A quiet notice V2Melody closes at midnight on , Spanish time.

Closes

A note from Richard

V2Melody will close at midnight on 20 January 2028

This site has been a retirement project in musical poetry: poems chosen with care and set to music, offered freely for as long as it felt right to keep the garden open.

The work no longer holds the place it once did in my life. I have gone as far with it as I wish to go. Like a sand mandala, it was made to be completed and then released. I am not attached to its permanence, and I do not believe any of it needs to last beyond the time it was given. The poems were already here before I arrived and began to experiment with them. They will still be here when these musical experiments, and indeed myself, have been swept away, like the sand of a mandala. Nothing has been lost.

I want a simpler end to my life, days of simple love and enjoyment with my wonderful wife of 20 years. The work of maintaining a server, the monitoring, and the residual obligations that come with keeping a site alive no longer fit that life.

From 4 November 2026 I will not be adding new poems or musical poems to the site.

The experimental music I am making now is on my Suno profile. Those pieces stay there, and are not added to this site.

Until midnight on 20 January 2028, Spanish time, everything remains available exactly as it is. That is when my VPS server contract comes to an end, and it will not be renewed. After that, the server will be switched off and the site will disappear.

The Mandala Is Finished explains this more fully.

Thank you to anyone who found a poem, a track, or a quiet moment here.

The pleasure was in the making.

Richard

Home › Glossary › Letter A

Arcanum

World Religion
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A profound secret or mystery; in esoteric traditions, it refers to hidden knowledge known only to the initiated.

Detailed Definition
Derived from the Latin for "secret," arcanum in religious contexts points to the mysteries of faith or the inner teachings of esoteric schools like Gnosticism or Alchemy. In poetry, the arcanum represents the elusive, hidden truth that the seeker or the poet strives to unveil. It is the subject of the quest, the knowledge that promises transformation or liberation. The poet's work becomes an act of revelation, using symbol, allegory, and metaphor to hint at the arcanum without fully disclosing it, preserving its mystical power.
Example
Example in poetry:
In Hermetic poetry, arcanum signifies hidden spiritual truths: “The arcanum lies not in the book, but in the hand that turns its pages”; Yeats’s “A Vision” treats the arcanum as a coded map of the soul’s journey; In alchemical verse, the arcanum is the secret of transformation known only to initiates; Modern poets use arcanum to describe love’s mysteries: “Your silence held the arcanum—no key, only surrender.”
Additional Notes
“Arcanum” derives from Latin for “secret” and appears in Hermeticism, alchemy, and Kabbalah to denote esoteric truths accessible only through initiation; in poetry, the arcanum often represents hidden wisdom, the poet as seer, or the sacred mystery at the heart of existence—inviting readers into a participatory decoding of symbolic language and layered meaning.
Also Known As
Secret Mystery Arcana
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