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 H

Heyoka

Mythology
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

In Lakota tradition, a heyoka is a sacred clown or contrarian trickster who speaks and moves backward, using paradox to reveal truth.

Detailed Definition
Heyoka is a Lakota contrarian spirit or person who acts opposite to norms—riding backward, wearing winter clothes in summer—to reveal truths through absurdity. Associated with Thunder Beings, Heyoka embodies paradox and spiritual insight. In poetry, Heyoka symbolizes subversion, healing through humor, and the wisdom of inversion, often used to critique social norms and celebrate nonconformity as sacred.
Example
Example in poetry:
Heyoka, the Lakota sacred clown, dances backward through poems to reveal hidden truths; A verse shows Heyoka laughing in blizzards, teaching that joy defies circumstance; Poets use Heyoka to critique power: “He wears a mirror mask so leaders see themselves”; In healing poetry, Heyoka’s absurdity breaks grief’s paralysis; His thunderbird association makes his laughter echo with storm-wisdom.
Additional Notes
Heyoka is a Lakota sacred clown or contrarian who moves backward and speaks in paradox; Heyokas are struck by lightning and serve as truth-tellers through inversion—poets can use Heyoka to challenge norms, but must respect their spiritual initiation and avoid trivializing their role as holy fools.
Also Known As
Heyókȟa Sacred Clown
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