From an Upper Floor

Observation Expert. . .

The only thing I am an expert on is being an old lady. I am not a vet nor a dog trainer, nor a whisperer. What I am is an expert in observing; people as well as sentient life, or not sentient. I have seen God in a Rock. So be it. What I have observed are animals, mostly dogs because I have been dog sitting quite a lot over the years.

And what I have observed is this. We have created a companion animal with our dogs and cats and we have to come to terms with how we are going to treat them. I am not into sentimentalizing animals, but here is my observation.

When television came into our homes and people stopped going to the fence to talk to their neighbors or on their balconies or porches to watch life go by or talk to it, or even answer their doors for fear someone would disrupt their evening programs, they brought their dogs and cats to the couch to have a warm body next to them.

And their animals became their companions. They began talking to them and giving them treats and it wasn’t long before dogs realized people food was better than what they got on the floor. Some would even say that when the wolf was brought to the cave entrance and fed in exchange for guarding the humans in the caves, it all started then. It was then just a technicality to when the guard wolves came inside the entrance for warmth.

Television became the entertainment and animals with the family, became companions. Over 50 years ago I read where Seth, the channeling guide in the Jane Roberts’ books said in passing, that often a soul fragment to experience a segment of physical life will take residence in a dog or cat body. That statement gave premise to the observations over the years and I watched avidly the evolution of companion animals. With some dogs having a vocabulary in many cases larger than a 3 or 4 year toddler, one must come to terms with how it is we treat these sentient beings.

Of course we would not leave children in the cold to fend for themselves. Can we now leave our animals who have evolved in terms no longer just dogs and cats to fend for themselves? We can and do at great cost. We have introduced them to aspects of human life and they tell us in behavior that they prefer it. They want our presence, are comfortable and content with us, and respond to quick commands that have us in awe. With a 1500 word vocabulary in some dogs can we dismiss this being as ‘it is just a dog’ when we have as humans created this companion animal?

For the past two weeks I have had 3 dogs to care for. A lame Rottweiler, a Newfoundland, both residents and a Shih Tzu, all treasures in themselves. The Shih Tzu is the guest and has me in awe with his intelligence. If he had the throat, he would form his answers in words to me. He simply knows what I say and I wish I knew his desires. To say he is just a dog is to dismiss the intelligence we have nurtured in these companions over the centuries. Intelligence requires a dignity that we simply have to make peace with in beings that are different.

Dogs don’t play games nearly as much as people for self aggrandizement. I say that if another life is required, I will be in an ivory tower doing research and on the ground just raising dogs. I would need a grounding if there is then still an earth life and conscience would tell me to make a difference, dogs would do it.

photo by
Joe Hallissey Jr.

March 8, 2017

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.
No Place To Go. . .

No Place To Go. . . .the children have to grow up. . . .

As I look back on things, as we are apt to do when we wish to make sense out of a life that at times held little, I find more things connect. Yet small incidents were crucial for the larger events to play out. When I think back on the arguments that have taken my energy, I still have difficulty understanding where sacrificing one life so that another can live is fair or rational. Religions have been based on this principle. I put myself in the time of the Nazarene and think as I did when I wrote the poem, Day of Decision, and he said He has sent me to

‘proclaim release to the captives and recovering
of sight to the blind . . .
and to set at liberty those who are oppressed.’

And I think you idiot! My lungs gasp an
intake of air for it will be my last.
He has hung us all.
You sell yourself to a hungry multitude
and you will never be free.
They will clutch you to them
and never be the wiser.

My friend you are crazed.
They will never buy what you give away.
Better were it for you to go away
with knowledge baking your brain
and rotting your heart.’

It was never self sacrifice to me when a child was concerned. One’s child of course had a lifetime to live and there was no question whose life was more important. But a world of big bodies who refuse to grow up and be accountable learned nothing when all they had to do was never to sin again because there was a god to forgive them who let them off scot free. My upbringing had the hymn in the Methodist Hymnal, What A Friend We Have In Jesus ….
all our sins and griefs to bear.
What a privilege to carry
everything to him in prayer.

And 2,000 years later, the same wars are being fought, ancestors’ anguish they say never appeased. For all we know, we are killing our mothers and our fathers and who is to say we don’t? Jesus fulfilled the old testament by giving people what they wanted. His life. He mortgaged himself to fulfil the readings. Do the people grow up to be accountable? They hang on to the child in them for they believe as the Book says, such is the kingdom of heaven. And the forever little boy and girl go to the end of their days the way they came in. Childish.

In the course of days I learned that only when one views this world as the only world does it seem insane that one would sacrifice one’s life. In the larger scope, knowing this is but an instant in a universe of many worlds, does giving your life for your brother take on nobility. Physicists already give credence to parallel worlds and quantum physics heralds others. Life balances itself so that nothing is ever lost, including self, then the following I wrote makes sense in. . .

Old Friends Breaking Bread. . .
Everything gained they agree.
Lives lived splendidly
according to script.
Lives mortgaged knowingly
so that the Other could know
their moment in the sun.
They needed to learn they were worthy.

Also in the poem. . .
You Must Not Think. . . .
It’s useless to have trudged
the overgrown path
to make a road
easier for the one to follow.
We must develop discipline
to house the night’s pleasures
and discipline to work our days.
Evolution is the name of the game,
but it really is life;
a way station only to the stars,
On the way home.

And in the poem,
You Stayed the Course. . .
And the ancestors will rest
and man will look forward
to what he can accomplish.
And the world will blossom;
all worlds and all times.
The path in the jungle has been cut.

And finally in,
A Great Gain. . .
It showed me true
that life is everlasting.
Where else to have learned that?

Has it changed much in 85 years? I learned that the smallest incidents were necessary for the larger ones to be played out. I learned much, but to make a difference? Only in myself. Only.

Photo by
Joe Hallissey Jr.

March 6, 2017

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.
Worlds I know. . .

The psychiatrist sat at his desk in that small office and said tell me what you see when you go down Michigan Avenue. Everything? I asked. Everything, he said. I closed my eyes and began. When I was finished he whistled through his teeth. You know, he said, others don’t see what you see. I was too frightened to ask what others saw. My world had crashed and we were trying to put it together again.

I remembered when my senior class in high school was having difficulty in social studies not understanding how all men were created equal. Mr. Kane was hearing us out. Everyone agreed we were not created equal. Different status, different talents, cultures, education , some with no talent and no money, and the list went on. Come on think, he pleaded, think in what way we are equal. Silence. In God’s eyes? I ventured, because that was my upbringing. Only in our humanity he said. Only in that we are human, and I was to learn differently because I was already searching and learning the twig is already bent apriori, a history arrives.

So many differences that even my mother questioned why I had to be different. I was too young to know that I had the freedom of a decision. I was who I was. Why can’t you be like your brothers and sister? Who put the cry in crisis for me and the said in the unsaid. We have heard you can’t stay home from school with another stomach ache. A child was told you have to take your ulcer medicine before school , yes. Another headache? Familiar?

Before we can have a world at peace we must accept the different ones at our table before we send them out the door. Wars are waged within the family before they are taken out in the streets. Every child must have the right to be wanted by parents who have loved wisely and well. It should be a sacred obligation we have as parents.

Many years ago I wrote the following poem, Detrevni. . . inverted spelled backwards. I tried to show how the varied world appears to some of us, as an introduction to differences in approaches. There are more planets circling around that are being discovered with a different sun. Years ago Frank Herbert had his Reverend Mother in ChapterHouse Dune say what would people think if they truly thought they were the only life in the Universe? Or if they were not? Truly thought it through. Think on it. Different life elsewhere will one day have to be dealt with. No matter their size, the children must be prepared.

Detrevni (Inverted)

or sometimes called a learning disability

It is a world I see where ‘was’ is ‘saw’
and ‘eht’ is ‘the’
and everyone speaks this peculiar language.

The trees grow leaves
cushioning sturdy trunks,
blossoming with sturdy roots.
Daffodils bury their golden heads
while bulbs, transparent,
shoot hairs out of themselves.
They are beautiful.

Men stand on heads
with toes balancing words,
and eyes are located in their belly buttons.
Hands helplessly try to manipulate a world
and that is the same everywhere.

I do not speak of this other place
because you would think me even more peculiar,
though my eyes and nose and arms
are appropriately spaced.
What it is I see and hear you cannot measure
because I cannot see what you want me to see.

‘Evol’ is love in any language
because love shines from the heart
and arms embrace from any direction.
Sometimes it is called a learning disability
but there are places I know
where I fit right in.

Make this world one of them.

Painting by
Claudia Hallissey

(I am ever grateful to Jane Roberts and the Seth Books who let me know I was part of the world. And Frank Herbert who reminded me of worlds I could not forget.)

March 3, 2017

Veronica Hallissey has been writing since the 1960s, with her poetry published in a variety of small press magazines. Born into a farm family in Lockport, NY, and educated at the University of Buffalo and other midwest institutions, she brings and unusual point-of-view to her poetry, combining strong natural images with a deep spiritual language. She lives in Ramona, CA.
When A Thing Is Good. . . habits

When St. Paul had his experience on the road to Damascus, it unnerved him so that he took a year off from his preaching to recover. He of course had his groupies waiting on him. When my world crashed and I was hospitalized, the doctors asked me to speak to a large room of psychiatrists to answer their questions. Would I? I would. Though I look back on that young woman of 35 and wonder her courage. Few women have had a cosmic experience, mostly men are quoted. The nearest a doctor in that audience came to understanding was asking if I was a Rosicrucian . I was not but understood the question. From that experience I began peace-ing myself and learning. I was the parent on premises with no time off and the children and I needed our world stable. I think in learning about myself, my desire for stability in the physical setting made internal growth possible. My devotion and dependability in maintaining the household allowed spiritual changes their freedom. Only of late have these years been evident to me. By keeping my eyes on the physical acts of maintenance, the looming changes did not restrict me. Meals to prepare, vacuuming needed doing, dogs to be put out. While the body does its due maintenance, the mind in conference with its Teacher soars. And changes are wrought.

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 practise 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.

March 1, 2017

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 Had Earned The Right. . .

Events take on proportion that surprise even us who experienced the event. Wondering why in looking back they were significant to us when to others they would be a non event. But to us they often are a turning point, a point of growth and in that who we are now or what we must become hinged on that turning point. Guard those moments carefully and study them. What happens outside of us is nowhere as important as what happens within. Those times we are in conference with the Divine within, the God within.

I Had Earned The Right. . .

I had counted the steps
from my chair in the new room
to the front door.
I forget now how many,
but once I knew them by heart. . .

Like where the floor boards creaked;
where the carpet caught my heel,
crunching my slipper.
It was all real
and impinged on my mind. . .

I could bring them up,
each detail because
I knew them intimately while I
waited for your step upon the stair
to assure me I was not alone.

It was habit that drove me until
the day it was not necessary
to count the steps,
to check the door, to listen for the step
upon the stair.

I learned one day that
we are always safe and we are not alone.
Gift given but not without footwork,
not without heart work,
not without yearning. . .

I had earned the right to sleep.

February 28, 2017

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.
Tracks. . .

Tracks. . .

Check on that for me
and find out whether the tracks
are a rabbit’s tracks.
See if in the new snow
they lead under the porch.

It has been such an old house
for so long,
even I think,
when it was first built.
It has seen
with eyes blinking rapidly,
so many goings and comings.

Even with carpeted floors,
the goings and comings
are loudly announced
by creaking floors that shout,
‘I am home! I am alive! I am here!’

The aware heart needs
no tracks in new snow
to know when love marches

through an old house.

February 26, 2017

Veronica Hallissey has been writing since the 1960s, with her poetry published in a variety of small press magazines. Born into a farm family in Lockport, NY, and educated at the University of Buffalo and other midwest institutions, she brings and unusual point-of-view to her poetry, combining strong natural images with a deep spiritual language. She lives in Ramona, CA.
This Is Our Planet Earth. . . love her. . .

photo by
Joe Hallissey Jr.

February 24, 2017

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 Junk Humans. . .

We Don’t Junk Humans. . .

People will always question the validity of one’s commitments and one’s purpose. When I am questioned I can only say I see what is mine to see. Regardless though of the mental and emotional garbage one carries, there is always what someone does that has a redeeming value. We must carry this thought in our minds at all times which is why we don’t junk humans. There is always that redeeming factor.

Regardless of the excess garbage, there is that redeeming value of the commitment. Where others are concerned, there is a committed value which supersedes all else. Here is a system of values based on the individual’s worth. This worth he learns at the fireside, within the home, before he leaves the front door.

With what he learns, each generation is either saved or not. You cannot allow those to thrash in the sea of humanity neither having known love nor care. This is necessary else you have a generation hopping in and out of bed looking for the lost father or the wandering mother who could not get out of their own way to tend to those chosen.

And we do choose because of the underlying value in each of us. We wish to perfect who we are so in that honest judgment of ourselves, we choose to make good and right what we have not.

Just as in the underlying motion that keeps all planets or worlds rolling, the value beneath us all is the savory that makes the effort worthwhile. Thinking heads may call it a benign motion but my knowledge leans toward good. With gratitude I bow before the hard work of all Beings who work for the wellness of life everywhere. For starters we don’t junk humans.

The Bards of Heaven

The gods have little to do about
the graying of the land
when shells explode and matter flies.

But in the homes
of compassion where love and
thirst for learning are never quenched,
these are the places
the bards of heaven check their hearts.

Too much too soon
it seems that life presents
its problems to souls intent
on games to be played.

So sorry we are for those
whose eyes intent on
greener fields have closed.
Maybe there comes a place
yet to be born in a heart
whose motive is one of purity.

to seek a nobler frame of reference.

February 23, 2017

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.
From The Top Of My Heart. . .

(January 29, 2017 journal entry I want to share. It is only in rereading that I realize that I connect all manner of things in thought. It is the reason for my seamless existence. It all connects.)

Man cannot put in what God has left out. Joe Biden in the Clarence Thomas hearings said this one early morning. My sister was visiting and was glued to the TV set and I was knitting. It was nearing 2 a.m. What did he say? I asked. And she repeated man cannot put in what God has left out. That’s my missing link I said. That’s it. ( I have researched the maxim but never found the source other than Joe Biden.)

For no matter how hard you work and how much you love, the person has to want whatever for himself otherwise it will have no meaning. They will avoid you and your ministration because they know you want something from them but damn if they know what. If it is outside their frame of reference all your talk in the world will have no meaning. Because they will have no clue. No clue.

Why do I have such difficulty with this aspect of humanity? Because it means that the best teachers cannot do anything if the student does not yearn and learn. Not once but for all time.

Does it mean that the teacher gives up? The teacher has to exhibit and make the student want whatever he deems crucial. It puts the yearning and learning on the student. Only then will the lesson take.

Who taught me? Many teachers and they loved me enough to keep on loving and exhibiting the lesson. Because the love and trust and learning were not evident in this life when I needed them most. I remembered from other times and wanted these things for myself. How many lifetimes? A zillion or maybe one. I cannot know from the top of my heart.

I know without doubt that love is all that matters. I know without doubt that virtue is in labor. I know without doubt I bring value to my life. And unless we bring meaning to our lives and world there is none. We will sleep a long sleep and wake up when we tire of sleeping. And get on the road again.

We are in the creation business and have been since we first jumped ship and went for expression. At first we did it for sport but over time it became serious business. How serious we know now when our planet is in dire jeopardy and we chance to lose our classroom. We had better become stewards. The unborn demand this of us. Life demands accountability because the next time may require hip boots as we walk in ash.

Photo by Joe Hallissey Jr.

February 21, 2017

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.
What I See. . .

On Different Perspectives. . . .

What is so apparent to you is not apparent to the Other. To view with compassion is difficult when the vision of the Other is limited. He/she would wish another just like them. Just as you would wish to share your vision. It is a common human condition and a psychological truth. It makes good sense.

We would clone ourselves and in this way we would have the reassurance that we are just fine. The insecurity that each projects is vivid. Yet we know that if what one views is more accurate than the Other, the perspective or vision is often disparaged. If one can be patient, time will confirm what one views.

Perspectives. . .

There is a need I see and
hurry to respond to before
calamity mounts and doubles the work.

You are driven by forces
different than mine and your gaze
dismisses the need I see.

Your eyes focus instead on another sight
which my eyes fail to see;
completely outside my frame of reference.

How is it our worlds differ so much
and yet are compatible enough
not to collide?

There is much to agree on;
much that has us separated,
yet even knowing this,

doubt makes us suspicious of others.
Worlds are born and remade by those like us.
We blur our edges to mesh smoothly.

We realize too late,
that in each head there is a world afloat
hoping for life everlasting.

Wars rage and people agitate
to fight ancient battles, to quiet ancient maladies,
but we are too old now, so pray,

they do not stir the ashes to bring forth another fire.
And on this we agree;
there are no more sons and daughters to spare.

Mothers and fathers are all cried out.

photo by Jon Katz

February 19, 2017

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.