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 Y

Yidam

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 personal meditation deity in Vajrayana Buddhism, embodying specific enlightened qualities to be realized by the practitioner.

Detailed Definition
Yidams are not external gods but manifestations of one’s own Buddha-nature. In poetry, they appear in vivid forms—peaceful or wrathful—dancing in mandalas of light. Poets describe yidam practice as a sacred dialogue, where devotion and visualization awaken innate wisdom and compassion.
Example
Example in poetry:
Tibetan Buddhist poetry invokes "my yidam Tara, the meditation deity who guards my practice"; A poet describes visualization as "summoning the yidam's form until the boundary blurs between us"; In tantric-inspired verse, "the yidam is not separate god but my own buddha nature reflected"; Contemporary Buddhist poetry uses "the yidam as inner teacher, fierce compassion in deity form"; A meditation poem explores "dissolving into the yidam at practice's end, form returning to emptiness"; Traditional vajrayana poetry depicts "the lama bestowed the yidam initiation, opening the door to secret practice"
Additional Notes
A Yidam (Sanskrit: Ishtadevata) is a key element in Vajrayana Buddhist practice. It is a meditation deity—such as Tara, Avalokiteshvara, or a fierce deity like Vajrakilaya—that embodies specific enlightened qualities (e.g., compassion, wisdom, power). The practitioner visualizes themselves as the Yidam through deity yoga, not to worship an external god but to realize their own inherent Buddha-nature. For poets, the Yidam is a profound symbol of the archetypal self, the use of imagination for spiritual transformation, and the concept that enlightenment is accessed through specific, personified qualities.
Also Known As
Ishta-devata Tutelary Deity
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