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



Journey

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 metaphor for the spiritual life, involving progress, pilgrimage, seeking, and transformation from a state of ignorance to one of enlightenment or salvation.

Detailed Definition
The spiritual journey is the master narrative of religious literature. From the Pilgrim's Progress to the Sufi path, the soul is a traveler moving through stages of purification, illumination, and union. In poetry, the journey provides structure, drama, and a sense of direction. The road, the obstacles, the guides, and the destination are all rich sources of symbolism. The poem itself can be a map of the journey or a record of the sights and insights gained along the way.
Example
Example in poetry:
In Sufi poetry, the Journey is toward the Beloved: “Caravan of longing—Journey has no map, only heart”; In Dante’s “Divine Comedy,” Journey moves from Hell to Heaven; In Buddhist verse, Journey is the Eightfold Path: “One step at a time—Journey ends where it began”; Contemporary poets frame Journey as healing: “My therapy—Journey through shadows to self.”
Additional Notes
The spiritual journey appears as pilgrimage (Hajj, Camino), quest (Dante, Bunyan), or inward path (Rumi’s “you are not a drop in the ocean…”); it structures narrative and lyric alike; poets use road, river, or ladder imagery to map transformation, emphasizing process over destination and companionship over solitude.
Also Known As
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