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



Union

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 state of being united or joined, often referring to the soul's mystical union with the Divine.

Detailed Definition
The ultimate goal of many mystical paths, such as Sufism (fana), Christian mysticism (unitive way), and Hinduism (yoga), is union with God or the Absolute. This is often described in metaphors of marriage, dissolution, or merging. In poetry, union is the climax of the spiritual quest, the end of all separation and longing. It is expressed through intensely personal and often erotic imagery, depicting the soul's ecstatic, ineffable merging with the Beloved, where the self is lost and only the Divine remains.
Example
Example in poetry:
In Sufi poetry, Union (wisal) is love’s goal: “Drop returns to ocean—Union, where ‘I’ dissolves”; In Christian mysticism, Union is bridal: “Soul and Christ—Union beyond metaphor”; In Buddhist verse, Union is non-dual: “No seeker, no sought—Union, just this breath”; Contemporary poets describe Union as connection: “Holding newborn—Union, time folds into now.”
Additional Notes
Union with the Divine (unio mystica) is a central goal in many mystical paths: the Sufi fana (annihilation in God), Christian bridal mysticism (e.g., Teresa of Ávila), or Hindu jnana yoga; it transcends subject-object duality and is often described in erotic or nuptial imagery; poets use metaphors of fire merging with fire, rivers entering the ocean, or lovers embracing to convey this ineffable state of oneness.
Also Known As
Mystical Union Unio Mystica Yoga (in Hindu/Buddhist contexts) Yoga Jikọrọ
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