Happy Heavenly Oasis has a vision: she would love for everyone to be happy. Really happy. Blissed-out kind of happy. She founded Blissology University, where “budding Blissologists” can learn the secrets to inner joy. To that end, she has written two books, Bliss Conscious Communication, which is guaranteed to raise your “conversational kundalini,” and uncivilized ecstasies, featuring poems celebrating the joys of living outside civilization — namely, life, nature, inner peace and, of course, bliss.
Happyo (her nickname) lives part of the year in her self-designed haven and wildlife sanctuary, “Prescott’s Paradise in the Granite Dells,” Heaven on Earth Retreat, a popular staycation and getaway that draws guests from around the world. The rest of the year Happy and Free, her beloved, explore the planet. She describes herself as an “ecstatic nomad, an adventure anthropologist, succulent strategist, ethical adviser, environmental advocate, wilderness guide, community-solutions leader, eco-entrepreneur, songwriter, performer, volunteer, naturalist, health and happiness consultant, and poet.”
For Happyo, poetry is a “hiking trail to enlightenment” that started early in life. “At age twelve I began immersing in a multitude of meditation techniques while also studying oriental philosophy. Later, I delved deeply when abiding for years at dozens of ashrams in India and monasteries in Thailand. Consequently the ecstasy of ethics, everyday mysticism, and living awareness of the invisible world ceaselessly vibrating all around and inside us flow through the poetry too.”
Happyo feels that poetry allows us to tap into a childlike innocence. “Poetry is a return to play. When was the last time you danced in the rain or simply rolled on a lawn or did something truly hugely daring? Playful, pure-hearted poetry invites us to return to our inner knowing. It allows us to see the world with fresh eyes, to evoke the bliss body, Walt Whitman’s ‘body electric,’ the exhilaration of being alive!”
She compiled the poems in uncivilized ecstasies over a number of years, living and backpacking internationally. The book is self-published, which Happyo considers “a poetic act in itself that offers any poetical artist the ultimate freedom to not only express most exquisitely and truthfully, but also to be innovative with other artistic aspects, from photos to fonts, art to binding, and all the other delicious details of creating one’s own book.”
Things weren’t always so blissful for Happyo. As a young adult she survived several armed conflicts overseas and lived through the worst of the famine in Bangladesh. But her joyful nature and research into happiness reached new heights during her anthropological adventures. She was “adopted by seven tribal families, in seven remote, off-the-grid locations in seven countries over seven years,” where she learned these tribes’ joyful ways of being in the wilderness.
In memory of a close friend in high school who tragically suicided after years of writing negative poetry, Happyo made a commitment to create poetry that enhances gratitude and inspires uplifting reflections. “Poetry can arouse wonder and delight while activating the miraculous. Most of all, poetry is a profound portal to meditation, contemplation, humor, beauty, silence, celebration, serenity, epiphanies and spiritual realization.”
The untitled poems here carry insight into Happyo’s frame of mind during her adventures. The first offers “precious glimpses into India back in the 1980s. I loved being a trekking guide, grateful beyond measure to lead long-distance intercultural backpacking adventures in the Himalayas for decades with wandering monks, sadhu and local alpinists.” The next poem was written in an historic lookout cabin on a rocky summit. “I treasured four blissful summers serving as the resident Hyde Peak fire lookout for Prescott National Forest while breathing in the vastly beautiful, panoramic silence.”
Happyo hopes her poems will touch others far into the future. “Our poetry best be perennial and true so that some poetic soul can read it a thousand years from now, laughing with the humor, wondering aloud, and personally relating in deeply heartfelt ways.”
But for now she encourages others to participate fully in artistic expression. “Let’s activate the miraculous as we Bliss Forth with Love.”
More at happyoasis.com.
god comes to me in taxi stands
in the smile of a child with outstretched hands
she toils with shyness, her eyes avert
then dares “namaste gi” wringing her skirt
through the eyes of a child hush treasures untold
in this girl’s soft glance, it’s god i behold
god comes to me in a persimmon tree
where old crow cackles and caws
i cackle back to this black-feathered jack
to whose song i render applause
god comes to me in a ridgetop hut
high home to gaddhi shepherds and sheep
glad slapping hands in chapatti lands
with chai, song, then fireside sleep
god comes to me in glacial peaks*
like sets of teeth against the sky
in the rose of dawn my heart is born
om nama shivay
*of the Himalaya
i long to be with you at dawn
as our ears first awaken
to silver raindrops singing
upon the roof
to the chubby kettle humming
breathfully then
clearing its voice in a
high-pitched triumphant operetta
to the cactus wrens
flitting excitedly
among dewy junipers
i long to be with you
as our eyes softly open
to sunlight beaming
through cherubic clouds
splashing our lashes
twinkling grinning gathering
love
i long to be with you
morning after morning
Dee Cohen is a Prescott poet and photographer. deecohen@cox.net.
