Come to my table and sit awhile and I will tell you tales of years gone by, attended by loves and those who held magic in their hands.
We have supped and laughed and cried some, but mostly told the tales that love spun out of gold. It was a rich time; not the coin of the day but the values in the hearts of those who dined.
It was magic that threaded us together through the years to find us all at the same place, entwined. But the love and the magic
may have been one and the same.
Do you think?
(March 26, 2013written)
Family and family of friends. . . To all who have sat at my table all the years and have made life so rich for me. I am blessed beyond words for what you have added to my life. And this poem is a thank you. You are the love and the magic and it is one and the same. Do you now know that? veronica
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 Paul,
on the road to Damascus,
unaware of forces pulling at his thought
was none the less surprised.
In the privacy of mind,
how could an invasion of thought
not his own be in conference?
So it is, in the wars of the visible
and invisible worlds,
the supremacy for power does not stop.
Our worlds! Claim the gods. . .
My world! Claims the pilgrim.
One in partnership till man tasted the lust for power.
Lest we lose this, the best of all classrooms,
brotherhood is still the dream and our hearts
still too unripe to embrace its benevolence.
But its power of magnetism still attracts
what prompted this dream
that catapulted us
to give search to the meaning to the why of us.
December 10, 2017
Journal Entry August 16, 1989….Why. . . is the perpetual cry. . .
And there is no answer. There truly is not. If there were an answer there would be rote and ritual. There should be circumscribed ways of doing things and all of the excitement, all of the sparkle would be gone.
So with the unrest also comes hope that somehow, someone, someway will come up with something to solve a situation that has not been thought of, has not been tried.
AND THAT IS WHY HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL.
Not because a god will step in, but man with his diverse ways and histories will bring together thinking that may yet save a people, a species, a world, a planet.
Hope that has not been tried before with no results will come forth from someone or that someone will overcome a barrier and do the unthinkable, the impossible, and the unlikely and this time it will work. He or she will overcome their aversion and hug the person. They will forgive and all will be forgiven. They will unlock that door that bars the pilgrim entry and will be hailed the miracle.
Will you be the one who will create peace within chaos and will bring diverse people together, if only within your house? That will be all that is necessary. Nothing else would for if just one place had peace within its walls, all places would eventually have peace.
The one to do this must do the footwork to achieve what is hoped for. That all the psychological devices and reasons have been tried and one is ready to throw in the towel. To get to this place one loses self to the greater self and knows there is nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Fear handicaps and narrows the focus with unfortunate results. We have lived for too long with those results. Because the footwork has been done, the drummer now heard has new direction slated.
We may yet save a people, a world, a planet and this best of all classrooms.
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.
I was reading Jane Robert’s ‘Unknown Reality’ and came across her channel Seth saying about a world where the Sciences were directed in another way. Instead of outside of oneself, the detached observation of outside influences, for instance, studying an amoeba all by itself instead of in its relationship to conditions of Man and other consciousness. I read where there was a world that operated from intent and emotion within and these werethe criteria by which all things were judged.
I have lived my life this way and did not know there was any other way. I see and feel the intent of everything and though words can by themselves convince, they cannot convince me because intuitively and innately I operate from the way I am. I know I repeat but when my world traumatically toppled and my first psychiatrist asked me what I saw when I go down Michigan avenue, I told him and when I finished minutes later, he whistled through his teeth. You realize others don’t see what you see, he said. I said nothing and he said, you don’t.
I was scared out of my head and said nothing. For my 36 years I thought I was like everybody else. I use words with precision that run on a micro chip in my mind. Too often I heard why do you have to be different.
Mutations in life occur when there is sufficient stress and motivation that produces a pulsing against, a tension within the gene. When conditions are ripe, many mutations occur. There is a change that takes place in the genetic influence. And this change, due to intent and motive, will eventually change the course of the world.
Certain behaviors will be visible, but they will be modified when keenly felt. We have already seen this and to me being close to a hundred years, lives have become lifestyles and not lives learning. The truth of genetic changes being seen is difficult to prove to Scientists whose instruments only read what the reader reads. For the one who stumbles on information due to inner guidance, evident changes because of genetic influence will baffle many.
They will say if it cannot be proved in the laboratory, it is not real. Yet silent mavericks are among us.
Structured guidelines will loosen and ideas different from dogma will be forthcoming. Coming down from his mountaintop experience, Jesus said his Father’s house had many rooms. Not that he could say many worlds because man could not relate when man’s world ended at the horizon. He also said that as a twig is bent so shall it grow meaning bent it already was with a history. And no doubt dragging a foot still in a previous world. Also said at the time was that Earth is a reflection of heaven and heaven earth’s reflection.
One thing from the book ‘Unknown Reality’ from Seth, Jane Robert’s channel, haunts me still and I do not remember reading it, but it is seated in my root being and has guided me forever it seems as Shakespeare’s ‘To thine own self be true. Thou then cannot be false to any man’.
Seth through Jane said that the striving of one increases the potentiality of Everything That Is. And this places great responsibility upon every consciousness.
One sees one’s connections then and the work needing to be done. It is enough to take one’s breath .
Artwork by Lucinda Cathcart
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 wait for this day. You hear the arguments in the head and you think all the while the hands do the mind’s bidding. In this we find a great interest and comfort knowing that it is possible to function in a secular life and continue to grow. Your questions show the current interest thinking which man should be doing. You ply the heaven for answers and forgive us for saying there are no answers to the questions.
There is nothing yet written which would answer your why, how and wherefores to satisfy. Not possible. There is a keeping on, keeping on and a growth possible not yet tapped. Questions persist and not always have answers that leave one in comfort and wellbeing.
You have already tapped this reservoir. Which proves that man, as a whole, can do this for himself. You reach this point where your answers will be forthcoming, as you provide them for yourself. You cannot find in the heavens, even , the final conquest. There are worlds upon worlds, but the Rabbi told you that, didn’t he?
You know this in that part of you which has searched the skies for that part of heaven which would give ultimate rest. You know that, have always know it and now is part of your fabric.
Not comforting, is it? There is no place, not a one, where everything is brought to completion. How can there be, when there is no completion? How can there be when all is in a state of becoming? It is all becoming; we are all becoming. Becoming what? We can only surmise. No one knows.
This is where the grandfather God is the comfort. This is where man finds if he gives thought and thinks it through, he gets bogged down. In despair, throws up his hands with ‘God Knows’!
He is right if he means ‘unknowing, unfathomable, omniscient, omnipresent, spirit of the Universes, he is in good territory. If he means a being like himself, in physical form, he spends the night walking around his house looking for a place to lay down his head.
You have the ability to grasp this concept, and with the devices and comforts of living add to its intensity to keep on keeping on, you find within the reason to make perfect. What you see in your commitments and priorities reasons to help. Without your help, we all would be floundering. We look for growth and enhancement of mankind in all areas.
Commitments will set our priorities and unveiled will be to our surprise, substance of who we are and from where we come.
THE LEGACY
We dried the tears with straw flowers and they scratched your face.
The etchings on the parchment which was your skin will forever be stayed and will be read only by the keenest eye and the discerning heart.
The indelible ink which wrote was with pen dipped in love. Repeated washings rinsed with tears did not bleach it out.
So take your heart and this one and this and ask for memories to build in worlds uncertain, in unions without ballast, a treasure chest, a memory bank.
The loves will loose the memories in future times and in the moment release for their own, a strength.
And never know in a history buried deep beneath their skins, there was a she-man of indeterminate strength who plied her trade and in the course of time,
endowed her progeny. . . .
(Poem from Dec 01, 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.
As dawn breaks, my fingers of both hands curl about each other and I marvel at their slimness, their ability to elicit the feel of themselves, each digit wrapped around the other.
And I think that nothing, no other world will ever make me feel such blessedness as my hands’ ability to do so many things over the course of this life. To kneading bread, to winding the yarn, to smoothing the brow of my very sick child and have him tell me later that it helped him sleep. Everything I touch holds a lesson for me.
The square inch of soil I spooned with young hands yielded secrets kept from generations. The eyes of a child as my hands embrace young shoulders tells me what went into their ancient heritage. And I grasp their hands in mine and convey my love by touch.
I would use these hands to mold and make and set trends never before thought. I see the beauty of the great god in the blending of these human genes and see the perfect Adam and perfect Eve emerging and see the virtue in the making and the doing of the homely tasks that will start the holy process once again.
And I will open my arms and spread my hands to grasp the youngest by my hip and be grateful for hands that show how very much I love on this planet called Earth
My input to date. . .July 13, 2022. . . .I was unprepared for what these last years would bring. There was no hint of not being able to do with my hands what I loved doing. But the accumulation of physical work which was a palliative for the emotional turmoil brought on by many variables, has given me too much time with regretful, ‘I should not have allowed’ whatever dotage has brought me.
Even the simple task of grasping a spoon or scissors, grits the teeth, coupled with a half dozen other auto immune deficiencies science has uncovered. It is not easy to allow Nature its qualities to cease and heal. She shouts in my house, enough already! Time to let go and be.
My head has not gotten the message. It still is in gear. We will continue to argue but we both know she has the heavier clout.
But who was the teacher who said, ‘do and you will be shown how’? I did and do and now I am reminded not to forget my bread recipe when I arrive.
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.
There is a dance that our feet learn to do when first we stand up. That dance is learned well, for even when our legs no longer dance, our phantom feet remember the dance. They itch to dance. And under penalty of death we think, we stay with it.
If we decide to learn new steps, the old ones often need to be altered. And if they are, we either think we are not needed for our dance, or we feel our steps are not noticed anymore and are taken for granted. Either way, we feel sorry for ourselves or worse, give up.
Very few give in and learn new steps, perhaps slower ones. The new dance though is alien to our self image and we are certain the new steps will be laughed at. Fortunately others do not remember our old steps as we who danced them. In the fashion of Fred Astaire, our memory tells us we swept others along with us.
And that is the kicker.
When one is aware that a new step is needed, one is aware also that the dance is soon ending. How to do it gracefully, with a sweeping dip that barely touches the floor, takes a nimble body and mind.
Most of us do it with the tentative steps we learned when first we learned to dance. For the vision might still be sweeping, but the body falters. We soon find the audience’s attention is riveted on younger feet still learning new and beguiling steps.
We shuffle off the floor. Our dance is over. And we are never the wiser that the young feet doing the new dance could not dance at all without our learning the old dance first.
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.
I have delayed posting because of ill health. Also because I wondered if what I have been involved in has been so much busy work. At times we have to confront and reassess. And because I am heavy with verbiage, there is much verification. Not all bad and some even passable. I have written on this subject of thought before but feel it necessary to repeat. To think is a real gift given and work it is. It is a practice most avoid.
I remember three compliments given taken to heart. My brother in law, who said he liked asking me questions because he knew I researched and young friend Mark who said he saw me with only one face, never changing from private to public and our David who when he received his phi beta kappa key turned and gave it to me because he said I earned it because I never closed the books.
Since I am in the decade leading to a hundred years, I take stock in reading journal entries. I have to because I cannot believe this life.
January 7, 1988 journal . . . I write, Cannot sleep after reading Albert Schweitzer and the section on parallel lives, and Buddha with no satisfaction. I read what others were thinking but nothing new. I left the book with the feeling that not a one of those learned men spoke with any authority. This is not to dismiss the good that they did in life at all.
But none had experienced anything to have them think other than what was rote. Nothing original. No one said that when he experienced what was written resulted in new thought. Or if disagreeing, why? What if anything rocked the brain’s marbles into new thought. It amounted to compilation of thought as a lump of clay and dead.
The rote delivered was that Jesus was not influenced by Buddha. Even considering the times and their own progression among humans, we learned we are the sum of who has gone before us. Just as Buddha also had something happen in his enlightenment under the Bo tree. Who is self made?
How could Jesus not be influenced, whether by having an open mind at birth or whether at baptism his head or mind was opened? Or as a young man making his way from place to place where Sages puzzled the sacred arguments with no closure, he must have concluded causes for man’s lack of progress?
What I hunger for is someone to say because of this happening, my thinking changed and so my life. I do not wish to dismantle illusions for many are legitimate and necessary. I have come to conclusions wrought by footwork, muscle and heart and cosmic intervention to have my body and limbs seize on me.
I see also those in power were not even vetted for common sense. Who play on the fears of common man who have not been encouraged to think on their own. All that is required is for their hard earned dollars to line the pockets of fear mongers who promise to take care of them so they pocket more workers’ dollars.
Questions we should always ask of ourselves and others. And take the time necessary to think them through. Is it life giving or life taking.? There is no argument with the answers, now is there? As complicated or simple as we are able to think. But listen carefully to how you answer.
May you walk in good conscience, deeply rooted. In whatever world you walk in.
photo taken by
Kathy Qualiana of my brother,
her father, Stanley
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.
Journal entry March 11, 2021. . . My thoughts this morning when watching Morning Joe as reported in The Atlantic. Discussed what is happening to Christian Belief or Religious Belief with the then emerging cultural canceling and caretaking of the ex -president Trump. He gained popularity by saying he will take care of you but meaning he would not allow anyone else take your whatever belief and abscond with it.
If there was any truth in such a statement, HE would abscond with your belief and you would have a new one and that would be a Trumpism. We seem to let loose of the mythological god and are woke so to speak. Lots of things to fill this space, and one of them is political. Whatever party is chosen, we fill it in depth by how much energy we have. We can fill it with learning whatever makes us curious. I gave chase to books and religious dogma and hoped what knowledge I gained would make it work for me.
I started with building a philosophy to understand the enigmatic behaviors of my parental family. Growing up with siblings put a path in front of me. Marrying early, commitments played a conscientious role. Because of circumstances, children were my primary commitment determining my choices. In the current era, much does enter one’s vacant space giving rise to behavior which is violent in many ways.
With what troubles our world and our country, we see the fragility of our democracy in peril. The health of the world constantly deserves our concern with epidemics like the Covid one we still face. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, democracies shattered with autocratic convulsions with power at play. And we all know the unrest with high prices, vacant shelves, and gun violence leaving catastrophic carnage every week in our lives.
In that space where a previous life had a god or many to worship, this empty space has emptiness that waits for a name. Have we made a difference in this life by depth, kindness in relationships, determination to do good in actions that makes our contribution an enhancement of humankind? I wish for partnership to the undergirding of ethical structure that holds the Universes in mythological hands but Magnificent Heart. To call it Magnificent Heart is inadequate, but we have no words I know of so this will have to do with open potential.
You also make independent study a daily habit because to parent one needs to do one’s very best. To accompany you in this venture, you choose a mentor, visible or invisible as you contribute to life as best you can. This is life in the vernacular, being woke as you must be. Your progeny will push against you, the Goad, and you will not run away. It may take a hundred years to do this but you will do this and you will be proud.
I scribed the teacher’s ending to the entry paraphrasing March 11, 2021. . ‘it was so hard going. We knew you hoped one of the children would be sick to stay home from school, because you had no energy to continue the study. Yet you did when the door closed and went to the desk to begin again. And to hold yourself together because you were filling the vacuum that already was a hole deep in your heart. We still talk of the world you wanted to fill with meaning that would keep mankind warm when the night came knocking on his soul and asked, who is home?’
((and I will answer (I wrote) a God Participant, whose potential is undetermined. I have secured the children and now we begin. Building a world on loam and soil whose bedrock will be the foundation whose housing will not shift. We are guided and give good guidance to our commitments. And do what we must. Thank you for the guidance. And trust.’ ))
Amen and amen.
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.
(I am running out of words and energy at this time nearing the terminus of my life. I find that what I have written in the past of these earth shaking events are words that still wring my heart to shreds. And yours, too. I cannot find other words to tell their story. Our language does not hold them for me. We are heartbroken that there is another occasion to repeat them.)
Times Such As These
I lock up the room and pocket the last remnants of words laying about unattended.
Fearful that pieces of my heart may be found scattered among them. And why not?
Times such as these leave us with little salve to heal the open wounds which once were hearts.
For whom do we weep? The children whose siblings will no longer come to the table to convey with no doubt the events which took their innocence?
Or the parents whose hearts were transplanted when word came that these unspent stars were already breathing the rarified air as heaven’s most blessed?
Look at us here. Pleading that our children will be safe as they try to understand what we in our dotage have not learned.
To resort to arms means death in any country.
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 Kabbalah, practiced before Judaism, states that death is not final. When the Sages died, they simply went into the next room. Seekers then could enter and ask their questions and converse. Scribing was done by the chosen seekers . I have scribed for a long time and many do and call it automatic writing with many trips to the bank. The difference is on how deeply one is able to focus. When questioned I was told it is a quirk of mind. The following was scribed on July 24, 1984.
“I asked. . . was it a different world? It was. It was a world where belief had the power of logic, where prayer was direct communication with what was the belief of the time, where the arch angels stepped between man and his desires and procured them for the supplicant. It was all these things and more. Man did not roam the earth without anchor at will or put his faith in machines which mimicked his mind. He conquered what needed to be conquered with the virtue within. He did these things because he did not know he could not do them. With all that he was, he could do anything.”
The following is a conclusion I reached by study and discipline and teaching by good scholars. The footwork was more than a half century trudged. Not a happenstance but a Given with due regard. I have no credentials but offer these to thought and explanation. It is my logic on our coats of many colors.
Joseph was one of many brothers. He was special to their father Jacob and was given a coat of many colors. This coat was envied by the brothers and caused jealousy. They talked of doing away with him.
The story is already written but what I am Given is a reason for this. I assume Jacob, the father, was versed in sacred scripture and conversed with peers. So when Joseph was of age, his father gave him a coat of many colors. To those of mind, it was because Joseph had memory of prior lives lived, in skins of many colors for the times chosen and worlds.
This was only a Given after many years of study. Skin color, race, geography, nationality, all the possessive fractions are these where humans are sensitive and have not worked out personal prejudices due at best to personal grievances. It is an area of mind and behavior where children are born indifferent and accepting of all and should be a Light to us. Hate and prejudice are first lessons taught from the beginning by parental grievances. It undermines all the insistence teachers preach on the values of love and kindness. Hate is for a child, gut wrenching, and the cause of much vomiting mornings before school.
My mentor, the Nazarene, could only speak of life everlasting. To the each, the subject varied and had meaning only to the thoughtful. Others let those who were paid big monies do the discerning. Logic prevailed and the only viable answer was the skin of many colors.
I wrote All Who I Am in the summer of 1982. It was only recently I ventured the poem onto my blog . I identified with the black woman running late with breasts flapping onto bare skin to the anger of the mate waiting . . .related to the man walking his camel in the desert being harvest for the flies, identifying with the Polish woman kneading her bread . . . I am relating to all in the poem and knowing them intimately not as second skin, but intimate skin through many lifetimes.
It will be said that my imagination is vivid. And that was a Given also, that imagination is memory with icons signifying their substance. Another time for that subject. Our memory banks are full of treasures for those who will focus within the closet of themselves for treasure hunting. The only requirement?
Only a bucket of courage and hopefully a support system. And lots of Amen and Amen.
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.