From an Upper Floor

Prayer In Concert. . .

In Conference. . .

I was a young girl when the priest came to our home and my mother saying. ‘I don’t know who teaches her because I don’t. I don’t know where she gets her ideas.’ Years of criticism for my different ideas but my work habits were praised. I was diligent, thorough and needing praise for a starving heart.

On my road to Damascus experiences when my world crashed in my mid thirties, I could not believe good intentions and love were so easily crushed. With the help of a good doctor and my belief that I was still choice goods, rebuilding began. Not easy to do when one’s only bastion of strength was in thought and thinking. And one’s reason for being were three young sons who needed their mother at home.

Some call it prayer, others call it meditation. I called it duelogues because oh my I argued. I seldom carried it out loud because of setting off unrest in others I learned, hence the duelogues. I crashed the gates of heaven because how could what was taught in church school and on Sundays be so wrong when I worked so hard to do everything right by the church, by the book, by heart and even invented.

If it could not work where I was, then it was a lie and I wanted no part of it. Heaven convinced me that it could work and did and then we began our work. And work it has been. 24/7.

Then over the years dialogues and then In Conference. The poetry was continuing along with the journals when I found myself scribing. I typed hard copy because of my need to see in print what I heard was psychologically sound and philosophically palatable. It had to make sense. And my life had to show it. It has and I continue to work it.

To make my work understandable, the small voice within, god within, comforter, or the smooth pipe that Emerson called it that the angels or the muses speak through, works at one with me. I hope this post makes my work easier to understand. I am unable to explain the thought processes. But it has been a lifetime of mutual trust. (I enclose an excerpt from July 1, 2015 journal and also a poem for that day. Sometimes they coincide and this day is one. It will make the poem easier to understand. Some editing was done as I pick up the words)

From the Teachers . . .much will jar the houseboats of peoples and they will look again at the justice and injustices of partnerships whether in the same house or not. We know the intricacy of such matters. We know your penchant to keep words to a minimum. The aim is to get as many as possible to the table and to think. Eat and think. One and the same. What is being fed will make its way to the minds of men and there will be growth and there will be a road that has been scythed for travel. We will have a striving for peace. People will realize that the difference they make within themselves will be the greatest difference they can possibly make.

Prayer In Concert. . . from the other side. . .

It was prayer you held in concert
with the Great One who marked
your presence on his counter of beads.

Talks, mostly dialogues, it seems,
and held court with sages long asleep
on couches too soft for too long. . .

Rise! You shouted and they, appalled
at the sight of woman,
rose and were rightly chastised.

They had forgotten the bread lines
and the penniless people and
children’s bellies bloated from hunger.

You brought them to shame and now
they remember how the ivory towers
separated their lives from the
grime in the streets below.

Now you tell them in languages understood
how deep the hunger for knowledge
can be as if for bread; to keep alive
a mind from sleep; (like scourge
it contaminates all minds of men).

We wake them up and put to work
the fathers of the children forever seeded

with memory from a place the angels tread.

April 4, 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.
Dear Emma E. . .

Dear Emma E.. . .

We know each other although we haven’t put our arms around each other yet. But we know the shape of our hearts. And that is most important no matter what world we are in.

I am a big person, but if I were little like you, I would want a teddy bear who sings from her heart. I would put the bear nearby and before I would go to sleep, I would wind up her tummy and listen to the music that came from her heart. And in the music, my heart would answer and we both would be happy.

It would be a party in my most secret place and when I was lonely or unhappy, I would remember this music. That would make me happy again.

I hope you get to know this teddy bear as a warm friend. She is sent with much love and a happy heart. We are never too big for a heart that sings. We both know that.

I have loved you since before the world ever was and will continue to love you forever.

Your Grandmother Great. . . . .

April 2, 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.
The Invited Guest. . . .

We have those things that comfort and reassures us. It can be a photograph or a painting or something bringing to mind a feeling. It takes us to the place where we were all of a piece and peace. I have many such things and one of them is wood.

My woodworking days were of such quality that when I finished a project, having carved or sawed and sanded and then waxed and polished, I would with great love bend my face to it. Feel and smell the earth I love in it and know I will cherish this scent forever.

What world taught this now female person to be a carpenter with so much love that when I picked up wood and saw and file I knew what to do? Where to begin and how to proceed? I loved those years of woodworking. Humbling an idea and creating a something.

I do not remember the lifetime but there was a teacher who gave me tools. Those tools were courage to try and confidence to do, so the means manifested. I learned ‘do and you will be shown how.’ The intensity of purpose was the prime ingredient. The invited guest became my Mentor.

The Invited Guest. . .

I once knew a good carpenter
who, with hammer and saw
and wood and file,
showed me how to build a chair.

I did and sat on it and
then decided I needed a table.
With hammer and saw and
wood and file,
I built a table and sat at it.

I knew I needed another chair
for an Other to sit on.
So with hammer and saw
and wood and file, I built it.

I then invited the carpenter
to join me at the table.
We lit a candle and talked
and a new world was born.
How did I know

I first needed to learn how to build?

photo by John Holmes

March 30, 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.
The Heart’s Excess . . .

‘The circles she made in the air went round and round and she said The Teachers are telling me that the only way to get off is to step off. And we can get back on again. And this was the Earth she talked of. She made circles with her hand while she lay in the bed, as white as the sheets she lay on.’ From the prose poem ‘at her bedside.’

The Heart’s Spillage. . .

It is the medicine talking! His exasperated whisper may as well have been shouted in the hospital room. Let her talk, I angrily answered. She is speaking truth. And our mother in her near death experience proceeded to tell us what was going on and who she was talking to.

My brother left and the next day his wife asked what went on because he was an emotional mess. He didn’t hear what would have confirmed his cherished belief that open arms of his god were ready. At nearing ninety mother instead held herself accountable.

We have heard people say it is the alcohol talking, or drugs or anger talking. And I say it is a truth they are saying, when it is the spillage of the heart. When we hear adults speaking gutter language, or calling it locker room talk, it also is the heart’s excess with an insufferable wound.

I had six brothers with many friends and never heard language as on television with youngsters mouthing things with gestures we thought halted in preschool. Want to know the far influence of thoughtless or gutter spillage of bathroom behavior? Listen to the children who have television as their baby sitter.

I hung up the phone and my in law mother asked what did I find to talk about with our sons. I said there are not enough hours in the day for all to be said. I mentioned this to our eldest who answered, but we have been practicing all our lives! And we had. When did it stop? At what point did we become tongue tied or embarrassed or insufficient to thoughtful conversation?

The book which sits for everyone to see and no one reads says the word is god. The word. What we speak, our language is holy, sacred, what we use to connect our minds, our hearts, our souls, in speech, in thought with what ties us to one another and our Source, our highest and best. Thoughtful consideration, who stole it or did we give it away?

Did I think, I scribed one day, that people would clean up their thinking if they believed that heaven would find their views worthy of consideration?

I ask, would it be worth the work? 24/7? To find it the elixir of life? Would you?

March 27, 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.
It Is Life Everlasting. . .

In Memory of a last day. . .

In his last days before leaving Earth David asked, knowing what you know, how could you go on living? And I said there were three good reasons. Tresy, David and John, the jewels of my life. Never to have known them? That would have been my greatest tragedy. Unthinkable! There is nothing this life could give me to match the gift of them. They have been my best teachers. Thank you for choosing me as your mother.

When David Died

I say that David took the hands off my clocks.
It was the greatest gift he could give me.
I tire of running my life with a large hand and a small hand.
No time for this, hurry for that. Do this now, do that before.
I hate it. With a passion.

I want to immerse myself in time and swim in it.
Feel it around me yielding and yet holding me up.
I want to feel the eternity of it and I want to see my
house and yard at different times under the sun.
To be able to say that in the morning
this is precisely how they look.
I want the information stored in my Memory Bank
for those times when I feel bereft.

I want to see the moon rise and give way to the sun.
I want to see the rainbow around the moon
and say again, we are in for a big snow.
I need to revel in the mundane task
of shaking out the kitchen rugs
on the back porch and feel
the cold boards beneath my slippers and
the cold air stealing beneath my clothes.
I want to keep looking at the moon with a glance,
because no farmer stares at the moon too long
and say hello David.

And when I feel very homesick, I will again
as I have in the past, take my coffee
out on the porch and sit beneath the midnight sky
with the stars daring me to look up
and identify them and again

revel in this multifaceted existence called Life.

March 25, 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.
Drunk of the High Wine. . . .

It was a difficult lesson for me to integrate. It is for most people. One of quantum premises is that all time is simultaneous. Those who follow my blog know I speak of this often. It is difficult for me to write of experiences if I neglect to incorporate a fact that makes my work understandable. Especially when it has taken fifty some years to be comfortable with the fact.

I had another dream Wednesday morning the 21^st of March about 4 a.m. when I was aware of my French connection again. I prodded myself to remember this. It was a different household, but still with members of family. I had a granddaughter celebrating a birthday and I was invited out with them for cake and ice cream. She did not look like my California granddaughter but mine, nevertheless.

What made me take note of this was that I had been preparing dinner as I often do but the food was unfamiliar. I was not inept with handling it but the thought was that it was different. The thought injected perhaps to alert me to this parallel life we all have but wave off.

It reminded me of a post I wrote of when I awakened in the night and sat up speaking French. I do not speak the language but I was in vivid conversation going a mile a minute. I was pulled down and went back to sleep. This happened in the summer of ’85 I had journaled.

I also wrote when I dreamed as a monk in the summer of ’83 that I walked up a hill with a group and I made note in the journal that it was the year of 1790 and time of the French Revolution. I dragged a cross on my shoulders portraying Jesus’ crucifixion. Windows were boarded up along the way and evergreens shining in the moonlight and everything was dusty. Vivid.

Coming to mind especially was the meeting with the German VIP in Munich who scolded me because I had not told him the previous week in Paris that I would be in Munich the following week. I informed him I was not in Paris and had never been. He became very angry because our conversation was prolonged he said and friendly.

He was insulted and righteously because his was an important job because of his ability to remember people and where he met them. (Tourism is vastly important to all countries.) I could not convince him when my husband appeared steering me away. I have never in this life as Veronica been to Paris. Many places, but not ever Paris.

It all makes sense and convinces me that we are more than what we appear. I firmly believe we will one day on bended knee say thank you to our fellow man. We just don’t know how heavy his burdens.

We’ve Laid A Mark or
I’ve drunk the high wine. . . .

Upon this time we’ve laid a mark.
Because we were and are. Sometimes
not much to be sure.

And will be forgotten in time,
but those we leave have upon them a mark,
cherished.

They say it is hard won because much
was demanded. I say, earned, because
they produced by work.

Both right, altogether, a symbol,
to be wrought or cast in iron
to be remembered.

As important as the tablets
brought down from the mountain,
though this itself was chiseled with sweat.

Workers both, to be certain, honored
and to be brought toward the frontispiece
of a life lived

with reverence to a lifted chalice.

March 22, 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.
We Don’t See What We Don’t Know To See. . . .

Most of us have heard of black and white holes in space. When massive stars burn out gravity causes them to collapse and shrink out of sight. A black hole appears and matter disappears into this. Matter then appears elsewhere in our universe or other universes. My understanding is simplified.

Everything has energy especially our thoughts and emotions and those things that enliven us. When I said the cosmos views us as dim or bright bulbs this pretty much is on target though simple.

When this tremendous energy is given off we can say similarly that it drains through black holes and is enormously magnified and returned into our world through white holes.

These coordination points have great energy and earlier civilizations before going down the tube used these points to plan their infrastructures to great advantage.

This is a good point to keep in mind when news of ancient cities are discovered and we wonder how they managed to stay intact. The reason being that consideration of these energy points greatly stabilized structures and were highly utilized in building.

We hear of thermodynamic laws and closed systems and laws of entropy meaning there is diminished energy available to work. We have only our narrow focus of this physical world. We don’t see what we don’t know to see.

Physical laws are suspended many times. Women lift cars and tractors to free a beloved and save a life. In wartime suspension of laws is called courage and awarded with medals. When they happen in our lives, we say nothing and family looks askance and try to forget anything out of the ordinary happened.

Be careful what you say I was cautioned. I would have to deny my life lived. And because of journals kept for a half century, I would have forgotten many things.

How did you do it Mom, our eldest would ask as a child when the 3 cushion sofa was moved up and down the steep stairs. My young neighbor said I moved evergreens about my lawn with root balls of enormous size like lawn furniture and replanted them. And this same young one helped me move an old heavy desk from the garage through basement stairs. I would move it to the other part of the basement through two more doors.

I got stuck. Neither the desk was able to budge nor I pinned with my spine to the jamb and with little breath. The door frame bulged and I thought he will kill me if he has to call the fire department to free me.

In less time than it takes to write this and I have the journal entry, the desk collapsed and stood upright on the other side of the door and I whispered my thank you. I then moved it with no problem through the other door to my workroom.

From one of my poems is a line that says ‘thorns do not a rose make but intensity of purpose yields the bud.’ Many times I have been told things have not been worth the energy I put into them. Not comfortable to live with I have been told.

Yet we don’t know how that intensity is utilized nor how we feed worlds or are fed by it.

March 20, 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.
Truisms. . . .

The heart will determine what the head sees and put into the eyes the meaning of it all.

*****

Time is not of the essence, but quality of thinking is. For the thought was already a thing in process before the action cemented it.

*****

By their actions you shall know them. By their actions you will see the fruits of their days. And by our action, the heavens know the thought processes involved.

*****

Some prayers are answered and some are not. The final question should be, why not mine?

*****

To change even one behavior pattern will demand that all behavior patterns be changed. And many are not equal to the work.

*****

It would also say that there was a deficiency in behavior and the need to say I was wrong. And with advancing years can we wipe out a life while still living?

*****

Heaven is an earned order and until one approaches the place where admission is qualified, one cannot enter. The homework first has to be done and the mind alerted.

*****

Work has taken on an onerous meaning. Play has taken on a sensual meaning. Neither are correct. Neither give full sway to the correct and apt meanings.

*****

A creative shining spirit is fun to watch. It is one, on whom the heavens bank their monies.

*****

It is far easier to prolong a situation waiting for it to work itself out. Confrontation is not for everyone. Especially when history has shown the one on whom the workload will fall.

******

Sometimes the need to be wanted is only bested by the want to be wanted.

*****

Kindness is never out of date nor is it old fashioned.

March 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.
Love Is The Answer. . .

Love, But Not Without Work. . . .

It was with derision that laughter came because I said love was the answer. Naïve I was called and impractical. I was told I did not know how the real world works.

But not without work I added. Love needed work. Wherever we were, the boots had to be put on or the thinking cap. That is where we begin.

By magic meals appeared on time, clean towels flew to shelves and clothes to closets hung all by hocus pocus. The real work was the hand on the sick brow, emotions calmed, anger abated and crises averted with lives prolonged by hearts transplanted. Fears were laid to rest.

So now I work and find some words to describe my feeling. Yet I even wonder now if these words are mine, except I do know that they are of me, my fabric and what it is I have lived through.

A romantic? I am and just maybe I put into words what others think and cannot articulate. Claiming my romance. . . I learned it somewhere. I knew it at a time. . . but what time and where, this life does not tell me. When we claim knowledge of a something and this life has not taught the principle, then we must claim it from somewhere. Else how do we know?

To know means the lesson was taught at some juncture, long ago or perhaps with such vitality we could not forget. It has become part of our fabric and knowledge and therefore we claim it. It is not to be uprooted by an ill wind blowing from wherever, because the knowledge is innate.

I write what I know. At the moment I may not be cognizant of the fullness of the words, but they are brought up from that place where memories lay hidden and the greater self speaks. And if the fences have been dismantled and the stones knocked down, it is with grace that the knowledge once again surfaces.

Love Is. . .

oh trembling soul,
that has seen beyond
to know the wonder of love.
Whose magnificent hand has shaped
the universe and all within with love?

What visions have the eyes seen unfolded
to cause the soul and mind a oneness,
heretofore, unknown?
Who loosed the shackles of
the mind encaged and sent man’s
Spirit soaring?

Love that has impregnated and nurtured
and caused man to grow upward

Is. . . .

artwork by Claudia Hallissey

March 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.
Kiss The Morning. . . wall quilt

Because I love doing what I do and am addicted to learning new ways when my abilities diminish due to aging and its consequences, I keep trying.

And remember a teacher’s admonition, that you are not a machine. If you wish perfection, buy a machine made whatever. So I do not give up.

I love this quote in particular; Kiss the morning into Being for it has long won the battle over night. A reader who works as a nurse with the elderly, said she loves to wake up looking at this wall quilt in the morning light. It gives her hope for the day.

I have the original that I wake to and have decided to work on a smaller version. The center panel is 8 ½ in by 11 in. And the borders according to what looks right.

I am still working to photograph accurately. When I concentrate on one thing, I overlook another. I seem to eye focus on one thing and don’t see another. I remember when this was not the case and it is frustrating!

I remember a dear friend saying to me that she does not invite younger people to her home whose eyesight is perfect, especially when they are fashionable and fussy. She knew she would then be the gossip of the day with her housekeeping and appearance. Ahhh I can relate.

She once asked me if she should wear the same outfit she had worn before to lunch with friends I was having at my home. I was silent because I was blank. After a minute she laughed and said to me you are the perfect friend to have. You never see other than us, the who we are.

Fashion I am not aware of, but I do hope I notice when someone is in their ‘altogether.’ And cover them up!

I know I will become more adept using the modifications I have learned. If you are interested in any of these small wall quilts, contact me. They are for sale and I will be putting them up as I photograph them

March 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.