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The Bread of Freedom is Truth. . . .

By Veronica Hallissey on September 25, 2022 in Lesson, Observations, Touchstone

It is an open question, not the only one, but a question as to how we learn something. Since I hold several truths as self evident, and one of them is life everlasting, then prior lifetimes have taught me much. And some lifetimes lead to longer sleeptimes, or time outs, than others with no learning.

My mother recognized me for my galactic wanderings and philosophy when she was in death throes, and told me she would have difficulty with what I knew. And then told me when I asked if she saw Papa, said he is just waking up. He died decades earlier. When I asked if she saw our David, she flicked her wrist and said I go out too far. I then knew she was listening to the teachers.

When a child, I learned early what not to say what I thought. A beloved grandson (years into talking) convinced me it was time I said out loud how it is with me. There are many of us about with what I call Jenny genes, the persevering ones that don’t give up in fear of high water. Many have folded their wings as youngers and said I can’t do this. Others we have said goodbye to at different altars and bled quietly. No directions are written for parents whose children die. Who wishes to author that book of experience?

I have tried hard not to break rice bowls that hold life’s enrichment. I wish to make it a dinner sized bowl to include bread which is a freedom’s truth, a life giver and not taker.

Bread for the Day. . . . .

March 16, ’86 . . .All reality is a preferential viewpoint. All reality is a preferred judgment and yet so incredibly real and so compatible that it all works.

28 mar ’86—I have learned that if good, (making life better) is not done where I am, it is not done elsewhere. Do it now for there will not be this particular chance nor these favorable circumstances.

Apr 01,’86. . . the world is a nothing of itself. It is a something only when we perceive it with our own particular perspective.

Apr 3,’86. . .Freedom of choice is a responsibility. It is also a sacrament.

14 May,’86. . .To- build an entire life on the premise that you must always look fashionable though the package is empty, means that you run from the fact that others will discover this also.

03 June,’86. . .Manipulation is a scheme to allow one to gain a point of power and hold it. It is the boot sitting on the head. It is not the shoulders of the manipulator where the workload rests. It is on whom the boot sits.

July 01,’86. . . quantum, sumus, scimus. . . We are what we know. Knowing, my friend, is different than thinking. To know means you have gone the route, foot by foot.

If we do not understand the wind, we will be caught in the whirlwind.

All times and every time. . . There is no philosophy possible where fear of consequences is a stronger principle than love of truth. . . .john stuart mill’s theory was burned it into my brain and then my heart. .

14 July,’86. . . What it is we desire, we often get in spades. When trophies do not hang on walls, they are laid heavy on the heart.

The twig bent. . from where I come. . .

By Veronica Hallissey on June 27, 2022 in Essays, Observations, Touchstone

I have delayed posting because of ill health. Also because I wondered if what I have been involved in has been so much busy work. At times we have to confront and reassess. And because I am heavy with verbiage, there is much verification. Not all bad and some even passable. I have written on this subject of thought before but feel it necessary to repeat. To think is a real gift given and work it is. It is a practice most avoid.

I remember three compliments given taken to heart. My brother in law, who said he liked asking me questions because he knew I researched and young friend Mark who said he saw me with only one face, never changing from private to public and our David who when he received his phi beta kappa key turned and gave it to me because he said I earned it because I never closed the books.

Since I am in the decade leading to a hundred years, I take stock in reading journal entries. I have to because I cannot believe this life.

January 7, 1988 journal . . . I write, Cannot sleep after reading Albert Schweitzer and the section on parallel lives, and Buddha with no satisfaction. I read what others were thinking but nothing new. I left the book with the feeling that not a one of those learned men spoke with any authority. This is not to dismiss the good that they did in life at all.

But none had experienced anything to have them think other than what was rote. Nothing original. No one said that when he experienced what was written resulted in new thought. Or if disagreeing, why? What if anything rocked the brain’s marbles into new thought. It amounted to compilation of thought as a lump of clay and dead.

The rote delivered was that Jesus was not influenced by Buddha. Even considering the times and their own progression among humans, we learned we are the sum of who has gone before us. Just as Buddha also had something happen in his enlightenment under the Bo tree. Who is self made?

How could Jesus not be influenced, whether by having an open mind at birth or whether at baptism his head or mind was opened? Or as a young man making his way from place to place where Sages puzzled the sacred arguments with no closure, he must have concluded causes for man’s lack of progress?

What I hunger for is someone to say because of this happening, my thinking changed and so my life. I do not wish to dismantle illusions for many are legitimate and necessary. I have come to conclusions wrought by footwork, muscle and heart and cosmic intervention to have my body and limbs seize on me.

I see also those in power were not even vetted for common sense. Who play on the fears of common man who have not been encouraged to think on their own. All that is required is for their hard earned dollars to line the pockets of fear mongers who promise to take care of them so they pocket more workers’ dollars.

Questions we should always ask of ourselves and others. And take the time necessary to think them through. Is it life giving or life taking.? There is no argument with the answers, now is there? As complicated or simple as we are able to think. But listen carefully to how you answer.

May you walk in good conscience, deeply rooted. In whatever world you walk in.

photo taken by
Kathy Qualiana of my brother,
her father, Stanley

I Take Your Hand. . .

By Veronica Hallissey on May 11, 2022 in Essays, Observations, Poetry, Touchstone

0bservations from an almost 50 year old mother to 3 sons in their late twenties. . . Journaled in June of 1980—— now an aged, almost 91 mother with a very tired head and a compromised immune system sporting a half dozen conditions ready for a nap . . . May, 2022

As a mother, it never occurred to me to ask them if their homework was done. That was their responsibility.

They never asked if the laundry was done. That was my responsibility.

Clothes were never a priory with me. The boys wore long or short sleeve jerseys with khaki pants. So if they went missing and the police were called, I would not appear dim but could tell them what they wore. Not the colors, but the cut of the cloth.

I remember always their joys, their agonies and their laughter and talks. Memories are the bridge to the futures of progeny. Best we clean up memories before they begin to leak into futures.

Of recent times we shy away from pulling up a chair to listen to a friend’s or beloveds concerns lest we be practicing medicine without a license. Mostly it is because we are at a loss because of time or just don’t want the involvement. And it costs to become emotionally involved with an Other. Not only does one share the agonies, but one must confront oneself. ( ( true then, sounds like work? It is. . ))

There is a superficial comfort to be gained by psychologically labeling a loved one’s problems. It relieves one of responsibility to help solve the problem. Or just pretending it does not exist.

A time before television came into our homes and stole our prime time evenings, we had time to sit and chat with a beloved and share ourselves which helped alleviate the explosion of a problem and contained it within the concerns of two who shared hearts.

Because the burden was halved it did not erupt and was virtue of love salved with its healing ointment. A differing perspective was heeded and shown an avenue that shared concerns absolved. Such was the healing proffered by neighbors and beloveds before the technology invaded lives and took from humans the responsibilities and privileges of being humane.

The pendulum of progress will find its balance but we must seek it. ((I do not wish to give up my library at hand always with my computer. Nor do I wish to whiteout the typos my numbing fingers display with earnest and sincere desire for professional work. Each must draw the lines for ourselves.)) Our respect and love for humanity must be our first concern.

With rising costs for counseling and medical services, it behooves all of us to render what we once considered our blessed obligation, to serve one another. Isolation compounds problems into catastrophes. We are wise to know which ones we cannot handle. But drama is what families are about and as life complicates itself and us, we must again protect prime time for people whose needs are prime.

I Take Your Hand . . .

Come, I take your hand.
We go to places where
our hearts share dreams.

Sometime back, in histories
having no years,
we trod places where paths
had not been worn.

It was a good time,
seeing how we formed lives
with no lesson plans,
loved with no time
and lived fully aware.

We remember now
when the hands of the clocks
tell us we have only so much time;
only so much to check emails,
to see bank statements,
and to note how many Likes
from those we don’t know.

And only so much time
before the next commercial break
and then we might have time

to love one another?

September 2016

artwork by
Claudia Hallissey

((comments edited by VRH))

Because of Love and Balance, not Fear. . .

By Veronica Hallissey on April 30, 2022 in Essays, Observations, scribed lectures, Touchstone

On December 30, 2017 I wrote the following. I edit only for space and my comments in the writing since then . . .

I sat with my coffee and thought vengeance is mine saith the lord and took
it to say with my vision, ahhh yeah. There is balance and I will write it.
Vengeance is mine. And the need for a greater than who I am god was
necessary because man was where he was in growth and time. And to
teach this was a necessity to have an outside intelligence greater than the
knowledge man felt at the time.

When we take into consideration this balance, a growth commensurate with the intelligence sparking within, all things will be compensated. I need to go back to Emerson again to find the words to refresh. That all things will be balanced.

And what is taken illegally, unequally, taken and acknowledged as one’s own, will be consequential because the internal balance is weighed and known. There are consequences because no one gets away scot free.

Mentally cognizant or not, there is a measuring up at some point. There is no getting away with anything. Vengeance is mine, sayeth LIFE in total. There has to be this dictum or life in any form would no longer Be.

Throughout the universes, throughout , there is balance. There is intelligence that directs and dictates within the freedom of choice. Hoping against hope, life in any form will choose what is good for the All. There is no ‘it don’t matter’ dictum. It all matters and consequences are attached, individually and collectively.

The reason is growth and there is nothing junked. Everything is itemized and noted and destined for good. Or we would no longer Be.

I am not credentialed and do not have the proper words. In January, 2014 I wrote that Intelligence was the primary factor of all Universes. Nothing taken for granted as a non life because the least seemingly alive has what is still an unknown to look for. It holds desire within to unite with Life and ultimately grow to other forms of intelligence, other forms of life. I wrote of God In A Rock.

((I see the vengeance is mine concept as life begetting life, not out of anger or fear or desire to best the impossible. But to allow growth and ultimate life in the best capacity. And what that capacity will be, we do not know.

Having ventured onto this particular journey’s path, this step was the eventual one to be taken. It is not the only path nor only journey, but just as history has shown man’s footwork, nothing new seemingly is changed, just costumes and language.

Though physically unfit for this journey, hopefully please, my intent articulate.))

The Cost Of War. . .don’t get me started. . .

By Veronica Hallissey on April 1, 2022 in Essays, Lesson, Touchstone, Uncategorized

The Cost Of War. . .Knotted Family Ties. . .

She was little more than a toddler. She was plain, even mousy by standards of beauty deemed for the very few. Stringy hair, hazel eyes with poor sight even and not the porcelain English complexion esteemed by her heritage. Left with her brother in Scotland while her mother set out for Canada to set up housekeeping for a husband wounded in the first world war and sent to a Toronto hospital for care. Left too long for the toddler, for when she and her brother were sent to travel the ocean with hired friends, she arrived to find herself no longer the center of interest.

Arriving to find a new sister, with blue eyes, curly blond locks and a porcelain skin already called ‘doll’ because of her exquisite English heritage. Welcomed the first sister was with acknowledgment that she was a big sister to look out for the ‘doll’. Her cry was ‘I’m little, too!’ and would be for almost a hundred years.

Heartbreaking, but pathetic also, to the generations listening powerless to untie the knots that were tied by circumstances only those who tied them could untie. To hear an octogenarian begin every explanation of her life with those words, ‘I’m little, too!’ and need to be parented by everyone regardless of age was an uncomfortable position for everyone. Requiring always to be center, even when birthing her only child and stealing from his father the parental love and caring necessary for his growth.

The girl toddler grown aged never made peace even with her own son. Always displaced she was, shunted aside for every newly minted child coming into the family. Hers was a life of pampering the aging psyche forever the child by a husband who could care for only one. He learned too late for him with no time left, the unhealthy conditions for everyone. And how what was not done left the shouldering of burdens on the unsuspecting coming into the family.

We learn ‘suffer the little children’ with the words taking root and no one thinking that the conditions of the beatitude would take forever to unearth. No one thought we would perpetrate upon our progeny burdens that would make leaden their feet and prevent growth. We would fertilize beliefs that we must assuage the anguish of the ancestors and give them what was owed. Hence we prepare the ground for more bloodshed.

Do circumstances of our lives provide the fodder for weapons of war and peace and goodwill are the two weeks of grace given as reward at the end of the year? I don’t think that was the intent when the prophecy was fulfilled. We have to grow up sometime. Else the stagnation persists and evolution is halted. Think on it. This small instance of one little girl is multiplied forever anon. The cost of war? Don’t get me started.. . .

Excerpt from the
Knotted Family Ties. . .

I close the shutters and pull up the steps.
I learn to live in my own house.
I stay my time and do what is mine.

Jesus, it hurts to watch and be able to do nothing.

Fun With An Idea. . . .

By Veronica Hallissey on January 22, 2022 in Essays, Observations, Touchstone

I remember walking from the garage to the house and wondering if my mate would see the work I did in the yard that had taken me till dark to do. And I was thinking of the Christmas tree I had once put up, sawing off the trunk to fit the holder, stringing blue lights and also the decorating everything had required. All this and even the latter was thought walking the path to the house. The blue lights of the tree in the new room window were vivid in the dark.

And the thought occurred walking that it was in error that I thought I did these things. And the error was in thinking that they were done to gain the praise and gratitude of the one I had in mind. It was not the Other whose praise I wished. It was none other than my Self I did my best and worked to please.

The scenes I wanted to duplicate were the ones I had in memory. From where or what world I did not know. But from a somewhere and sometime that burned into my brain their beauty and with the love for me that somehow came as an apriori, a before that kept me warm.

When I saw this photo from Emma E’s grandfather, who said that the great granddaughter decides whole scenes with great grandma’s tapestries, adding a house, birdhouse, raffia and sea shells with very real symbols, I know what is withdrawn from that memory bank.

Important to me is the care given to creating what is done from mind’s bedding. Lately I am keenly aware of the casual dismissal of what is made and what little thought is given. And it seems any effort is called creative no matter how thrown together something is.

It offends me greatly because if it is worth doing, there should be pride in workmanship when done. Time and physical effort called sweat should accompany what one presents as one’s work with name attached. Some things are done as exercise of an idea and should be our fun. Creative presentments should have standards that are measurable.

Our schoolrooms once taught these standards. Realizing that many felt outside what was accepted and were singed by the standards should open one for further study and practice to make better.

And learn that we are not the only way station but our further journey will yet show us sparklers.

a mountain top experience. . . .

By Veronica Hallissey on January 15, 2022 in Excerpts, Observations, Touchstone

I had intended to send an email to a friend and instead with this quirk of a mind which is mine, it took to be an essay. When finished I thought better than to send it. The reason being another trip to the hospital last weekend in dire straits.

An early cardiologist appointment on Friday morning the 7 th, had him saying you need hospital care and the feeling was imminent. So a weekend in the care of my Mentor’s Caregivers had them releasing me to my family on Sunday, January 9 th.

And time to give some thought to what I need to write. The finding (stumbled) and reading of an early journal entry, (almost to the day plus 50 years) had this to say about the road being traveled. I edit only for space.

January 17, 1973
Wednesday

Been busy at work all day. Read for a while last night and was interested in the excerpt of Paul Tillich when he talked of the Cosmic Consciousness experience as a State of Grace. It is interesting how much I understand what was not clear a decade earlier. Does time do it or growth?

Tillich states that Grace cannot be wished for (how can you wish for something outside your experience?) Yet when it comes you know that something outside your experience has happened; not by various names but a something, happened.

Mine came with the knowledge that I was one with the universe and the words, ‘He Lives!’
Whether that meant Christ because of my upbringing, or because a friend died and was alive without a doubt. His wife was impressed to call me on the day he made his transition and the only thing I could say to her was that he lives, over and over.

This was the 3 day period when I felt as if the top of my head had been taken off and I indeed felt one with the universe. This must be what it is like when you die to this world. The physical boundaries are no longer and you become part of the surrounding.

I seemed to flow into the Ethers. I felt part and parcel of it, a oneness unbelievable. It was exhilarating while it lasted. I did not know of new intellectual stirrings, except no doubt about the foreverness of life on a gut level. And the words over and over ‘He Lives!’

Tillich said that all that is necessary in this experience is that you know you are accepted. It also comes out of grief and despair. To this day I don’t know why I was so devasted by this friend’s illness and death. Except I remember our first meeting of recognition from a someplace and sometime.

How deep can grief go? It flows through the very core of you and out to join the suffering of ‘All That Is’ . . .

And the core of you is ‘All That Is’ . . . .

(I have been encouraged to enter the early journals into my blog. One already through conversation, that few know even scattered religious history. I have mentioned my crashing world with the doctor asking me to speak to some student wannabe psychiatrists. I agreed and found a roomful waiting. And only one had an idea, an idea of maybe this is what I was talking about, the Rosicrucian.

There may be no description given that matches the experience, but as Paul Tillich said, one knows a something happened, a big something. It was an authentic experience and in discussion with a Protestant minister, he called it a mountain top experience and wished it had been his.)

This wall quilt surprised me and I am fond of this artistic side of me. Knowing how difficult it is to stay with a body intent on laying down, the jenny genes triumphed. Probably never again. I negotiate with my teachers for a bit more time to try another evergreen.

All Creatures great and small. . .

By Veronica Hallissey on January 6, 2022 in Essays, Observations, Touchstone

In reading Bedlamfarm.com about simple changes in their three dogs leading to a concern, it brought to mind this whole pandemic we have been tangling with. Not only our concern with humanity but with the creatures we live with.

I am certain we have had more differences of opinions these past two years than we contend with and no resolution. The fact that there is question among us concerning what we should do definitely with humans leads to questions about our four legged companions.

We wonder if we have a cold or Covid or possibly underlying complications from conditions compromising us. Is our Newfie upset because we’re housing the sister dogs or is it something in the water? Why all the accidents with bathroom habits when I am home all day?

And why all the landscaping upsets and gross eating outdoors? When our Newfie blew out his hind legs demanding surgery on both, son John toted pool water breakfast and dinner times for a month while Leroy was in the hospital. Because Leroy wouldn’t drink city water, nor eat the kennel hospital food. Otherwise of course he is no trouble and he was a free dog. There is no such thing we learned.

The opinions diverse. When something becomes a pandemic, common sense tells us that our companion animals are affected too. We are not protected from wild creatures hugging the earth that roam the landscaping and climb the walls to get inside the yards where the good stuffs are. I watch lizards scoot up the cinder block fences and squirrels still playing havoc with dogs still trying to jump 8 foot walls.

And the 200 times better noses on the dogs sense the gross droppings from night creatures eating better than they are they think. I still think it is partly the pool waters.

Many of the homes nearby have backyard pools. And it means that whole communities are treated for what ails us. I luckily talked to the pool man and asked if changes had been made and his immediate question was what are you noticing and troubled with?

I said loose bowels habits and upsets in our creatures. He said we have increased muriatic acid because of the pandemic as well as other measures. I told him I had been running the hose into the small spa section of the pool where the big guy drinks. He agreed it wise to do so when he treats the pool.

I understand water is the most affected during any crisis that affects the community. And animal hospitals are first aware of this. It is written about in most veterinary literature. I am observant.

I have no written credentials but my eyes still work. I am wont to make connections and since I spot first what needs cleaning up. Sorry, it is what I do. I care for what is alive and even sometimes not.

photo by Jessie Hallissey

English Muffin Bread that toasts divinely. . . .

By Veronica Hallissey on November 23, 2021 in Recipe, Uncategorized

You might find this helpful if you will be having a houseful of hungry people looking for something to eat Thanksgiving morning but wanting to leave space for big bird, this you will feed them. Everyone loves English Muffins but to have enough on hand leaves a bare budget. This recipe makes two loaves and they are good! And taste even better than the muffins. Follow the recipe and don’t substitute. I have and when something is good, I hope I have learned not to mess with perfection.

This yellowed recipe is from the Detroit Free Press from early 1982. I know some of you were not born, but I narrow the decade to the century mark. I don’t know why I seem to have lost this recipe to be found again because even in hard times we have to eat.

5 ½ to 6 c flour , divided
2 pkgs active dry yeast or
(4 ½ tsp measured active dry yeast)
1 Tbsp sugar
2 tsp salt
¼ tsp baking soda
2 c milk
½ c water
Cornmeal

In large bowl combine three cups of flour, yeast, sugar, salt and baking soda; set aside.
Heat milk and water until very warm (120 to 130 degrees). Add to flour mixture gradually, beating constantly. Until batter is smooth. Gradually add enough of the remaining flour to make a stiff batter. It takes most of the flour.

(I sprinkle some flour on the counter and push the batter onto counter. It will be stiff enough to smooth and knead into a ball gently 2 or 3 times. This I love to do because I somehow know the dough knows the feel of my hands and the love flowing through. It is my connection and who I am,)

Prepare two 8 ½ x 4 ½ inch loaf pans greasing lightly and sprinkling with cornmeal if you wish. Divide dough into equal parts for each pan. Sprinkle with more cornmeal. The directions say to cover with damp cloth. I don’t have success doing this because the cloth always sticks. I just put the 2 pans in a warm place until almost double in bulk. For me it is a little over ½ to 1 hour. My warm place is a toaster oven with no heat of course. Or your regular oven with no heat.

You may have a warm place the family pets cannot reach. Let rise an inch above the center of the pan. It has a tendency to fall should you forget and let rise all around the pan. If you do and it does, remove and knead lightly and let rise again. It happened to me and took a little more time, but no calamity. I had dressed the tops in the photo with bagel seasonings.

Bake at 400 degrees for 25 minutes. I have invested in an instant thermometer and wonder why it took me so long. At 195-200 degrees the bread is done. No guessing. Otherwise all my life I tapped the bread like a drum for reason I do not know to this day. To my ears it was a drumbeat. Remove from pans and cool on rack. Makes 2 loaves. Enjoy and in good health.

What if it is true. . . just for today. . .

By Veronica Hallissey on November 20, 2021 in Love, Observations, Touchstone

What if it is true. . . . .just for today. . . .

The thought occurred to me what if whatever we think is true. . . just for today? How would it affect me and life around me? How would it affect you being related in thought with me?

What if it were true that thoughts are things and have a weight? That everything crossing our minds is true somewhere, what would their effect be? And what if our thoughts hang in the air, ripe for anyone’s picking?

Supposing, just supposing what we are thinking is considered prayer by the heavens? Would we be embarrassed? Because we approach our Thanksgiving holy days of gratitude, can we try something?

We are a special country on this earth. And many the world over, envy us. We were settled because people fled persecution for many reasons and one of them being they wished to worship in their own way. We are a country composed of the world’s religions and it makes us special because sacred customs are honored.

My mentor, the Nazarene said you give me a drink of water and you give a drink to all. Or what you do for one, all will do for the each. When you do something kind, it is a way of giving your blessing to everyone you meet. It is a gift we all can give simply because we breathe the same air.

Since you are reading this, I assume you learned to read in kindergarten when I did . I read the Dick and Jane stories about families not like mine. I also learned to be kind to the one sitting next to me and not to hurt feelings, to be gentle.

Which was a big lesson to learn because those sitting next to me were different than me and were not allowed to come to my house to play. We all had to learn that different can be a big lesson because in many ways you see me as different than you.

So let us be helpful and do good. Today we will think kindly about each other and give our blessings. We try for happy memories for all and send our thoughts skyward so that whoever finds them will say thank you!

Be it true. . . just for today have our thoughts be prayers and see where they go. We can do it. . . .just for today. I attach my name to mine. You too?

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