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 G

Gautama

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

The surname of Siddhartha Gautama, the historical Buddha, and also refers to ancient Vedic sages who transmitted spiritual knowledge.

Detailed Definition
Gautama in poetry is the quiet seeker who walked away from palace and pain to find what cannot be taught. Poets use his name to symbolize the universal journey: the turning from comfort to truth, from knowing to experiencing. He becomes the archetype of the poet-sage—whose silence speaks louder than any sermon, whose footsteps echo in every verse of awakening.
Example
Example in poetry:
A Buddhist poem: "Gautama’s footprints—/ not in stone, but in the space / between breaths"; A modern verse: "In traffic, I recall / Gautama’s walk away—/ from palace to truth"; A haiku: "Bodhi tree shade—/ Gautama’s silence speaks / louder than sermons"; Another: "Gautama didn’t seek God—/ he sought the end / of seeking"; A devotional lyric: "His empty bowl—Gautama’s / greatest teaching: / enough is abundance"; A minimalist verse: "No god. No ritual. / Gautama: truth / through experience."
Additional Notes
Gautama as Buddha’s surname links him to ancient rishis; in poetry, his lineage connects enlightenment to Vedic wisdom, not rebellion—this contextualizes his teachings as evolution, not rupture, making Buddhist verse resonate with Upanishadic themes, essential for understanding continuity in Indian spiritual literature across traditions.
Also Known As
Siddhartha Gautama Buddha Shakyamuni Siddhartha
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