From an Upper Floor

A Considered Opinion

A Considered Opinion

In Maria’s blog ( my cyber friend from fullmoonfiberart.com in recapping the story of The Red Shoes, brought to mind the fact that we especially in western societies put an enormous importance on independence. Women today feel they must contribute in meaningful ways to life or to causes that usually equate to money.   What we do not consider is that in relationships, intimate or familial, there are those things done that go beyond money and if we are fair and had to buy the services from outside, the cost would be significant.

Even the mundane tasks of shopping for food, cooking the food and putting it on the table takes time and effort. If there are children involved in the relationship, time is required in raising these children and seeing to their welfare. If it means jockeying them to their various activities then the time is incalculable. Of course other activities must be taken into account; when both parties are intent on independence like who is doing the laundry and who is to see to picking up what has waited for weeks to be done. If there are elders to be considered, then of course, more services are required and more time to discern the availability of these services and who to perform them.

But on top of all this we have desires, especially since many women are professionals in the outside world.   They are educated and wish to use their education in the work of making a life while making a living. Independence? Why not consider what we each bring to the relationship without thinking what we do to ourselves by sidelining our inner desires? Because when we make commitments, one to the other, we must compromise on things we often have considered necessary. It is not easy to make these decisions because in fairness the each in an intimate relationship must be considered.

Must something die in us to enable us to live in a close relationship with another?   I think some things must be shelved for a time while we work out needs related to our commitments.   If we as it seems we do, in this western world, put a money value on our services, then when considering how much money we could bring in, we must think seriously about what we can do to prevent monies from going out of the home.

In my personal experience I saved significant amounts that did not go out in services dealing with home maintenance. I grew up with six brothers whose talents spanned construction work of every kind so I learned a lot by observation. When my first wringer washing machine ceased to function, I told my husband and he said to call a repairman. I was puzzled and asked what is a repairman? For never in my growing up years was there a repairman in our house. It was a joke told forever after to show how naïve this girl was with two in diapers and expected a husband to know how to fix a washing machine. I quickly learned who was to be in charge of maintenance and what a drain snake was.

There is value in services performed on the premises that money cannot buy; children brought up in a home where there is value placed on character, on simply being human and good and loving. A healthy home environment has inestimable value.   What is done with love in maintaining and allowing families to grow in truth cannot be matched in dollars. In a relationship that helps each to grow in splendor cannot be measured. Is it possible to live with less? Sometimes it requires two paychecks simply to put bread on the table. We did it with 3 children and one paycheck with a week to go before payday countless times.   But there was rice and a can of tomatoes and flour and some eggs and I could make drop noodles with milk. Oatmeal always was a good buy.   The boys grew to be adults and called their childhood enchanted.

Can it be done in today’s world? It is being done by many but a change in expectations is often needed. To rethink a value system is necessary. How important is the relationship to the each?   How important is the Other to me?   How important is his or her well being to my own well being? What do we have together that we would not have apart?   What do I bring to the table that has importance but no cash value; yet takes time and effort and yields happiness?

We have elevated our independence to such a supreme state that our street corners are filled with homeless children as we strive as their parents to express ourselves.   And we as adults often feel deprived when we stand with mop in hand thinking we were educated for this?   Keeping the Contagious sign off our doors is important.   And keeping our children out of jail and mental hospitals is primary.

I was told that there is time and world enough for all of us.   It is time now to enlarge our premises.   When the nudge in mind becomes a thud against our heart, it is the God Within urging us to listen.

artwork by Claudia Hallissey

July 29, 2015

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.
Come Into My Kitchen

Come Into My Kitchen

There are some people one brings into the heart of the home, the kitchen, whom one at once knows they do not belong in this room.   They are parlor people.

I invited a dear friend and her family for dinner one day. Her son in law, a large broad shouldered man walked into our home for the first time and made his way to the kitchen where I was and announced that ‘I will make the salad!’ And with no further ado he opened cupboards and refrigerator and proceeded with the task. He found everything with no instruction from me and I open mouthed wanted to take his hand and run away with him. Then and there.

Those who make no effort to become part of the home’s kitchen know intuitively that it is the heart of the home and shy away from its intimacy.   Such close quarters demand something they are not equal to. They have never known the comfort of its intimacy and must be born to it.   For some it will not be acquired in the present lifetime. They will continue to edge toward the parlor or the formal dining room where the openness of space will somehow protect them from being suffocated by the unwelcome proximity of an Other.

Those of us born to the kitchen know intuitively who belongs there with us.   And intuitively we know who are the parlor people when we open the door to them.   Graciously they follow us to the room that no one ever sits in comfortably.   They visit and leave promptly, but you.. . .

Come Into My Kitchen

Come into my kitchen
by the back door.
Only dear friends are allowed to.
Others have to earn the right
by walking through the halls
to the center,
the heart of my home.
But you can come
to the back door.

I will let you in.

photo by John Holmes

July 27, 2015

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.
Previous Harvests

Previous Harvests

Scribed on the fine parchment
of memory are the summers
of previous harvests.
Long tables are full of heaped bowls,
breads baked to a fine crust,
jellies and jams wobbly in the best dishes,
a must for the farmers;
men who had come
to levy up the huge bales of hay
or to harvest the acres of golden corn
with brown silks clinging; husks
to be decided upon.

Year after year,
orchards with apples ready to yield
their crisp skins to children
eager for their first bite
of the autumn’s first fruit.

I watch the years unfold the details
of life requiring care,
in the midst of families
sidelining their needs and interests
to the dark hours when no energy is left
to work into the night.

How hard to be human and make a life
when to make a living
takes all one has to give
and leaves one’s soul,
at times seemingly, bankrupt.

We now sit at a dinner table
and rolling like script before me
are the farmers hoping to get in
just a bit more of what they work
before weather will take away any profit.

We eat the good food from the kitchen
from the hands of ones who already
tire to support by other means
a way of life no longer sustainable.
Civilized life still depends
on the grunt work
of those who love the land;
on the hard work of hearts
whose love of family and ritual
will one day provide a strength
when strength is nowhere to be found.

This Earth classroom demands tuition
for instruction in the art of living.
And fees are incredibly high.
Life is this circle we live in
and meet end to end.
It is with sacred breath we work to keep

the circle intact.

art by Claudia Hallissey

July 23, 2015

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.
Resolution

When I talk in terms of quantum theory, of parallel worlds, or the profound effect the invisible has on the visible world, it was not going to have a name for me until this year of 2015. But a different head was mine from day one. Yet in the late 60’s when the tsunami went crashing in my skull with ocean waves, even the best doctors did not know what happened to me. I was rational and I was articulate and in the dark as the doctors were. I think now of the courage of that young Veronica who, still shaking, was asked to speak of the experience to a huge room of psychiatrists eager to ask questions.

I was still to come upon the works of Jane Roberts and probable selves, or counterparts of ourselves. It was to be my breakthrough and give me a different outlook on myself. Do we shape our future? If I expect a continuity of life, an ever striving, ever learning situation, I will experience it. My friend Dolores expected to walk into the arms of Christ and ‘abide there forever.’ I could not be happy with her philosophy or her faith, yet for her it was correct. My search has not been easy and has been emotionally devastating. Yet I don’t know how I would have coped with life.

There is a rationality and logic to life which I did not find in the orthodox church. Having mentally argued with priests and ministers as they delivered their dogmas since I was five was a tiring exercise. A lifetime of argument is too long.

Intuitively one might know a statement is correct but intellectually find it untenable. An upheaval of a major sort was the only solution. In due time what is meant for you will have to be accepted at whatever cost. Man’s evolution may be delayed but no power can stop it. The following poem was written at the time and I present it now with a fuller understanding that only time can give us.

Resolution

Where is the counterpart of me
and where did we separate?
A cave, a room, perchance eternity is ours,
from where we came
and to where we will return.

Searching, I seek, that part of me,
a faceless face, a formless form,
substance without substance.
I know not but that it is gone
but when we meet,
it will be Me.

I am come, a part of a whole,
yet wholly here.
My self knows not what love peels
to find the truth of Me.

Tempered by fire, my soul searches,
seeking within the crevices of Being,
the my of mine, the Thy of Thine.

Content no more am I with what I am,
impatient to be freed of me.
I have come into the Light
but what to do?

On the day I was one,
I became two. Now I am two.
What to do but seek and seek again

until I find I walk this Earth not godless.

artwork by Claudia Hallissey

July 20, 2015

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.
Moments

Moments

Our moments were tender,
those moments over coffee
and whatever cheese Danish
I could find. . . .

We loved those times,
free wheeling we said,
as if cares of the day
had faded from our lives. . . .

No need ever to apologize
for moments stolen
from life’s busy encounters.
They were the most important.

They cemented our past
into a foundation
our beloveds counted on
to build their futures. . .

To have run away would have
left orphans in our wake.
We laughed and reveled in the little time
as we pretended no ties other than
when we had our last coffee

and knew our let’s pretend was. . . .pretend.

Painting by Claudia Hallissey

July 19, 2015

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.
Born To See

Born To See

You ask,

how do you do it
to see what you see?

And I say,

my heart pools in my eyes
and I weep with the poignancy of love.
I see the generations who have worked
the fields and the August sweat that poured
off brows to be wiped by the long sleeves
on blue shirts. . long sleeves helped keep
the shards of thistles from piercing the skin.

And you say. . . . .

why work the sweat jobs that others can do
when you have money in the bank?

And I say. . . .

money in the bank is for the lean, cold months
when the fields do not produce.

You say. . . . .

I would find something else to do.

I say. . . . . . .

when you love the land and the peoples
who worked it before you, it is a requisite
to have that love primary.
Otherwise, you work for no thing, nothing.

Arguing, you say. . .

that old wreck of a plough needs replacing.
You need equipment and you need money.
What do you see?

I see. . . .

how wealthy I am.
The old plough sits with acres behind it;
I see bushes with thrushes, ponds with live waterfowl,
I see huge windrows of bundled hay,
and I think that feeding the peoples
is a good way to pay my way on this Earth.

You say. . . .

so you see what went before to form the picture now.

I say. . . . .

my heart sees the love that went into
the building of this dream.
And the dream puts food on the table
for the children in the final picture.

And you say. . . .

I cannot see it that way at all.

Then I conclude. . . .

perhaps we need to be born with eyes that see;
and we see what our hearts deem to be ours to see.
Perhaps you need to talk to the Potter.

photo by Kathy Qualiana

July 16, 2015

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.
An Argument

An Argument

It was an argument
persisting its stuff as
all of them do.

I say. . . .
the camera portrays
what the photographer perceives.

And he insisted. . . . .
that the camera sees
the fact in nature
and records it as such.

I say. . . .
a fact in nature changes
as the person who perceives it.

What do we do. . . .
if what we see is not
what the photographer sees?

I say. . . .
get thee to an altar and pray.
Rightly so.
Go find an altar and pray.
So that what is
perceived as beautiful,
as poignant or a crime to humanity
is what we see.

Quickly. . . .
Go find an altar to pray
for your heart is in imminent danger.

Photo by John Hallissey

July 13, 2015

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 Unfinished Work Everywhere

There Is Unfinished Work Everywhere.

There are some things I simply cannot go back to. As I read past journals, I do a lot of delving to see what I skipped over and what I did not integrate.   I then see what direction I must take.   There are some things I cannot go back to.   I cannot go back to thinking that we are not safe and I cannot go back to thinking there is no place for certain that we go to. And if there would be nothing, I would create a world to go to or a something before I would allow a nothing.   And I would find my match somewhere. Why? Simple reason.   If mushrooms come back time after time and a daffodil, why not me?   I am unfinished. I have not reached my full potential. We give a cat nine lives but expect a human to reach perfection in just one? There are many worlds in this Universe and I think that human beings are worth as many chances as necessary. Some of those chances won’t be pretty for the ne’er do well, but we are redeemable.

I was told there is unfinished work everywhere.    Some years ago when a friend and I were taking classes in Religion and sitting in the hallway waiting for the present class to disband, I looked up at the wall across the corridor and saw a painting. What I was seeing made me sick to my stomach. My friend turned to say something and asked hurriedly, are you all right, you look sick? I pointed to the painting. I have been there and I know that place, I said.   She looked and thought it plain but to me it spoke .   I have tried to show in the wall quilt what I remember.

It was a desolate landscape.   There were ice mountains in the background. There was a building, more barracks like with no thing, nothing around it.   The moon was white and things were outlined but barely so.   Sparse would be putting it gently, but desolate and bare of life would say how tragic it felt. I could not say what world. But unfinished work it is.

There comes to mind a commonly held thought that when we transit it is always to a better place. But what if it isn’t? What if we find ourselves doing the work of mules in places that need our talents in very practical ways? Would we not answer the call to help in the vineyards with things of value that moth and rust do not destroy; things of the mind?   Most people seem to think that we are at a loss as to how things happen but Jesus said, as above, so below when he stood on the rock.   Life on Earth is the reflection of Heaven and we the reflection of what we hold as truth.. Are we not all unfinished work?

There is unfinished work everywhere.   I cannot go back ever to not knowing.   There are worlds needing what we hold as valuable, what we can only take in Mind. We may look like mushrooms but our hearts are daffodils.   It is a good thing to keep in mind.

July 9, 2015

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

A Journey of Note

With these, the words of my language
and pieces of my heart, are memos of
this journey to the top of the mount.

It was not easy and I cannot say for sure
how long in years the trials have gone.
It consumed a private life as dogma
was pulled out of folds of memory,
housed by many lifetimes of discontent.

I knelt as if in prayer on the tiled floor
as the tenets from childhood into maturity
were raped by thoughts pulsing
the rotted gut of my thinking and expelled
into the enameled pot and fixtures
in the only private room in the house.

It is hard even now to bring to mind
the fears which left me cold and wet
in rising high temperatures
of the hot summers and sent me
for the flannel robe to simply wrap
a terror stricken body shaking to death.
And all the while I held posture over
the children’s growing years.
They would not know what went on
when I bid them good day as they
went out the door while I secretly wished
for any reason for one to stay home.
It would then be a blessed relief,
from an ordeal that was an imperative.

This physical portion mirrored the
mental onslaught that was unending.
Life went on as terrors surfaced
with life’s crises paralleled
in rigid profusion, family problems,
requiring parental intervention.
And in the narrows of public life
was harrowed a private one to appear
more nearly normal. I manicured lawns
and maintained the premises as
guests and families were entertained
and holy days held their accustomed
rituals and patterns. Life went on
in an orderly fashion and I found solace
in the garden on speaking terms
with my hands in the Earth.

I have been told that many
a muscled man of girth has
turned away from this journey of note,
never to give quest again
to heaven’s knowledge.
Better to leave heaven to their own secrets,
they often said, than to forever cripple
the unsuspecting journeyer.
Wrath of the gods is vengeance
upon the heads of those intent on
simply making a difference.
Life itself ventures on with wars fought
on various battlefields, as cultures
take issue with customs and verdicts,
long held to be what peoples portray as somas.

It has taken a lifetime and still in process
in this the eighth decade of my life.
I still see the first hours of the new day on my clock.
Sitting with my notes and journals and books,
as I did a half century ago, saying this was the time
when my part of the world slept. It was the speaking
time for the gods with me in class.
I see we as humans reflect our Indwelling Gods
as they be in reflection of the Great God.
And the Great God worries in Process as He grows
in wicked splendor to reflect the
ever increasing universes’ wonders. Meanwhile,
I near my journey’s end. . . . .with

the peace as said to pass understanding,
the triumph, the joy in meeting
life’s hardest work of discovering
the core of Me to know
the divine nature bestowed within.
‘Ye are gods!’ the Nazarene shouted from
the book of words pulled through my heart.
I did not know
that to search out the divinity of my God
would be to discover my own.
I would make space for the journeymen,
and lift my arms to catch them should they stumble.
The prime purpose of this, my journey,
was the paralyzing need to know
as much as I could grasp
and not be found inadequate

by those I had borne.

July 6, 2015

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.
With a Singular Voice, We Pray

With a Singular Voice, We Pray,

Grant me peace, O’ Lord God,
to this house I live in and carry
with me to the end of my days.
Let me see the beauty
in everything and everyone.
Help me to understand
what is mine and what is not.
And understand that what I consider
to be highest and best
in my heart and mind is truly so,
without meanness or bitterness.
Let my fellows know of my intent
to be kind and to give them
understanding of the highest order.
Help me to frame that what
has been a Given from a generous heart,
I give back the same.

And let this Earth know without doubt
that when word is given, we march
to what it is our hearts require.
Help us to keep our hearts ready.

Lead me gently, Spirit,
to what is mine and allow
all things that are good,
all things that are God.

Amen and amen.

July 4, 2015

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.