From an Upper Floor

Roses and Evergreens. . . what happened to the dream?

We Are The God Participants and We Carry the Dream. . . .

My stamina is low or nil. I think I can do something because my head envisions, but my body does not follow. I spend time now waiting for this national nightmare to end and find others adding to the nightmare. I had such good hope for our officials and find that they are less, less than what they portrayed.

I seem to be not a good judge of character in this life. What should be ethical and lawful behavior is not the official frame of reference.

Am I gullible and naïve and unrealistic as to what keeps this world turning? Hopelessly out of step as I was called? But I still hold that what I consider good and ethical behavior on my part is what I expect of others also.

Is it so out of thought in this day? When it makes my mouth gape open stupidly and I am without words, does it show ignorance or shock at what I view?

Whose world is it I mirror? What do I hold highest and best and ethical? Am I so out of step? Yet because I frame the question, I know the answer. And I am in shock. I cannot believe what my eyes are seeing and what I am hearing. Do you not see it also? I ask you, do you not hear it also?

Why is it I cringe with open mouth? Why am I aghast? I am almost a hundred years old minus a bit over a decade. Yet appalled and embarrassed because I see a lack of character and cannot see a future for my progeny without a country whose constructs are honesty, courage, truth with love for its genesis that conceived its birth. Do I not speak clearly?

It goes against who I am born into this life with a head that had memory of some places elsewhere. And yet knowing this country would be a paradise for me because nowhere was there such a place of lush growth, evergreens and roses, and such high hopes with my word being my truth, my honor and my bond.

Yet watching what goes on within my government and listening to officials answering questions with whatever is convenient in the moment, makes me see once again my Mentor sparking blue with anger and turning over the money tables shouting Liars, ye are all Liars!

What happened to the dream? This has been such a hard time. That I am disheartened would be a mild statement. When I know we are the god participants of this Earth and the reason it either works or does not. And we might be the reason it goes down the tube again.

What do I want to hear? I am not sure I am equal to anything at the moment. Not sure at all.

May 3, 2019

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.
The Mind’s Residual. . . .

The Heavens open momentarily and close but the glimpses from the views linger and haunt one forever.

****

The Self wills but the human spirit cannot be legislated. Statistics are meant to sell beer.

*****

It is not the Mystery of Life which stunts man and does not beguile him to further thought. It is the work involved.

*****

It is not easy for Wendy to become Tinkerbell in one fell swoop. Not without destroying Peter Pan in that one fell swoop.

*****

The long face of gloom does not become the human at all in the face of so many small victories, but the constant smile bespeaks an empty head too.

*****

Those who claim good mental health have it only as long as they keep themselves wrapped in their illusions free from self examination.

*****

Considering the condition of the world and considering who we confine to psychiatric wards, the question should arise how does one define who is mad in a mad society?

*****

For one to see with eyes that wrench the closet full of tears open to view is to others an invasion of privacy

*****

Speak the heart and in like silence the heart will respond. In matters of the heart, doubt not.

*****

Bless the elements of design for they are all inclusive.

*****

What seems like a tragedy in the absurd and obscure indeed is a well thought out and prescribed drama.

photo by John S. Hallissey

May 2, 2019

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.
Rituals and Habits, A Practice of Life. . . . .

Habits. . .

The thud of the back door
as it swings shut, the sound of keys
clinking to their place on the stairs,
tell me even in my sleep, that you are home.

Small things noted,
giving rise to habits observed,
a sense of ritual to a life filled with them.

We continue rituals,
for without them is lost our practice of life.
We continue to do those things over and over,
for if we miss once, we may lose us
whom only we know.

And we do not trust ourselves enough
to know when a thing is good.

People differ in thought about rituals. Many, who lean toward independence, prefer the spontaneity of their lives. For me, whose head wanders worlds uncharted with no clock or linear times to claim my intentions, rituals are necessary to navigate a particular world. It is good for me to note the changing seasons, as it is to follow what the inhabitants are doing as the saying goes, in whatever world.

For some, rituals are compulsive and for those, they are an anchor. Habits show customs and rules for where I am. Rituals begin my day and close it. And allows my head the freedom to explore what piques my interest without boundaries. Rituals have helped me be at home where I find myself. And by adhering to them, I find myself welcomed.

April 28, 2019

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 Heart’s Commitments. . . .

A Given . . .

There comes to mind
in the space of time a leverage. . .
gaining for one a semblance of peace.

Silly, it sometimes is when the purpose
of life is to regain and reclaim this right.
It is of no consequence now in the sleeping hours

of a lifetime that knowledge becomes loose.
Here we sit and wait for life to be infused
but what is needed is simply to release

and be released. For this time now. . . .
look to the weaving of a lifetime’s pattern
and see the beautiful results

of a heart’s commitments. . .

artwork by Claudia Hallissey

. .

April 25, 2019

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.
Painful Perspectives. . .

The tablet is yellowed and the typed pages, crisped with age. The year is 1979 and I had to use my calculator to see that it is now 40 years old. But yesterday I read in a brochure for a health magazine that one of its articles states that the brain does not know how old you are and nor does it care.

All it wants from you is stimulation to keep dementia at bay. Well, since I have been told that I know not how to play like others but I consider it a luxury and play to do what I do when commitments no longer command, I can help out my brain.

I had just walked Princess, my German Shepherd and was doing an entry.

I felt I had mucked out my head by confronting problems but wondering from which perspective the confrontation comes. Was it a pitying pearl or an honest one by excusing others and justifying myself? I was 48 at the time, mother of three 20 something sons in varying stages of crises with a part time job that had become 10 and 12 hour days.

And I had made a gargantuan decision to defy an arguing mate to leave the family business at the end of the year. Whatever happened would and I would meet it best as possible. With the kind of head sitting on my shoulders, a job dealing with other people’s money was not good for me. I read the following. . .

(As I walked my steps ate up the sidewalk. I looked at the tree shaded street and thought it was not the street I had walked hundreds of times before. In the shadows the houses were not familiar and the street lights spatial and I wondered if Princess and I were walking in another dimension. Could we be focused elsewhere?

The legs were walking and counting off steps with familiarity, yet the brain had difficulty identifying the street segment. It wasn’t with relief that we reached the intersection with things familiar because somehow I knew we were correct in direction. It felt truly that we had briefly catapulted elsewhere yet sweetly focused.

Or possibly a bridge I walked with a foot on either side? Legs walking but much aware that all is not what appears to be. And marvelously comfortable with these perceptions.)

This entry was the first I have come across with a description of how my head works in words to be read. I may have written so previously, but these words jumped out. Other times now come to mind and I wonder the survival and painful coping techniques of differing perspectives.

Couched Memories. . .

Memories couched in images
struggle to be freed
of the encumbrances that
stressful generations had chained in irons.

So glad for the mind eager
to struggle also, but for the knowledge
to set free the life of fear.

Reading into all chambers
the ultimate on freedom,
the mind of its own volition

listens to its own teacher.

artwork by Claudia Hallissey

April 23, 2019

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.
Our Connection To All That Is. . . .

We Honor Your Life

(Sometimes there is a need to be reminded of the good the best of Mankind does and this is one of those times. This essay was one of the first I did for my blog and there may be new readers who missed this. In these times when we have been stressed in ways not known before, we offer our gratitude to those who have dedicated their lives to better the greater life. Our lives have benefited and our gratitude extends to the families for generously sharing what was theirs.)

I received an e mail with photos of several large elephants making their way to the home of a man who had befriended them. This person was Lawrence Anthony who spent his life caring for elephants in South Africa. His death occurred on March 7, 2012.

Two days after he died, elephants showed up at his home led by 2 large matriarchs. Up to 31 of them walked over 12 miles to pay homage to his family. The question was asked how did they know of the death of this friend and how did the word spread.

Growing up on The Farm I saw old farmers in the area in direct communication with their animals not only verbally but with body language. There was a symbiotic relationship between them and they were of one heart.

This is how word spreads in the wild or anywhere when the relationship is of heart and is understood. Our vocabulary has no word for this.

Having read where some dogs have the intelligence of a 2 or 3 year old toddler, I am in awe. As one who has talked to animals, mostly dogs, and listens to them, they tune me out as often as children do when they see no evidence of need.

Elephants paying homage to their friend, is not surprising. We are all connected. There is a common thread that unites all to all. Most of the world believes that souls can participate in physical life by sending a fragment of their souls to inhabit life at some level. Western culture is a small segment that does not hold this belief.

Elephants, most jungle life, dolphins, whales and others, have long been known to have language and systems of thought. We cannot close out whole systems of life simply because we do not understand them. Those who spend their lives in service to an assembly of creatures have learned to understand them.

Lawrence Anthony communicated at a level that went deeper than most people’s understanding of deep. This connection to all life, to All That Is, is in everything. I have written to say God in a Rock and beneath it also.

Earth day is upon us. Every day has too many of us shaking our heads and saying it is a mystery when something happens when we should be framing the questions and looking for explanations to why or how. You are worthy of answers. Do you have courage to ask the questions? I know it is hard work. I know.

April 22, 2019

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.
Everlasting Life: caterpillar to butterfly. . . .

In this spiritual week for us so inclined, memory is mine of those who have transited from my life. All my beloveds come to mind, but one incident from the children’s younger days stays with me with more clarity because of my path.

I was standing at the door of the room shared by the two older boys. The eldest was working at the desk which was a veneer door on wrought iron legs to serve both. (memory details stay) Our David was lying on his bed and his legs walking the wall which I have seen him do many times.

He was lecturing to us of his dreams. I wish, he said, to be a star in the sky in some future where I can shine down and give energy to whoever needs it to live. He was about thirteen or so at the time and I stood there absorbing this idea and wondering at this child. I see the time vividly inked on my mind.

His was a different head on his shoulders. Coming to mind also is a psychic friend in her seventies when she and I discussed again life after death. She wanted to be whoever she was then forever because her identity was locked into who she was. But then I said the caterpillar would never be a butterfly.

If a mushroom and a daffodil come up blooming life after life could she be right? Or perhaps the mushroom one day becomes the daffodil? Like the caterpillar becomes the butterfly? I like to think I graduate after giving what I hope is my very best to these times.

There is time and space for all thought and life is kind to grant dearest wishes. And fairly balanced for consequences to redo our calculated and unwitting behaviors. That, too.

Taking the Nazarene as my Mentor through this life, I have pulled everything through my heart. Which probably explains two cardiac arrests. It has not been a walk in the park.

But I wonder if faith had been in my carpetbag would life been easier this time and then I think of a beloved whose life with heavy burdens and her faith been more bearable with a head like mine.

The Teacher said only my head would frame the question.

A Truth. . .

I was told
that life is everlasting,
everlasting and everlasting.

And when my mind and my heart
and the fabric of who I am accepted this statement,
I found I was very tired.

I am reminded that still to come
are worlds of promise
whose substance I have only glimpsed.

I, too, remember the eagerness to taste of the apple.

April 19, 2019

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.
The Morning Will Rise Triumphant. . .

What to do when there is no one to talk to. We often escape in old age I fear into madness that we call Alzheimer’s or dementia, still, a madness by whatever clean name we now give it. We once called it hardening of the arteries it seems.

Where to go and who to talk to? Understandably there is only conjecture and science forever studies the subject. And how often we hear of the brave ones who keep their troubles to themselves? We think we should be one of those.

I think it goes back to our origin as children when we asked the first why. And the exasperated and hopelessly uncurious parent said because I said so that’s why! Then we spend an entire life with questing the eternal why.

And when it becomes too much, especially when we have a near death experience and we look for someone to talk to, there is no one around. The religious professional admits to no answers. The partner of a lifetime wants no part of this serious stuff and should you venture into it they call it pontificating.

And do not want to hear you say your nights and days have at their root what you pursue. It is your eternal why for whatever reason you cannot fathom and hit the wall. You bang your hard head and crash the ethers finally.

To end up with the millions in no man’s land with what they say is a brain malfunction but it is with relief so you don’t face the final agonizing times alert but still with no answer to the why. You offer a heart and love and your Self with questions and it is too much of a burden for an Other to carry.

The father cannot listen because his father could not listen and the mother cannot listen because her mother was told to always be cheerful and positive and look at the bright side. There was no advice as to how to cope with the questions as she stood helpless before children born with memories with no putting place.

So what to do. Study. Go to the library and find the books on the metaphysical. Go back to school. There are counselors exploring broader histories. Confront the memories and learn about lifetimes with different images . Search and embrace the ancient civilizations that know there are lifetimes hidden in the crevices of who we are whose secrets can be uncovered.

We are more than what we appear to be. Everything we have been, the good and the not so good have created the who we are today. And as we look upon our progeny with love that we could not have imagined, know also that hidden within their selves may be the ones who did unsavory acts that caused grief. Forgiveness takes on a new meaning in Holy Week.

But because of who we are today we take them into arms that have known a love so grand that we transfer that love this minute. That love we have known may not have been in our present life but rises out of the ashes of who we have been and kept alive in memory. And we live to show it, to have it guide us and make it work in this time.

To be called gullible, not knowing the real world and naïve to believe that love conquers all is a lot to handle. But as the world teeters on the brink of an edge that has an abyss awaiting, and still with hope celebrates the resurrection of the Spirit within believer and unbeliever alike, we are grateful there are those who have memory and perseverance to pursue the command to love one another.

Simple? Never. It is a reality we cannot dismiss because its power is unfathomable. And the morning will rise triumphant because of the dark night.

photo by Jon Katz

April 17, 2019

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 Thud Against Our Heart. . . .

Yesterday the world united in grief as we watched the fire rage and consume a large part of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. It was with dismay and heartbreak we saw a symbol of our civilization consumed by a utility given to Mankind to enhance life. Yet at the same time we saw ourselves in communion with our grief.

We have lived too long lately isolated from each other and focused primarily on ourselves. We have evolved to a world where commitment to others is in direct conflict with the desire for proclaimed self fulfillment. We announce we are not caregivers and proceed either to neglect or farm out commitments.

Yet we saw our communion as we united in our grief and we all know what we have lost.

What we do in this world of 8 billion people is show our young that commitment is primarily to oneself. Yet we all age and our young may, to our dismay, shunt their commitments onto the shoulders of the unsuspecting in their lives.

I told my youngers with whom I live that I considered it a privilege to be able to prepare dinner and even do the clean up because in an institution I would not be let near a kitchen even to snack. And though my dotage inhibits much energetic compliance with more activity, I still can push the vacuum to keep the dog fur at bay. Thus stretching muscles wishing to atrophy I’m sure and forcing a heart to keep beating.

Children brought up in homes where value is placed on character, or simply on being human, good and loving will indeed foster care on their commitments. Can it be done in today’s world? To rethink a value system is necessary.

I harbor the thought that there is time and world enough for all of us. We can reclaim our innate knowledge of good in our actions. What is done from love is readily noted. Time now to reclaim the good in ourselves.

When the nudge in mind becomes a thud against our heart, it is the God Within urging us to listen.

Rest Well, Sailor, Rest Well. . .

So in this night when you lie still
and listen for the rain, listen for the wind,
listen for the stars moving about the sky.
Listen also for your heartbeat.
It is steady and it is sure.

It beats for all of your commitments,
both loving and lovable.
You are an important adjunct to this world
and your good you cannot estimate.

Rest well, sailor, rest well.
The seas have been rocky but now
we come to the inlet that will take us to port.
There will be nothing to bring in the ship.

She makes it on her own power.

photo by Joe Hallissey, Sr.

April 16, 2019

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.
Listen World, Listen. . . God In A Rock. . .

Listen world, Listen. God In a Rock. . . .

(As we head into Earth day, I am approaching my 88^th birthday and my world is iffy right now and if I could leave a letter to beloveds I would say this. )

There is a connection to all of our Earth. From the sky to the ground, the mud , the parched soil, the flooding rivers, the oceans full of debris, of everything I breathe. There is a connection.

The rain, the snow, the earthquakes and the tornadoes plus all that cannot be imagined by the mind that writes these words. All of these are connected.

And if we think from this minute on that we are separate, that we are not connected, when all of these malfunction and we cannot draw breath, we will know how connected we are.

It is our purpose in life to protect our surroundings with every means we can. From the wrapper of our candy or what we dismiss as garbage, to what we hold to be holy in hand and our mind. Because it can go down the tube again as it has in our past when mankind looked upon life with common disdain and treated our Earth as a compost heap.

It can be taken away. Not by a grandfather god whom you may think sits in judgment but by our carelessness which assumes Earth to be a disposal to grind our refuse. The world cannot absorb and decompose what is not natural to it. It accumulates and kills all life.

It does not take care of itself. Our lack of caring transfers to everything we touch. Everything. We have lost our respect for our laws and institutions which have sustained us because they were built on foundations of need , of prayer, of yearning for respect for our divine selves. We knew of our cosmic beginning, as everything was and is and will continue to be.

But what we lose is everything with our disrespect for ourselves because this is what decimation of our earth amounts to. Basically we have lost our respect for who we are and who we brought into life through our loins when we loved an other for the right reasons.

Not for anything we labeled other than the highest and best we could feel and give to an other because we knew love. But we denigrated even that to bedroom gymnastics with babies being brought into existence not because we loved wisely and well but by careless consequences.

We learned how to do that so well, haven’t we? Our world now bursts its seams with souls we cannot feed, nor time to love the babies. We scramble for space with fertile soil to grow food and house 8 billion people.

Listen, world, please listen. We stand now to lose the classroom that the universe waits in line to enter. It is the best classroom where manifestation of the idea can be handled and utilized to the highest degree. It is the place where love manifests in a human being with mind and body and soul.

It is a god participant in stature and thought and dreams. This is the bedding that will send our least imagined, last imagined, unbelief into soaring magnificence because it is the sendoff for the Becoming of what cannot be envisioned.

How else to bring the mirror in front of our faces and say look at yourself? It is you, us, me, that has the world in its hands. The universe that we cannot yet comprehend cannot be put into the laboratory to say this is how it works. Because that knowledge we don’t have, has not been conceived and will not ever be writ.

I pray you see god in a rock. I pray you see god laying beneath the rock. In all its forms. In the air we breathe, the sky that covers us, the earth that upholds our frame that took eons to stand upright. Listen world, listen. Take care of this planet. For many it is the only place that is real to them. For me, it is a place to love into being the souls I have chosen who chose me as mother and grandmother and grandmother great.

I loved these souls into Being. They in turn have loved their worlds into Being. Look about you. To the morning that will not come to those you love. To the day that will not harbor the ideas they have crafted into being. To the night that will cover them with love so they will engage also in what will give birth to more dreams. Would you deny them this?

They have your name attached to them. They will carry what you have done, and not done. Those ideas and thoughts of omission and commission. Our Mother Earth. Think how we refer to her. Mother Earth. There is not one of us who leaves her at the end of our lives without our thought always linking to who we refer to as Mother. It is with love, either hoped for, missed or known.

Give your remaining days of caring onto her. Do what is necessary to restore her well being. She will take care of you and what you have loved into Being. Do this for her and in so doing you will not have to pick up your mistakes which are costly.

Our names are attached and the mortgage is for eternity. Yes, eternity is forever, starting now.

photo of Rock from
The Farm. . .Kathy Qualiani
Photo of Emma E.
by Merideth Hallissey

April 14, 2019

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.