From an Upper Floor

Guess Who Came To Dinner???. . . .

Guess who came to dinner. . . .

She was in the neighborhood and stopped by she hoped in time for dinner. She heard there would be pot roast. This angel in disguise wearing a different costume than what we are used to angels wearing!

Emma E. came in smiling and gave me the biggest grin. My heart needed to be warmed by her and my arms were hungry to hold her. Which she obliged doing for a very short time. Cuddled she was and nestled nicely.

After a night’s sleep she was anxious to be up and doing. She likes being in an upright position. And is determined to stand as much as the adult holding her has energy. But soon she will be pulling herself up and if I am correct in sighting the jenny gene syndrome, she will be out the door as fast as her legs will carry her.

Her parents are active and the lines on our side of the family, except for me, have been walkers and runners. The fun thing about being old, and still with fairly good eyesight and a memory that does not quit, is to see what genetically is passed along with each generation. From my side of the family I spot the jenny gene syndrome which is perseverance.

Those things which puzzled and perplexed and gave me heartburn and dyspepsia throughout my life with the question looming always with ‘how could they????’ whatever it was, now seems obvious with the explanation, ‘they really cannot help it’. It is in the genes and time now to accept and laugh.

And Emma E. has a smile that is infectious. I have a feeling she laughs at all of us with a knowledge close to her Source yet. Fun and games ahead for the joyous parents. I remember questioning her father when he became an arguing preschooler and asked, what happened to the happy boy I knew? Tersely he answered ‘he left.’

I have great gratitude for doctors who devoted lifetimes to learning and keeping those like Emma E. striving and thriving and those like me breathing long enough to see and hold once again new life. It is with hope I look to the future that much will be gained and lives benefit. Her beginning was fraught with worry, but today she brings great promise. I am indeed grateful.

July 31, 2018

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.
Gods Searching For an Enduring Peace. . . .

Life: a many faceted phenomenon. . .

It is possible that what is called hardening of the arteries is given the dreaded name of Alzheimers or dementia is the brain’s evolution brought about by aging or psychological trauma. Either of those would be reason enough for portions of the brain closing. But what happens should portions open?

If there has been no thought or education in the possibility of other worlds and times, what happens when inserted in the processes are unfamiliar sounds and glimpses? And behavior not commensurate with these incidences that now are perceived as abnormal? Can confinement now be not only a possibility but a surety?

There is science saying that we use only five percent of our brains. One or two percent more puts us in the category of the question ‘why are you different?’ Just 2 percent.

It has people whispering about you as an adult and your peers shunning you as a child. Yet being born with more of one’s brain opened means you will be seeing life differently than anyone else.

We focus on a narrow band of self created reality. How much other is there to see? I am really not certain. I have lived with my view of the world, so it is what I know. My details are not what others see the doctor said. What do you see? Only you know.

Oftentimes psychological shock will spring open doors that bring sounds into one’s consciousness never before experienced. Yet the science doctors have stormed us with the information that only what is measurable in the laboratories is what is normal.

When one is presented with these sounds they have us off and running to the medics to reassure us that we are not going mad and are not crazy. Yet when I asked a beloved why she went to church she told me that she hoped that what Jesus said is true. That life is everlasting and seeing we will see and hearing we will hear.

And yet, yet, when presented by experience (she was a nurse) almost daily with evidence of it, she questioned what she was observing.

Her experience with spontaneous remission and unexpected deaths were not enough to convince her innate knowledge that all was not tied up in the pills and protocol.

When the tsunami broke through the sea wall of my skull and the sounds of moral outrage reigned in my head I shouted to the heavens to close up my head whatever that was supposed to mean. Those were my shouted words. Close up my head because I was wide open to universal consciousness. Psychological trauma was reason enough for my diminished self esteem to crumble.

Worlds penetrate and overlap boundaries with levels below and above what we focus on. Earth is the classroom for learning. Linear measures make learning easier. Evolution is a many faceted phenomenon and we must broaden our premise to be able to deal with it effectively.

Otherwise all will eventually be running down the street in our altogether being chased by white coats.

(excerpt from Universal Watch)

Worlds looming as non entities,
not proven by the laboratories
of the Science Gods, is life in other forms;
as intelligent, viable, thoughtful,
as intent on living within the realm
of their possibilities as we on Earth. . .

Searching as we do as gods for an enduring Peace..

artwork by Claudia Hallissey

July 28, 2018

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.
All Things Will Be New Again. . .

It has been a productive week and I nicely surprised myself that I have not forgotten how to do something I learned over a half century ago.

I had a neighbor who was an interesting, eclectic man who knew a whole lot about a number of things. And he was a scrounger who watched for estate sales and came up with good buys. He learned also how to refinish things to rehab them. And when I came up with a cherry table and 5 chairs for 25 dollars he said I had a find.

He said the chairs were nothing exceptional (they were like new) but the table was an antique which opened with a leaf built in. He said whew! Worth 300 dollars! That was about 60 years ago. He crossed the yard to his house to get materials and proceeded to rehab the top.

In awe I watched him clean, sand, dust, stain and wax the table and in less time than writing this, he was finished and the table stood beloved. Now you have a piece of furniture he said. I had each step indelibly leaded into my brain and the coffee table I photographed is an example of what I did this week.

Three pieces of furniture I nurtured back to nearly new the other day but with a history. During the past few years in the midst of many events and upheaval I had little energy and time for remedial measures. No longer could I look at what I have been remiss doing so decided to bite the bullet.

It took much effort to get on my knees (and UP!!) but Jack Montgomery was a good teacher. He is long gone from this sphere but ever in my heart for teaching what he knew so well. Normally in our history when lessons take the teacher is forgotten. But we were in this world together and good friends. So in gratitude for teaching so well, I proudly look upon my work and think how fortunate I was to be their friend.

In over sixty years of family living with three boys and roughhousing we still use many first pieces of furniture. The dining table photographed still wears its first finish though almost new by my standards of 40 years. Caring for something does not hamper enjoyment of it and our modest means meant things must last.

I feed my eyes on my work of what I remembered in furniture rehabilitation. I am quite proud and again grateful for good friends who not only loved me but also took the time to teach what they knew and generously shared their knowledge. I eagerly supped.

We Break Bread. . .

I have broken bread with old friends
for what seems to be many centuries.

We continue our conversations
begun when yet we were in
other times and were other people.

But it has been, you see, only a minute.
We bring to mind all things old
and some things new.

‘Twas but a quirk of Nature,
so that our hearts would grow
and become one heart.

It all has a familiar fit. Don’t you think?
All things will be new again when we
break bread in the next of times.

But you knew that, didn’t you?
All things new are really all things old.

Even some of us.

July 24, 2018

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.
To The Table Of Thought. . . Beggar’s Prayer. . . again

To The Table Of Thought. . .

I talk of the Essence of God because in Quantum Physics becoming is the key word for all of us in the present stages of Is, Am, Are. Some of us freshly wrought, others centuries in the harvest.

I plead to my god within to see the way to go, because I stutter my way with words and thoughts and do not dismantle but perhaps nudge into some evolutionary progress that my mentor, the Nazarene spoke. What we do for one, he said, we do for all.

We need help for this planet. And for worlds watching what happens with us that we do not contaminate the rest of the planetary systems. It is more than just us. Or we will be walking the Cosmos again and soon finding ourselves with boots on in dry ash.

Beggar’s Prayer. . .

I come with the Grace
of all those I beseech, quietly.
In all names holy.

My work done with love,
in prayerful attendance to Life,
to acknowledge the birdsong
extolling the morning and awakening
the sun in triumph over night.

Sending the mist to dissipate
over the Mount, to nudge
the sleeping sages into activity,
to secure the earth’s roving
in this sea of tranquility.

I acknowledge my blessings where I am,
but I beg,

extinguish the desires of the old who miss
their spoils of war, and if allowed would
set fire to the hearts of the young
to do their bidding, negating the work
of the parents who taught their children
to love one another from the first time
a sibling invaded their space.

I beg for lives to be spared
so families can again sup together,
that children will again
have parents on the premises.
Begging you again to hone the values
that would have us carrying one another.

I beg this beggar’s prayer that man
who denies his own godliness will one day see

the common ground of his divinity.

July 21, 2018

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.
Adam, where art thou? . .

(In transferring data into subject titles from my journals for easy reference into the computer, I come across discussions which answer some questions I am now asked. Some of the discussions have been with our sons whom I have mentioned in my posts. They have been my best teachers. In philosophy questions I have bowed to our philosopher lawyer son David who had the patience with me to clarify issues needing light. In quantum theory all time is simultaneous and because I was born knowing that, (not easy way to live) it is with no discomfort I speak as if it was yesterday. It will be everyone’s one day. When I wrote the following in 1981 I was fifty. Bear with me.)

Adam, where art thou?. . .

When the New Testament talked of the sins of the fathers being visited on the children, we now talk of psychological inequities. The burden is far more than one generation bearing the problems. We talk here of generations propounding the original guilt of even having been born.

What did we do to make ourselves walking clinics of all the psychological infirmities ever known to man? I am not just one bearing witness to my own difficulties. There are those who sit next to me and across and who have walked before me and still to come. There is always one who bluntly says I never needed to see a professional therapist and yet cannot see himself because of the log in his eye.

We are quick to see the inadequacies in the other and are protected from seeing our own? We know they would undo us if we probe too deeply our hearts and beneath our skin. How long dare we blame our mothers and fathers and be blind to seeing how we continue the worn paths walked before? Yet we do the only thing we know to do with the construction of our minds and bodies.

To change ourselves we must first have an idea of what we want to be. And then it must be part of every waking moment, hammering at it with no rest. Who has the time, energy or desire for that? Our culture and society eagerly sanctions one’s desire to something material or concrete. Who is going to sanction one’s aspiring, as David says, to sainthood? But why saintly to aspire to what is noble and human?

I want to be the most noble human being I can. If it means putting myself through agonizing times trying to discern my inner motives and feeling about conditional and unconditional love, then so be it. I need not aspire to sainthood because my godhood is intact. It always was. Somewhere along the line we lost our way. Why, how, I don’t know. I only surmise.

At the end I want them to say she gave it her best shot. She learned who her god was and who mine is, loved herself and everyone else. He (my mentor) did not say how hard it would be to love oneself. Especially when the world was ready to condemn man en masse. But he knew man could not love his neighbor as himself until he saw his god within himself. What I granted to me I must grant to the Other. Holds true for all of us. If we dismiss others as we dismiss ourselves, it doesn’t say much for our feelings or behavior.

Ye are gods! The scripture says. Did I not tell you you are gods he said. Where stands man who in his heart of hearts would deny his own divinity. As god stands, man is. As man stands, god is, I wrote in one of my poems. Adam, where art thou?

July 18, 2018

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.
And we go home. . . .

And we go home. . .

What will you do
when fatigue overcomes
and chores lay waiting and
heart and conscience say
you must speak to these babes?

The work of your hands
gives them a piece of you to hold
and a piece of your heart.
In it all will be gold.

Take to your rooms
before the midnight hour
born of this heritage which
bespeaks this lineage of gold. . .

Not easy to do now. . .
the body balks;
the physical could always be worked.
The other, the detritus
that has floated in this
blemished Sea of Tranquility
has been harder to handle.

It floats and escapes the grasp.
That is the way of the Earth’s Dream.
But we have carved a philosophy
out of the Earth’s hearth and heart
and given her ours. . .

and we go home. . .

July 16, 2018

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.
God In A Rock. . .

God In A Rock. . . .

Stay with me for a bit. This may seem unconnected, but it vitally connects. Peter Wohlleben while tending a forest in Germany came to the realization that there is communication and relationships among trees. He writes about this in a book called The Hidden Life of Trees. Jon Katz of Bedlam Farm first spoke of this book on his blog.

My friend John sent me a link to another book called The Song of Trees by biologist George David Haskell about networking among trees, using sounds and scents and vibrations. Coming to mind was God In A Rock, a prose poem I wrote many years ago but meaningful today.

Thinking of the hard and bitter choices all of us have made amid some good and happy ones, the god of mankind’s creation was said to say vengeance is mine. I thought where mankind was at the time, his god had to be bigger, stronger and smarter of course than he was.

So saying vengeance is mine as man’s loyalties as well as his choices became harder, put the balance in life’s way or his god’s hands. There is balance and to teach this was a necessity to have an outside intelligence greater than the knowledge man had at that time. To be sure this was not a consensus as to life’s meaning, for few there were who were spared food foraging issues.

Considering growth commensurate with the intelligence sparking within, all things are compensated. What is taken illegally, unequally as one’s own, and here I scramble for words, there is an internal set of scales that balance.

Mentally cognizant or not, the balance is weighed and known and there are consequences. Vengeance is mine sayeth life in total had to be this dictum or life in any form would no longer be.

All things, all, are itemized and noted and destined for all good or all god. I wrote in January of 2014 that intelligence was the primary factor of all universes. In light of science arguments, this was my diverse thought.

Not a thing to be taken for granted, as a nothing or non life because we have as its center, life, the smallest particle which one day is growing into full capacity of intelligence.

To whatever ends the particle participates and succeeds will be another meeting which in its composition will again grow toward other forms of intelligence, other forms of life. Indeed, there is God In A Rock.

Because the inanimate, the least seeming alive particles has within its substance the desire to unite and ultimately grow. 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 life in the best capacity. What that capacity will be we simply do not know.

So we learn by those whose vocations lead them to conclude that trees are intelligent and we should learn who are the mother trees and what function they have in the fullness of maturity and health of the forest. What we have learned will in turn help mankind’s ability to survive and how to sustain the viability of our forests and the air we breathe.

We already know that the oceans team with life systems, that we are creating a species of companion animals who respond to vocabularies of 1500 words and thought transference and may I again tell you of the night speaking its secrets to those whose ears are not clogged? Coincidences? None. Part and parcel we are of Nature and one another. My well being depends on the well being of the All about me.

We should not be surprised if we have given thought to our portion of life, that whatever we wonder about is but a fraction. We don’t know the full connectedness of life nor our connection to it.

If we did, we would all be on our knees.

photo by Kathy Rybacki Qualiana
(click on rocks. . .awesome..humbling)

July 14, 2018

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 Long Before All Worlds Will Be Safe . . . ?

Sometimes I run previous posts to acquaint my new readers with earlier work to show where it is I come from. This is one of those times I need to remember for me. A gift given and life was renewed and I am grateful. There is always hope with a writer that words written will somehow be what is needed by a someone at the moment. The following was for me today.

May I ask you a question?   He was sitting at the window and looking out as if he could will the sun to come out so he could play outdoors.   Why you ask?   Because I want you to know that if you don’t want to answer, you can say no to me.   But you always answer my question and never say no, he said.   I woun’t say no to you, he said.   I maybe not know the answer but I woun’t say no.   I tried to frame my question simply.

I wonder, I said, if you can remember what it was like before you came here to live.   I waited.   He continued looking at me and I thought past me and then asked, which time before?   I drew breath and then said the one you remember best.   And he smiled at me and said the one where we were together before?   Where was that I asked.   He said, you know, you know.   That’s why I choosed you this time.   We were bestest friends and I knowed how much you could help because we were bestest friends.

Where was that I asked again.   He said in that cold place where we had to hold hands so our fingers could be warm.   Who was there with us I asked and he searched my face.   He was reading me I thought and then wondered why. He said it was a hard time and this time would be better.   Why was it a hard time I asked and he said because our bodies were broked and sick.   This time he said we are not broke so we can go outside and play.   We were too old and broked last time and the cold hurt when we breathhhhddd.   How do you remember that I asked and why do you remember.

Because here I can breathhhedddd and it don’ hurt.   My throat burn in that place when things ‘ploded ’cause they fighted all the time. You ‘member he said, you ‘member.   And he became silent and his eyes clouded.   And he said, we say to each other, never ‘gain,   never ‘gain. I pulled him to me and hugged him and said never again.   We will try to stay where it doesn’t hurt to breathe.   And I wished I could promise there would always be a place where it didn’t hurt to breathe, but I could not make that promise.   For this time only, I could hug him and keep him where the air did not burn his throat. But how long before all places would be safe?

Until life in all forms vowed not to inflict such terror in worlds where to draw breath just to live would hurt, we would continue to work. That is a promise.

July 11, 2018

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.
Say This I Can Do. . .and hold in your hand. . . .

I want to show you the final results of the blue material I made on post previously. This I completed and wanted you to see what you can do just for fun. It is a creative endeavor and limited only by the boundaries you set. And I hope they will be few.

The next two are embroidered with the sewing machine either zigzag or straight needle. Or if you are at ease with free motion, give it a try with something you can draw on material. You limit only yourself. Try all things, houses, barns, trees or figures in one color and then bind them onto flannel for a child’s nap time blanket. There may be no nap. .

The next example are five inch squares with a central inch white strip going diagonally . Or a wider strip. Glue it down with a glue stick so it won’t shift. But first cut your five inch squares from an old soft sheet or new flannel sheets to mount pieces of fabric too small or unshapely for much else. I prefer these strips to piecing because I think piecing requires larger pieces with much waste. I prefer to use smaller pieces with strips having little waste. You can place the squares to suit your fancy with straight lines or parallel ones or whichever pleases. You are limited only by yourself.

The last one are the inch squares you feel you must use . Take web bonding and using an inch ruler and make an inch grid covering the sheet. Lay the rows as you choose and with the wrong side of fabric on the grid press to bond. When cool peel away from backing and on wrong side crease and stitch along the length and width 1/8 inch. You will end up with perfectly matched squares. Wonderful way to use scraps and I honor the genius who thought this up.

These are things you can do with materials on hand or friends eager to lessen their stash. Old sweats can be cut up as batting to give stability. Try your hand at drawing on materials with simple pieces. Use coloring books as source materials. Attach things with glue sticks before stitching. Do not be shy with your talents. Do and you will be shown how. Have fun with making something substantial you can hold in your hand. There is satisfaction in saying to yourself, this I can do. And do it again.

.

July 9, 2018

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 A More Perfect World. . .

There were just a few of us gathered when we were young and the talk was rising in enthusiasm about what a swath to be cut by the young on the political scene. There was energy and ideas with a tail wind to push these things to fruition. We would make a difference where our parents with old ideas and lack of idealism had done little.

I listened to these young parents and wondered who would be taking care of the problems at home. I threw some cold water on the hot bed of enthusiasm when I mentioned that there would be brewing real needs unless there was an adult on the premises.

While they were out volunteering their time to be involved with those less fortunate, their own were left to their own devices and would become the work of other agencies, such as the hospitals and the police and the after school clubs set up for the troubled.

You are of course on the circuit doing good and your own house is falling apart. Volunteer your time you are told and your own problems will appear small. It does not occur to them that with time devoted to the home and its young at dinnertime and afterward, the troubled times would disappear. That children of one’s own are infused with the virus of learning when the parents present themselves as role models.

Here too, to love what you have borne to you and want for a richer life, not in material ways, but in depth and meaning and rich in emotion, means that this deep quest must be borne into you. I have heard many in my generation say offhandedly, what’s so great about having babies, every body has them.

To them I would say, don’t have them. They deserve what I see in the face of my grandson holding his infant daughter. Borne in him is the deep quest and his heartbeat will assure her that he will do his utmost for her.

In a more perfect world, every child would be born into arms designed just for them. Even if you had not known such arms, your heart tells you what you wished for. Make it happen.

It Is Said. . .

It is said that the heavens
care not what goes on
the world stage.

It is too late to change
the outlines of a world gone mad.
But here. . .

Within four walls are children,
eager to eat of the bread
of the gods to feed hungry minds.

Those the heavens note,
for within these walls is the outline
for peace on the next stage.

And here, the nurturer, the feeder,
will be given what is necessary
to begin the new world;

the brotherhood of man,
that could not be dreamed
with the old man’s dreams.

July 6, 2018

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.