tube. What must be allowed in civil life must also be accepted within the individual.
Because there are more problems adherent to the new norms one will encounter in other dimensions. Whether burn victims, handicapped or malformed individuals can be seen as spirits and soul on a pilgrimage, will commend the viewer to a better understanding when the other dimensions come into view. It seems a small way to begin, but begin we must at all levels.
So simple yet it seems like arguing by the high church as to how many angels can dance on the head of a pin! Pointless yet similar to the descriptions by Frank Herbert of the Dune Face Dancers. And the world dimensions of the Shikasta by Doris Lessing.
Yet looking at the haunting videos of the January 6 Insurrectionists of our Capitol Building, revealing the aged faces and bodies not having learned the respect nor knowledge for the nobility of the building housing the revered character of our Constitution, devastates.
I still write the truth that what we teach within the walls of our homes to the first years of our young, will determine the sacredness of the prophet’s peace on earth and what will be eaten at mankind’s tables. Whatever language we speak,
the heart will shout its validity.
Veronica Hallissey has been writing since the 1960s, with her poetry published in a variety of small press magazines. Born into a farm family in Lockport, NY, and educated at the University of Buffalo and other midwest institutions, she brings and unusual point-of-view to her poetry, combining strong natural images with a deep spiritual language. She lives in Ramona, CA.
(I was awash this morning with no peer to call because I have outlived the handfull of heart friends and felt isolated. No one to share my thoughts in mind that rose to show that within our lives have been peers saying sure things requiring no ancient researching. I had in my notes the following which I found quickly. I compare my head often to a computer hard drive in my propensity for stored information. Keeping notes in steno notebooks later put in journals was establishing ease in retrieving the notes. It seems I have notes that have hard copies in poetry, in journals, in stenos; meaning the backups have backups. I guess I made up for not remembering what I said to whom.)
Perhaps Doris Lessing and I would not be close friends because of conscience. But I can and do admire her brilliance with the written word and some of her ideas. Two things of value stand out. The first is of long standing and I spent hours locating this source only to find it at midnight in a steno book I happened to pick up before closing shop.
From her book Sirius. . . Laws are not made. They are inherent in the nature of the galaxy. .of the universe.. . . After a lifetime of independent study, another of my conclusions is that laws are inherent in the nature of all life. It is folded into a conclusion I had reached early on that man is basically good because man is basically god, (divine). If this were not so we long would have gone down the tube and stayed dead never to rise.
There is the thought that good can be derailed for a time, but to dismiss and be murdered forever cannot happen; because of the inherent good, basic good in life itself. As the saying goes, god don’t make no junk. Because of our narrow focus, our conclusions are not fully realized . When the larger picture is ours, different conclusions will also be ours.
Standing where we are, whether the terms are God or Life, Yahweh, or Father or Science it all yields truth as far as we can acknowledge, especially if our actions show that our lives bear witness to what we espouse. And when our actions enhance humanity, there is little argument.
The next quote I found last night in my researching Lessing. “Very few people really care about freedom, about liberty, about the truth, very few. Very few people have guts, the kind of guts on which a real democracy has to depend. Without people with that sort of guts a free society dies or cannot be born.” ((3.5.24 hear that supreme court after yesterday’s ruling?. ))
This is a loaded statement because most people live lives nested in fear. And the fear takes form in job loss, prestige, threats, money, and whatever turns us immobile when our buttons are pushed.
It takes a courage unbelievable to have the knowledge of how to correct a problem and yet to work around the known frailties of humans involved to prevent an eternity of more anguish to shovel. One’s own integrated knowledge can be managed and democracy chooses heroines and heroes.
We see a congress of able bodies leveled and paying homage to a whiny loud voice. For shame.
Veronica Hallissey has been writing since the 1960s, with her poetry published in a variety of small press magazines. Born into a farm family in Lockport, NY, and educated at the University of Buffalo and other midwest institutions, she brings and unusual point-of-view to her poetry, combining strong natural images with a deep spiritual language. She lives in Ramona, CA.
March 3, 2024. . . I do what is foreign to me now. I am putting with only some editing whole journal entries with feedback from my teachers. For those inclined to scoff at what is given, I say just try to do it. I came into this life with a foot still in my last world. To my good fortune, a bevy of brothers welcomed me and watched; where it came for me to think I was like others they saved me from calamity. Nearing a hundred years gives me license to speak without resorting to make believe or outright lies. On her deathbed my mother said I go out too far. Because I cannot depend solely on my skills now bodywise, I take the route straight from the written word. There is no human law that could bear the weight of cosmic trust, so questioning is futile. They know me. For what is yours to glean and learn, I bless. It gives me another chance to wake up from my world where nothing hurt. That is a nice memory. Take what is meant for you. Amen and amen.
August 28, 2020
Friday 11:48 a.m.
It is I, Veronica. Bless me as I enter and exit. Let me be the benediction on this day. I give my blessing to who feels the need. Amen and amen.Welcome. Speak. (It occurred to me this morning when I awoke at 4:30 to read again the article in poets and writers. The ending stayed with me and I needed to sort it out. It was attributed to Stephen King originally that art should support life and not the other way around. And I needed to see that again. But Life now must support art.
And to put today now in bas relief, we need art to support life in total. And we need for it to do that. Yet in today’s schooling and educational systems, art is cut out as a means to save money. What we are doing is taking away the food the spirit feeds on.True enough, the body must be fed, but what happens to spirit when it starves ? What we have is what we are viewing. The sensitivities of the human are neglected or are allowed to grow unrefined to the spiritual, emotional and psychic needs which then atrophy and disappear. Or the base survival instincts run rampant and violence becomes the mode of the day.
We see it and are party to it. It has become the normal for the times. The so called mannerly ways are given short shrift and though they have taken centuries to manifest and groom within the human, in short appalling time they are lost if ever to become part of the soul stuff anymore.
And yet who would argue in these times we should not feed the children, whatever their requirements? Who would allow their progeny to physically starve to death? And yet I ask, should we neglect the spirit in these crucial times and lose what we have gained in our best of humanity?
I could give a blistering argument for life should be supporting the arts, the sculpting, the potteries and the paintings depicting the human struggles from the beginning of manifestation. The beginning of when we took physical form to salvage our growing need for expression. And it was that that led to our need for a way to use the hands and growing mind needing to make what was a nebulous form in mind to something in the hand to see.
For we had eyes that pierced the fog of mind needing to hold that something which was idea first taking form. I search for words that would give some feeling to what were ideas in mind that we put imaging to.
I wrote in 1982 and that was a long time ago. 38 years ago. My god how could I have lived with that knowledge for so long? But no one listened and because our livelihood depended on the public I was told to watch what I said.
I wrote. . .we wandered the universe in the beginning
and walked and talked and set to dreaming
how would it be if we blew our collective breath and
set a planet whirling?
If we lifted the shades of darkness
and let our pain for expression
burn hot enough to warm even the bleakest spot?
It breaks my heart to read this. We have paid the price over and over for forgetting where we came from and what drives our spirit. And last night when I read the article saying that the reason we are writers is because we hope to regain our passion to follow what we know is Machiavelli’s letter to Vettori.
‘the evening being come, I return home and go to my study; at the entrance I pull off my peasant clothes, covered with dust and dirt and put on my noble court dress and thus becoming reclothed. I pass into ancient courts of the men of old, where being lovingly received by them. I am fed that food which is mine alone, where I do not hesitate to speak with them and to ask for the reason of their actions and they in their benignity answer me and for four hours I feel no weariness. I forget every trouble, poverty does not dismay, death does not terrify me; I am possessed entirely by those great men.’
I have said to those of my kin, when everyone goes to bed I get a second wind and take to my books. And it is within the solitude of my self I have the conversations and learn of great things .
And I write here this day that I read art should support life and give meaning to it all. We should find that life itself holds the meaning and art supports that meaning. I find that it does, it does. But I have not found those whose thinking reflects the meaning I find. And have ridicule in my naivete they say and don’t know what life is all about.
Yet the mixed signals is what takes life from those burgeoning with sensitivity and find none to hold sacred these leanings to give hope amid the storms. Not given. . . I turn over. . .)
Not given to much credence are you for what you glean from even the simplest words. Not everyone saw this in the article you realize. Not everyone. He sees it in his daughter but your mate did not see in his sons what you did and you struggled for how many years?
Veronica, everything you encounter comes back to this doesn’t it? The sensitivity of the soul to those things giving meaning to life. For it has none by itself. The gross has to be woven out and the meaningful woven in. It takes time. Time.
(and now we have to work again to put art back into life because living with a spirit that is sick is untenable. It proves the point that without art, without an appreciation of history, of literature, of art in its basic drawing, that of looking at where the charcoal drawings show what mankind has endured by looking at the cave walls, the early pictures of venturing out of the heavens onto the planet set whirling, manifesting ideas, trying out philosophies to capture society’s intents and learning from the failures, to hearing the finest notes in variable melodies, my god, the meanings of the fine carpenter, what are we doing to ourselves again? I cannot bear it. Cannot.)
Do something with the hands today. Pack up the hats. Get them into the mail. And come home Veronica, come home. You don’t have the energy to write the article for the poet magazine. It would be an eye opener to somebody but maybe with your blog it would? God girl, leave it to someone else. Just leave it. Bless and take some time for who you are. It has been a hard row to hoe. We need some off time. Too much sorrow going and too many tears. Your classroom requires a strong back and shoulders. And yours are not capable at the moment. Lady go rest. Do what you do and take it to the bar. Amen and amen. Go
1238 words 1 p.m.
Veronica Hallissey has been writing since the 1960s, with her poetry published in a variety of small press magazines. Born into a farm family in Lockport, NY, and educated at the University of Buffalo and other midwest institutions, she brings and unusual point-of-view to her poetry, combining strong natural images with a deep spiritual language. She lives in Ramona, CA.
In looking back the words I hear in closing the front door are, be careful what you say. That was from the time I have memory forming words, being told in essence to stop talking . Even now, this late in the day I am told to stop and listen. Yet the feeling persists that I will reveal something that is untenable, unable to be viewed.
If not allowed to speak, I will implode. I have no malice aforethought nor a desire to break someone’s rice bowl from which he eats. I may enhance his knowledge or broaden his outlook, but my conclusion is the outlook is too narrow still, and needs broadening.
The feeling I pick up is that I will either embarrass or demand effort the other cannot meet. Am I right? And I will be wrong or misguided or even stupid. As long as no work is demanded that they change their belief systems I can be called anything. And I excerpt the following from my journals.
Because most of my circle relate only from who they are when they see themselves in the mirror in the morning. No matter where their night has taken them, nor what they perceive in the rare moment when life becomes other than what they have known the moment before, they dismiss that, discount it and say bizarre and finally deny it ever happened, and never realize it was their sanctuary moment given to rescue them from drowning.
And this is what a sanctuary moment is, isn’t it? Now in brief I will tell you what leads me here and why I need time in conference. . .
When I was going to the doctor and waiting for Jennifer to pick me up, I picked up my two self published books, Kiss the Moon and The Last Bird Sings . . . I did not want my new doctor to think I was a flake. The moment I picked up Last Bird, I stopped in track. My heart faltered and the words came. . . I am the last bird, aren’t I? all my siblings . . .7 of them. . . were gone and I was the last bird, and I sing my song to say how it was with me. No one thought my thoughts and no one’s beliefs were spoken out loud. My brothers knew I was different and they worried.
I thought it all was my effort, almost 70 years days and nights. Now I wonder the poem scribed with the words the rose will bloom in December I promise, and I do not make promises lightly . I thought I volunteered for this assignment but now I wonder are we chosen for what we do with our particular talents?
Thank you for your time so generously given. . . veronica
As I was closing, I chanced a glimpse at the below journal entry, I had scribed ending the following . . . .
Feb 17, 2018 Sat 6:32 p.m.
This is why you have not sat and discussed what you already know. You are of one mind and no need anymore. We discuss all the time, your venture to us and we welcome you. In time you come home and in time we list all grievances and also victories. We know the isolation you feel and we know too that once you are with us all, there is no going back. You will be home for good and nothing ever will allow you to be torn from where you do the most good and where your heart will never be at risk again. It has been a hard contract to fulfill. But it was done with appropriate and non regrettable behavior and we missed you sorely. Amen and amen.
(I finally located the poem Rose in December, (written Nov. 7, 1982) from my hard copy and include it now)
The Rose in December. . .
The first frost of winter
has caught the bud unaware. . .
But lo, the edges are burned at the fringes. . . . closed tight and full. . . The rose will bloom again in December, I promise.
Look to the bush along the fence,
its roots buried, frozen.
The upright branch will sponsor
the blooming rose. You will pluck it and know. . .
I do not make light promises. . . .
Veronica Hallissey has been writing since the 1960s, with her poetry published in a variety of small press magazines. Born into a farm family in Lockport, NY, and educated at the University of Buffalo and other midwest institutions, she brings and unusual point-of-view to her poetry, combining strong natural images with a deep spiritual language. She lives in Ramona, CA.
He was 4 years old and it was his third birthday party in two days. And I said did you have a good time with your cousin? She was not his cousin but someone he met waiting here to get born. Where was that I asked. Here he said in Etherall.
When I penciled a copy of our talk, I spent time searching unsuccessfully for this place. Years later I found that what was intended was heaven’s Ethers.
There is a quality or talent in some that goes beyond what is considered common. It is something within that allows them to trust a one who is safe, who will not hurt. Four legged creatures these persons include quickly and they are seldom wrong. If we are observant, it is the same talent but adversely in others, that makes them turn tail and run.
We make this decision to come to this planet to make a difference, to make a better life for all. But we forget how much work it is. It is a matter of belief systems and we hope ours is well integrated and not prone to attach us to other’s dogma.
It becomes a time to listen.
It is not as easy as it seems. Try to think, to place in mind a picture of a Being other than human. We have our science fiction writers who give us caricatures of what they suppose we would accept. The images in fact may be actual. Consider that.
I had awakened from a nap that had a familiar feel to it one very cold day in March when we lived in the North. I had a messed up knee and needed to lay the body down for awhile. I knew the place of the dream though I could not name it if pressed. It was not in this particular world or enclosure where I am. But when I awakened I kept feeling my hands as if they were foreign to me.
Like my hands are miraculous. I have been feeling them within each palm and my fingers had a sensation to them that was amazing. My fingers laced with one another and I was surprised at what they do. And are they not a wondrous piece of work? With smooth and supple fingers that I had never appreciated before.
How long had it taken me to come to this minute where my hands seem like an intricate blueprint of some great mind. It had taken me a lifetime to note this. As I sit here and give houseroom to Beings other than human because we talk of other worlds, envision what you are able of how life in other worlds different than ours might be fashioned. What would life be like in a place where none of our essentials exist and bodies are like nothing we view in the mirror. Yet soulful with intelligence struggling for expression where words have not been born. A species of life with no name yet. Was that our beginning?
There is unfinished work everywhere. If asked, would we be willing with our tools, whatever we have mastered to take only in mind upon transiting this Earth, to be one for the vineyards? Or would we rush for the exit that would take us right back to where the toys are plenty? And what if we find ourselves in a not so lush Eden as the previous trip? We must stretch our thinking for the rules are changing. We must in times of quiet give thought to where the Indwelling God will take us.
It is time to listen.
I later scribed. . . Your thought is that it is about belief systems. Not really so simple, because it becomes murky. You are reminded that the world awards systems that it identifies. The belief system that is built on one’s self, it berates as non-productive and uninvolved. For the business of the world to get on, for the noble experiment what is man to stay off the cutting room floor, it must award the high profile. But for man to survive the rip within, to keep him out of the hospital wards and off the public rolls, the thinker, the one who subjects himself to inner scrutiny, private scrutiny, had best stay around.
Veronica Hallissey has been writing since the 1960s, with her poetry published in a variety of small press magazines. Born into a farm family in Lockport, NY, and educated at the University of Buffalo and other midwest institutions, she brings and unusual point-of-view to her poetry, combining strong natural images with a deep spiritual language. She lives in Ramona, CA.
Word reaches that there are issues with some of my posts that are unreal; that perhaps I don’t know how the real world works! I write what I know, not hope or pretend. As Lawrence O’Donnell commented on President Biden’s Inaugural, experience is not taught.
We always knew it, I think, just never applied it to ourselves. Seldom are we lauded for our experience, mostly they say that we learned things and are old for sure. Something you cannot teach as the saying, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.
When I say we go to an earned place when we die, I know it. It has taken a long time for me to be upfront with memories and many of them are painful and not happy.
If life were not everlasting, I would follow the daffodil or if hard pressed, even the mushroom because they come up year after year after year. It has taken many lifetimes to learn what I know. (I edit today (2/1/24) and say my peer Susan Howatch, when returning to England and studying at Oxford, came away with knowledge that the great philosophers thought that humans cannot accept what Reality Is. There must first be giant steps taken for evolution to prevail its course. But how to teach when people run from what sounds like work? When you can’t teach experience, you think entertainment will?)
One of the catalogues of this past holiday had a printed shirt that took my interest. I paraphrased the words to say I read, I research everyday and I learn. Therefore I know some things. (not a lot, but some things).
I understand that heaven’s remedial classes are now instituted to get a head start on Dr. Jonas Salk’s Conscious Evolution. This is evolution not to survive because we have spent lifetimes learning how, but to evolve to a higher form of human potential, with the spiritual aspects of more compassion, empathy and the heart elements like love and the more stingy, sharing, what we know as well as what we have.
(Coming to mind is what an elderly did which I loved and highly praised. Teach me, please teach me how to do that! Haughtily she pulled back and said, but then you would know as much as I do! The 20 year old that I was felt as if slapped!)
I came dragging a foot from a world where learning was held sacred and have lived a functioning life here for almost a hundred years. Not easy . . but doable. But thinking I should wear a hazmat suit for protection from cynicism which may yet do me in.
(But I since learned that when coming to physical life to make a difference we hope, we withhold forgiveness because we think that the past still can be rewritten. The potentials are still seen which keep us working the program and can’t give up. Lost causes are an oxymoron to us.)
THE POET’S MEMORIES
Torn from an event and placed in an incubator to breathe, are poets expected to live. Leaving a world incomplete, they wander in vegetation totally unfamiliar and yet expected to survive.
And give rise to credence in a world with no root, where trees are shades of others more vivid, whose flowers whisper their names in a forgotten language, whose people are ghosts of livelier images, all crowding the nimbus.
Where horizons are vast and what eyes behold are stark lines dividing two dimensional realities pretending a depth that fools not a one. Where snow sheds its stars on a crystal night and the night becomes a holy night eliciting unexpected extravagances bestowing grace.
All grasped in a moment’s vision to linger through worlds creating ulcers by gnawing the viscera with dreams not completed. The poet’s pen translates worlds of mean existence from memories held long in the heart’s pocket.
Translates the colors of those other places where winds caressed and sun bathed a skin unlike his own.
In another place and time he walks and because he does
his memories give rise to an Other’s dream.
artwork by Claudia Hallissey
Veronica Hallissey has been writing since the 1960s, with her poetry published in a variety of small press magazines. Born into a farm family in Lockport, NY, and educated at the University of Buffalo and other midwest institutions, she brings and unusual point-of-view to her poetry, combining strong natural images with a deep spiritual language. She lives in Ramona, CA.
In reviewing decades of my life with my kaleidoscopic perspective, is a stressful endeavor. I was cautioned to go slow. ( At 92, how fast can I possibly go at this time?)
Most people are given to wait until they are on the side where support friends already are. Or here and I laughed at this; when one can at least! look at the walls filled with awards as proof that one was diligent at least in showing up.
Still, loving this planet as I do and marveling yet, I was told that obstacles this difficult deserved the best world to recover. Some things were lighthearted but not many.
I share some written excerpts of my life. Some you can relate to and some have your eyebrows shoot up. . . .
Take to Heart This Earth Planet Classroom. . . . .
I have been in a few rooms when some beloveds have been preparing to transit this world. Some have been hospital rooms where it has been calmer when attention is focused on what was happening and not being diverted from the one leaving our world.
I am grateful to those who felt safe with me to share their experiences in leaving this world and trusted me to understand what they were saying. I have been there when information went against beliefs held by others present and the words were ‘it’s the medicine talking’ or some religious salves they felt necessary.
When our David said they were calling his name with his presence required for work on the Intergalactic Council for Peace. . . he was alert and not dreaming. It would have been cosmic shortsightedness not to avail his caliber of knowledge when the need was acute and the service on hand.
We have seen unqualified people in high places requiring expert and precise knowledge. We are living the results of such a calamitous journey now. And how we rejoice to see learned ones called upon again for what we hungered.
I took David’s statement as truth of the Council because I had heard the topic discussed years before his hospitalization. And never by him but by people well versed in stellar knowledge.
When my mentor, the Nazarene stood on the rock and said his famous much rendered I will build my church speech that the Romans took and ran with, he also said in plain words that here on Earth we are the reflection of heaven and heaven the reflection of Earth, the what is loosed segment seldom repeated.
Take those words seriously because they are meant to be serious. There is no better place than here right where we are. We are the reflection. We are it, sailors, we are it.
The only reason to make a difference in this world, altruism aside, (the true altruistic persons are few, if any) is with the difference we make in ourselves. When we come to this conclusion and know the reason, we will remember that the purpose of this Earth is to be a classroom.
Things are not going to change because the purpose is for us to change ourselves. And we hold that card. When we do, we are graduates to the Universe where there are places needing work.
Places are many. . . planets and worlds with names and no names but workers are few. It’s like Ethics class where conscience line dries for public scrutiny. Nobody shows up. Will you?
A Belief System . . . .
It is a belief system designed
to hold together an idea.
It floats, this idea,
in the Sea of Tranquility
where the I of me resides.
Someday I will suspend my belief
that holds me to
this place hiding
my jewels.
It is a beautiful spot I have made to hide those jewels and no one will find them.
They will be forever
hidden in a place
no one chooses to look;
the hearts and minds
of those who love
this earth with passion.
Surprised they will be
to see in the palm of their hand
the keys of the kingdom. . . .
Veronica Hallissey has been writing since the 1960s, with her poetry published in a variety of small press magazines. Born into a farm family in Lockport, NY, and educated at the University of Buffalo and other midwest institutions, she brings and unusual point-of-view to her poetry, combining strong natural images with a deep spiritual language. She lives in Ramona, CA.