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.
Stumbling on previous writings, i find they leave emotions awakened again. If they do this to me, they also do it to others. I find my thoughts would have had me selling my soul to have found someone like me on a journey similar which would have prevented much damage . where it has led me , i will soon find since my terminus is upon me.
I will make my latest thoughts that impact older writings because the twig bent had a history when I took form in these times. Vibes of this century have colored me with a psyche somewhat different and i hope with more intelligence. And why these differences had to be accepted in my core for me to continue.
I am life’s adjunct named . . . veronica and this is who i am . . . . .
Tell me what it means. . .
With the leaking draft of the early consensus of the Roe v Wade controversy, suddenly confronting me are meanings of words and phrases I have used and hopefully explained my meanings. I truly don’t know if my meanings relate to what you think about the subjects I’ve written.
I would like to know what you think. Not what you have read that someone else has thought. No doubt it was the basis of your studies as well as mine. And then you have spent time in a quiet place and given yourself to the process of thought. Over time it helps us form conclusions as well as give more substance to other questions.
Learning is a full time work. It is what I hurry to when supper is over and private time engulfs with hours of personal freedom. Like I, you have taken off work clothes and in comfort admit to the night that you are ready. For what is a personal choice.
For me it seems minutes when I look at the clock and wondering what happened to the evening. And as I type this, the phrase `life everlasting’ has meaning for me and I wonder if you have given thought to it. I wonder what has been added to your understanding and where it has taken you.
Most of the people in my growing up life were Christians and said the Lord’s prayer every day and some times many times a day. Included might be life everlasting as taught in Sunday School and said in conclusion to the prayer. What meaning does it hold?
It was in a bushel of phrases with the likes of I remember and then, why do I remember whatever has haunted me? When I did my best, why was my life not working? Why was I crying and why were they fighting and arguing? The bushel was filling up fast with questions and also I was telling the big people why I did not believe what they said when I knew what I knew.
And when I came to life everlasting it had meaning for me and it began with forever and ever amen and amen. And that did not mean lying about on a cloud like many believed and were happy about. At least it seemed to me that they were happy.
So now I ask you what does life everlasting mean to you. And how you came to that understanding. Does it mean forever and ever for you? Let me know because I am interested. I don’t look for essays just a comment or two.
We have been friends for a long time and I value our friendship.
Don’t Stare At The Moon
Any farmer knows
you don’t stare at the moon too long.
You get a little soft in the head, they say.
What they really mean
is that magic overtakes you
and carries you to the place of green fields,
of orchards heavy with fruit
and cucumbers cultivated straight
as a shot of rye whiskey.
What they really mean is that the magic
will make you see fields to be seeded
and calves to be born
and worlds to be peopled.
What they really mean
is that you will fall in love
with your earth
and in awe watch the wheat weave its gold mat
right over your eyes.
It is a softness of the heart man fears,
for the myth must enforce
the hard head to blunt
the pain of life everlasting. . . .
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.
A fact in nature changes as the person who perceives it.
The maxim states ‘A fact is enhanced by what is perceived. Depends on who is looking and seeing and what they are seeing. One does not see what one is not looking for. The person who sees a something will see that something fully enhanced as either a main subject or like an adjective.’
I was getting on a bus and there were two youngish girls ahead of me. The wind was gusting furiously. Someone in front of us loudly complained oh my hair! My hair! My Hair! It was a time when longish hair was beginning to be accepted on both genders. Who is that asked one. Sounds like a girl! It’s a guy, said the other. A guy!
Knowing that cultural change began in the late 4o’s for me, given time you can see what the girls were thinking by who was perceiving the incident. The important thing for me was what I was looking for with what I had learned. Which was why I don’t jump to conclusions and it takes a lifetime to speak my truth. And I speak for a concern for children who have no words yet for feeling different: for little boys who want dresses and girls who want boy toys and throw dolls across the room.
These feelings are not permanent most of the times and pass, but otherwise can and do present problems requiring knowledgeable care. Susan Howatch, the author of the magnificent novels of English philosophical and religious books says the old philosophers did not think human nature was equal to accepting or could accept extreme variants such as this.
But we know other worlds do exist and with an accelerated process of reincarnation, and I can almost hear the intake of breath, yet Christians among us pray to life everlasting and give no thought to how everlasting.
The dead sea scrolls are evidence to the Nazarene shouting at the disciples when they asked where they go The answer in anger was why do you ask when you never asked from where did you come?
Yet he says as the twig is bent so shall it grow and most never give thought as to bent meaning also before being born.
I know I repeat and continue to repeat yet I being born with a foot still in boot in my last world and memory of it in mind and habit. I thought I was like everyone else and did not see others being different. Of eight siblings I am the last one standing and like the last bird I sing my almost 100 years.
I was busy with commitments taking my heart and time because they were my present in heart and time.
There are no options when the road narrows to who time and where money. My brother Stanley said in jest? to me, sis, thank you(s), don’t buy no gas! Now I find they were more like me but doomed not to talk.
Now there are more being born to this favorite planet with gentle habits and speaking of being happier in other genders. No one informed them that the reason they know this is that they remember when they were happier because of memories.
Being born other was part of learning to accept differences and learning how to be happy in other skins. Yes! how to be happy in other skins is part of the broader focus.
It was in other skin that I learned what to be cherished meant and learned that the circular and scroll saws in my hands brought utter joy to my heart.
There are too many politicians who do not want to help the troubled youngsters in their need to search. They want life as it was whatever that was after no doubt they chased the Native Americans from their lands.
All those who support youngsters to understand by giving medical and hopefully the broader scope of changing genders will be free to do so.. It will prepare them for greater things in the universe of worlds.
Not just this world, but maybe where we cannot identify the inhabitants except by their knowledge of us.
We must convince the worlds surrounding that we are peace loving and eager to learn. It may not be true right now but can we make believe and work at it until it is?
For almost a hundred years I have tried. Will you for just now? In the cradle of your heart? Please do.
(I have been fortunate enough to have had psychiatrists walking with me since I was in my thirties. It was not easy living with a different kaliedescopic perspective of the world which resulted in a lot of sneakers worn with big holes as I walked off my panic not to crash or create mayhem. But puzzling always when viewing political corruption nationally or globally, from where comes their political courage to sleep? Judge not harshly says my eldest son, with my answer being almost a hundred years is not thoughtless. I have been present aware and not asleep at the wheel I say. Almost a hundred years is not rash judgement. Amen.)
art 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.
When my youngest was born and I realized I was the parent on premises, literately and figuratively, there were certain things in my belief systems that I knew and took possession of.
I owned the knowledge and its consequences, not verbally expressed but were my walking companions.
I wanted this knowledge to be part of our sons, that love and life on this earth was sacred and must be guarded. The only way was for me to be their example. That it would take every day of my life was not in my thought.
It was the food of my day and nights, now I see. What we feed our minds is what we become. I did not want my example to need explanation to someone they respected.
Any surety in teaching has to be with no lag in mind, heart and behavior. Not easy to be sure. This trinity, mind, heart and action must be evident to be effectual to the who of who you are.
You do not lose your ability to think differences nor potential. Deviations only create doubt and nullify all the fancy words concocted to justify ‘only human’.
Because we come into the present world with a history, it means histories are different. Yet the focus, the broader vision must include the greater potentials of all of us.
We must be open to learning what might be uncomfortable even for the teacher.
Albert Einstein said that we must understand time else we never understand the why of us, the who we are.
(Feb 1, 2018—I scribed . . We deal with linear measurement. It has stabilized the environment and made teaching easier. Children now being born are versed to the enth degree in other worlds where they are familiar, but here have difficulty with this Earth’s time element. We throw in the hodge podge of linear measurement which is kindergarten for them having dealt forever with simultaneous time.
So we insert the thought that all this has a connection. It is of utmost importance that the simultaneous worlds of time and events are still happening is essential to growth.
We have here the ability which you display to live almost to a hundred with the idea which has sustained you through the years. You know that simultaneous is what you do as you cross boundaries in worlds that have no name. You take events and artifacts from one culture and take them with you and display them with the artifacts of the world you are in. )
We are not without history. We know what we know. We can conjure what we aspire to but we must be free to explore what rises within us to plague, to remind us of what we came to do, to learn and make the difference to benefit all life.
I negotiate for a bit of time for some really fun stuff . I hope to send some felt ideas to the great granddaughters to create and also to know who flicked the lights on and off to wake me when my younger said he did not.
As I formed the question , the responding immediate comment indelibly on my mind was . . . there are more things in heaven and earth Horatio, than were ever dreamed of in your philosophy. . . . .
My immediate response. . .thank you Shakes . . thank you. Ahhh men and amen. Life is everlasting.
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.
This is Wednesday, December 13, 2023. This is my gift to readers this holiday season. No doubt there will be meals one will be asked to bring something to pass. This is a favorite this year and I am not sure how I let this go unused.
I will alibi myself by saying it has been a very hard year.
The ingredients you no doubt have on hand. When I get through posting, I will bake another batch of these Cinnaminaminamum indulgences. My second batch since Sunday last,
and I will call myself again what grandson Josh called me at 4 years of age. . . good cooker.
Trust me, they will also call you good cooker.
Magic rolls . . .
1 cup plus 2 Tablespoons warm water
¼ cup oil
¼ cup sugar
2 Tablespoons active yeast
½ teaspoon salt
1 egg
3-4 cups flour
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
In stand mixer combine water, yeast, oil, sugar. Allow mixture
to rest for 10 minutes to get furry and know yeast is working.
With dough hook mix in salt, and egg and 2 cups of flour. Add remaining flour ½ cup at a time until dough cleanly leaves side of pan.
Knead gently until dough knows the feel of your hands
Shape dough into golf ball size balls and let rest 10 minutes
(while they rest. . .
Mix the following topping. . .
1 package regular cook and serve butterscotch or vanilla pudding
½ cup brown sugar packed
1 teaspoon cinnamon (or more)
Melt 1/2 stick butter
mix dry ingredients well and use all generously or half and save for your next batch. . .
Place rolls in greased 9 by 13 inch pan. Spoon melted butter over rolls and sprinkle topping however much you want on rolls. (I go generous because they are indulgences and special)
Bake for 30 minutes in 350 degree oven till lightly browned. When cool make confectioners icing just powdered sugar and milk and drizzle over rolls.
Indulge good cooker, indulge.
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 involve ourselves in arguments that exhaust when there is no need. Because our actions will broadcast where we are in our thinking better than the most eloquent essay.
What will be most apparent will be our calm determination only to one who is looking for what they know to look for. The calm will be evidence of the footwork, meaning the thoughtful conclusions it will show that went on within. If there was none, it will be evidenced that our behavior already has direction from us.
If there is discussion concerning the issue at hand, our questions tell us that we already know the answer. Therefore, the issue needs further thought. For instance, should we ask what harm could our action cause?
We already know. It has been part of consideration on issues that when we ask the question, the parts of the whole issue already forms the answer and it is with more thoughtful work that the pieces need to be put in order. It is a process that demands time and work.
A heart friend who knew me well would always question, why go there? Knowing how much work the process would require. And I was often told that credentialed were paid big dollars to find answers and so far they did not, who indeed was I to think I might?
I never gave thought to answers as such to what I researched. I looked for satisfying conclusions for this time in space for me. The next time I pursued the topic, I expected more information to be added to what I now had. This is what the spirit of learning entailed. Not definitive answers to what I was beginning to see there was no beginning and no ending. And the ending would tell me that the final chapter was writ, but everything pointed otherwise.
John Stuart Mill said, “that no philosophy was possible when fear of consequences was a greater principle than love of truth. Ahhh so, this is what I learned. Here is where sensitive discrimination was necessary when human psyches were involved.
Should upset be the result? Would I be willing to stay around to help broaden the focus and heal the wounds? The argument concludes with even more work. The teacher continues to teach.
photo by Joseph Hallissey III
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.
When I was younger and found footing in my woman’s novels, I came across soon to be a favorite writer. It was a time when the library was my sons and my main excursion to replenish our idea resources.
Marcia Willett was her name and a favorite book ‘A Week In Winter’ was a delightful and thoughtful awakening to what had been a sleeping knowledge in me. In a conversation of two women the phrasing I wrote of was this.
‘If someone steps aside from the herd, he is likely to be torn to pieces. We are all so insecure you see. If you believe differently from me, I either have to question my own beliefs or prove that you are wrong. Misguided, stupid and ill bred, it really doesn’t matter how I label you as long as I continue to feel complacent and safe.’
Many years ago I read that and today in the culling of too much writing of mine and too much clipping of too much clipping, I came across a Sydney Harris , (a favorite philosopher guru) with the words saying that we fail to reward pursuers of knowledge. We praise celebrities who entertain and dance and throw a ball but not those who devote their lives to the pursuit of knowledge.
Even now the tears rise as then when I realize I was apologizing for intelligence needing to share the excitement in learning something with a beloved. When reflecting on my immediate response, I was appalled at my lack of gratitude for a gift bringing such grace and life to so many. Knowing if I saw a child ever apologizing for this rare and beautiful gift, I would pull them by the ear if necessary, out of a situation wanting what was earned by heart’s work and love of learning.
Yet we realize that a home with a parent on the premises who chooses books and music and good talk will produce creative and contributing adults.
The article appeared in the Detroit Free Press on September 16, 1985. Marcia Willett’s book was published in 2001 in Great Britain. So the commonality of these thoughts brewed in and among us for several years and languished in my dusty notes to drive me to the ibm machine which remembers their muscle memory in today’s hands which are insensitive.
Survival in a large family was what was a necessity. Public education was what was destiny and not college. But furthering my knowledge was my drive and as the family closed for the night, the dance with the sages began. It was an ancient saying that to educate a daughter one educates a family; a son one educates a one. We must offer this passion for learning to those who would use this gift of mind.
Our eldest said that their growing years were enchanted. Our middle son said I challenged his thinking every day. Our youngest pursues me with challenges for constructive detail only the divine carpenter holds.
I have seen knowledge treated as sacred from the gift of mind. It has humbled me greatly. I am indeed a rich lady.
It Is Time. . .
It comes with a cost. Learning can rip the heart. Let the words be carried to the Ethers and wrung dry of your tears.
You shout a language foreign to the ears of him. You live nowhere but in your heart and nowhere but in your mind. It is time to go to that small place and bless who you are.
Tears of anguish ask for acknowledgement. The words are lost on the south wind which carry them north and lost on the north wind as it brings them south again.
Your heart is tapped deeply revealing the Source of who man is. It is time. It is time.
It is time he knows this.
(February 12, 1983 journal entry)
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.
‘How did you know to do it?’ he asked. I loved and raised babies and painted roses on their cheeks and planted evergreens in their hearts.
Now you should put the sabers at the foot of the evergreens. The dove sings high, gargles her song at times, but you know my friend, you know.
The PoemMaker
In every time and place there is a one who will dip pen in the heart and write.
The Philosopher-King
The rose will bloom in December, I promise. And I do not make promises lightly.
My Mentor, the Nazarene
(I knew that eventually I would have to define my god or what it is I have held as my truth. Having been brought up in a traditional orthodox religious home, from the beginning I was watched. And heard the apologies to the priest about what I was saying. Somehow it is important I put into words that are understood what is my knowledge or what I came into the world remembering. I overheard a new reader say he gave up on me because he had to resort to the dictionary for every second word. My favorite English Lit teacher says my language is often archaic. But considering the ancient world I volunteered from, to me it’s understandable.
I am not credentialed so my education has been for well over a half century a daily independent study program. When my world slept, I went to the books. (when my brother Ted died I learned from his daughter that after dinner he went to his books, his friends he said, like I do) Thought given and integrated and practiced. I cannot quote theories and postulates, I write what I know and after much struggle, am lightly editing my last journal entry of July 23, 2017 that tells how it is with me. I had scribed the following from that entry.
We are given to speaking in a lofty language too so bear with us. What you are searching for is not without peril for you delve into territories best left to those whose ambitions list with the arch angels. You form a doctrine also best left to the farmers of the soul whose intent is to feed the people. You love your humans and do not leave them adrift. But we educate. Your dreams also are lofty at times but we lift when we can and surprised are we at times.
What we can do is give you a premise. A premise with teeth but not without bite. You wish to give what peoplewill find comforting and yet something to grow on. And think. Work is something people avoid when they can but we give it a go.
Ineffable. That which is too lofty, too sacred and must not be spoken of. Must not be spoken of. Yet if we are to see growth and a planet not in peril, we have to work. Ineffable. The rolling thunder of which you speak, the implicate and explicate is what the scientists call it. We call it the core and outer limits of the dream as you say. You wish to enhance or enclose with an embrace the awesome splendor of the love you find permeating. You live in your god since he is All That is. The outside of you is the inside of his outside and this you knew from the beginning. The awesome splendor of the embrace is what your god is for you. Awesome. It is a word that people use and can relate to. Yet it does not answer the question why the killing of 6 million humans was not sufficient reason to stop one human.
You will not find a reason within human intelligence to explain that symptom of depravity exhibited by a human toward other members of his species. How could your ten year old heart at that time be ravaged by its knowledge and not the god to whom you were given for safekeeping? Though your parents held to the Grandfather God concept, you did not even then. What you ask the human mind cannot grasp. But maybe we begin to explain how goodness can operate without emotion and still be considered above evil.
It seems the word ineffable stems from being not spoken in terms of outside the sphere of sacred. Sacred is common with you. Beyond sacred is ineffable. Not spoken of. You find this difficult; hard to live with a concept beyond the realm of speaking. You think and therefore have the right to speak providing you intend no harm to the house of another nor to break the rice bowl from which he eats. So we adhere to these concepts. But there is a realm of existence so far beyond where we are and you are that it cannot be spoken of because there are no concepts beyond the immediate conceptual. Simply Is. All else Is. Or are, steps toward getting nearer to that place where awesomeness will begin to conceive a form holding yet further realms of thought not possible. Realms of thought not possible for the human brain.
It seems nonsense and yet, yet, ineffable is the word to use. Too lofty, too sacred and not spoken of because there are no words in the human lexicon, dictionary, able to describe. When people speak of the god they believe in who has a hand on their shoulder it is a leaf that they feel and lean on. A leaf. The tree itself is a mighty redwood of understanding with roots going down levels of life that consume Every Living Thing and whose height is above sight. When man says there is no god he does not feel the weight of the leaf yet. He still has many lives to go to get to that point. Ineffable.
You see the word in conjunction with the mighty redwood. Man is a lightweight against the leaf but when he feels it, it is progress. For there now is the presence of Conscience. You see the sacredness of life and the child hurting. Many have not reached there yet, thinking still that all is a match of chemicals, hormones mostly that propel humans. Humans you say are divine and place them in Genesis where the beginning was. They cannot assimilate that information and cannot relate. Knowledge rises from within and is a Given.
Ineffable. Beyond the scope of humanity because there is no form, no concept of the word becoming. God is a thunderous roll of Becoming Yet To Be and that is why minds say that life is everlasting and everlasting. The residual of that thunderous roll to becoming is left within Mankind and is the god within. The leaf maybe they feel. That they humanize that weight and say their grandfather god will open his arms to them may be all they can handle at the moment. That there is a stronger someone than they is what they need. Someone to justify them. And what they do. And even if what they do is not good it may be what their human father commanded, wished, or taught so they are obedient to their human father god. You see the evolution and why it stagnates. Education is required for growth of the human spirit. We begin again.
The Vault of God
And the inside is the outside of the inside of God and I am he, or it or she.
Just as my children were part of me, the outside of me, while inside, yet separate.
I am they, that part of me that flows through them, yet are they separate and
they are part of me, an expression of who I am, yet separate.
With my memory bank, just as I am the holder of my mother’s memories, I am
the vault of her who had me as her expression. I am the vault of God who
expressed himself through me and I am the holder of memories.
(I told a long time friend that for me God is a verb and Jesus is my Mentor. A verb cannot cuddle nor is a comfortable pillow. But I was not then at the place of rolling thunder yet nor where all time is simultaneous that quantum physics espouses. So there was a lot of growing to do and much living yet to thread through. My mentor became my friend as I was held accountable and as I sought his divinity, I found mankind’s and my own. In the Dead Sea Scrolls (The Nag Hammadi Library) Jesus said ‘I shall give you what no eye has seen, no ear has heard and no hand has touched and what has never occurred to the human mind.’ Even with no credentials and whatever our persuasion, we all have a highest and best we hold onto. It is a good beginning.)
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.