Saturday, March 31, 2012

Mystica Lodge — Renewal of Soles


It was a place
for the renewing of my soles
where all the textures offered
to bare feet
nourished them
sent them remembering
their primal, holy walk
over the land,
the way they are receptors
of earth’s essential messages
They reveled in the contact
They tingled
with the joy of connection
They sent
reports of soundness
bounding up into my soul
Soul and soles rejoiced together
feeling whole.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 31, 2012



Friday, March 30, 2012

One Tribe


We are all one tribe
Anything that says otherwise
is the old story
that we have been told
that we have believed
that we have enacted
But never
has it been true
And the dawning
of that realization
moment by moment
like sheaths slowly dropping
from flowers emerging
Will bring all the brightness forth
Colors and fragrance
and fresh interaction
Bountiful blooming
of deep satisfaction
What we have longed for
not knowing it’s possible
One tribe uniting —
Reunion of song.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 30, 2012





Wishing


The power of a simple wish
If left in peace to germinate
Will gather secret energies
Push through the surface
And create
As perfect as a tender leaf emerging
The image that impelled the wish’s urging

You wished for home —
That place we all desire —
Not that we travel all those miles and hours
But that right here, with no need to acquire
You feel home’s deep rejuvenating power

And so it was, a few turns down the road
A sign we followed, mostly just to see
Where every token that, for you, said home
Was waiting there in breathless harmony

And not that place alone, but others since:
Each time we let the wish unfold in peace,
It shows its graceful power to evince
surprising bounty
in the meeting of our needs
Such gifts await us!
Such satisfaction we may know
By cherishing the wish
Then letting go.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 30, 2012

(background music:  Isaac Shepard, "Let Me Sleep")



Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Wedding Poem II


This was my first attempt at a wedding poem for Casey and David.  She felt it was a bit too complicated for people to get in one oral reading, which was why I wrote the one that I posted on March 23rd (and read at their wedding.)  Sharing the first one just as a point of interest . . .

For Casey and David

In this land of your shared story
You live
like two trees
Your roots have found each other underground
And through their paths of growth
have intertwined
and clasped each other tightly in support
and travel now together, where they find
the sustenance of secret aquifers

The rising surge of life propels you upwards
To stretch your branches splendid in the sun
And there you dance —
The lyrics of your blended song
reflect the ancient rhythms
You each learned when you were seeds
and the shared harmonics
of the present breeze

So will you meet each sun-filled hour
each wind-sent storm, each drenching shower
in graceful strength, in steady power
And grounded there, your souls will soar
as you embrace your precious destiny:
enduring growth in sacred unity.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 17, 2012





Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Love and Magic: Three Enchantments


 I.
When people love
they make magic
Everything living responds to it
Land rises up at its touch
Joyfully bends as it bends them
Brings forth a beauty
that calls forth their love again
making both ever more rich.

II.
In the dance of love
The will does not reside in either entity
It hovers in that charged and potent
mystic space between them
When they move to follow it
it’s nothing like
the simple, hollow closure
that comes from exercising one’s own will
It’s an exhilaration
and it brings a jubilation
and a satisfaction nothing else can fill.

III.
Magic is real
It is the dance of love
Everyone who loves creates it
sparkling in everything they touch
Others, when they see it, know it
Even if it’s nothing they can name
That which has been loved
will lift them
Bless them so they’ll never be the same. 

©Wendy Mulhern
March 27, 2012


(background music: Isaac Shepard, "Into Spring")



Monday, March 26, 2012

Another Lullaby


Time for another lullaby
One that melts us all into a deep dream
Where all the words that missed,
intentions misinterpreted,
impressions gone awry —
can there dissolve, be fully washed away
And everyone who felt entangled
in the things about themselves
they wish were changed
can move out free
Their only impetus their deepest essence
and the pure desires
that guide their shining

In the morning, may the dream remain
Establishing the pattern for a fresh start
Where nothing blocks the good we may attain
And where our actions fully show
what’s in our hearts.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 26, 2012



Sunday, March 25, 2012

Languages



Perhaps the language of words
is overrated
There’s really only so much words can do
You can use words all day
and not be satiated
Words can leave you worse than empty, too

There are some other languages that can’t lie:
What’s said with touch,
with movements synchronized
with laughter, gesture, easy time together
and signals sent across from eye to eye

consider what we can communicate:
the hum of home, the grace of shared space
the heart’s current, and its precious weight
the way our love so naturally reciprocates

Words may frame thoughts
but still be thin
It takes the other languages
to fill them in.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 25, 2012


Saturday, March 24, 2012

The Currency of Hearts



for Leo and Magda

For those who understand
the currency of hearts
nothing else is needed
though many things can be used
A smile, a hug, an offering of food
A sympathetic tear, consoling words

The currency of hearts
affords a richness
you can’t accrue in any other way
It multiplies its treasure instantly
Fills souls with joy as sun fills up the day

It doesn’t matter what you have
How large your gift, how polished you appear
It’s not the gift that makes you rich
But that you honored
your own heart’s desire
to share.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 24, 2012


(background music: Isaac Shepard, "Triumph of Love")





Friday, March 23, 2012

Wedding Poem

For Casey and David
March 24, 2012

Two trees
Stand side by side
Each one has grown according to its species —
followed the demands of its own essence —
Yet over time the trees have grown together
Their branches making room for one another

And underneath the ground
Their roots are intertwined
So they support each other
and they find
a common sustenance within the deep ground
and shared appreciation for the rich land

You two are like those trees
You blend your sweet graces
You draw a common sustenance
from deep places
and send your leafy blessings towards the sun
You revel in life’s breeze
and sway as one

And may your lives, like trees
be rich and strong
And may your branches join the wind in song
May you enjoy companionship together
and shelter all the places you belong.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 17, 2012



Thursday, March 22, 2012

Time In


Let me give you a “time in” —
A time of contact,
of enough cuddle
to be an answer to your lost cries

A time in
Like time before time
when everyone knew
what to do about cries
that cry meant cuddle me
Bring me in
Let me know home

Oh yes
Now is the time
for time in
for everyone:
The hothead
The curmudgeon
The one who cringes inside his shell
darting in alarm at each approach
The one who sits alone
The one who sits with all her so-called friends
hiding isolation under loud words
The ones who make their dogged resolutions
with no idea what would earn the in ticket
The ones who hide their keening under sharp motion
The ones who try all day but can’t fix it

Oh World!
Let us give each other time in
Let us come home to connection
until we have the circuits to unite
in tender understanding and affection.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 22, 2012


Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Basic Needs - A Checklist


For someone to find you magnificent
in the peculiar, unvaunted ways you are yourself;
For you to feel the same about another;
To freely give the world that whole magnificence
in ways that make it multiply;
For your magnificence to blend with that of others
creating one grand splendid harmony
a seamless shining fabric made of life;
A center still point and a way to get there;
A way to see grace, and the habit of noticing.

If we commit to meeting basic needs
What greatness we shall know!  What joy,
What peace!

©Wendy Mulhern
March 20, 2012


Monday, March 19, 2012

Monday, downtown


Monday Downtown (background music: Isaac Shepard "Before Dawn")


Oh, humanity!
Working at your tired charades
Moving through so many empty boxes
Desiccated corridors
Courses without meaning

Look how amazing you are!
Look how, even when the rules are cast
to close out any purpose, light or joy
You still find ways to shine:
Within this skewed account of life
your light slips through the chinks
and though at times refracted
blazes forth
Makes us maybe take a while to notice
all the places where it is suppressed
Just think: if we were free
what brilliance we would show

It is our destiny
We will prevail
We will shine clear
We’ll banish all the false demands
The failed array of hoops, constrictive bands
Deny the faulty purposes
that disappointed us
Swing free
on the strength of our unstoppable
creative rush!

©Wendy Mulhern
March 19, 2012


Sunday, March 18, 2012

Lullaby for Heather




Mother Love, wrap up your child
in comprehensive arms
Broad enough to hold her every hope
Soft enough to nurture all her charms
Close enough to smooth her brow
and rest her eyes
Strong enough to bear her 
swiftly through the dreaming skies
Synchronize her heart with yours
Refresh her with your peace
Deliver her with clarity
and new found ease
Mother Love, infuse her with
your bright delight
and bold and brilliant action
in the morning light.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 18, 2012

(background music: Max Richter, "Fragment")

Saturday, March 17, 2012

A Wee Bit O' Green


Almost spring
Almost Irish
Altogether blessed
By seeing for a moment
that all inclusive motion
River of the whole bright universe
Carrying us all 
in its ecstatic fall of joy
Everything suspended in its current

Flowing with it, we don’t sense its speed
Or how its ever-presence meets our need
Yet if our ears once notice its resounding rush
Or if our skin once feels its equipollent push
How can we help but feel transported, lifted
And in the miracle of life, supremely gifted

Almost spring
Almost Irish
In the rare, transcendent view
that senses nature’s ancient blessings
ever new.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 17, 2012


Thursday, March 15, 2012

City of Illusion


I realize it’s been a while
that I’ve been walking through a mist
thick with projected images
nothing I can touch
I walk right through them
What I reach to grasp
stays where it is, my hand closes
on empty space, my own fingers—
nothing more.  And yet my feet
find purchase, there is gravity
I can close my eyes and move my feet
and tell by touch and weight
what’s here that’s real
And I can sink into the solidness
of that which satisfies
and by persistent practice
retrain my eyes
and find a way to make my vision clear —
to focus on the things that really are.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 15, 2012


Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Waking up is hard to do


Waking up is hard to do
Not only in the so-called morning
in the shuffle of avoiding
the pre-dawn alarm

Breaking an illusion takes
intensity of focus
and a steady concentration
and a willingness to shift
and notice:

What I thought was solid ground
is not
And where I thought I stood
I really wasn’t
And all that I was sure was real
All that I’d strung my hopes across
has never been what held me up at all


What I am, and what I’m standing on
is something else.  It has a different gravity
It follows different laws.
The brightness of awakeness overcomes the force
of every predetermined lockstep course
and every limitation we surmise
that drains the light and laughter from our eyes

Standing up for light
may be a struggle
Waking up is hard to do
but worth the trouble.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 14, 2012


Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Summons


My touch reached you
Between worlds, you told me —
You felt me there as soft cirrus
Searching wisps that drifted
Through the doors of consciousness
Changing as they went
My fingers were, perhaps, songs
Planes of my skin
A blend of shifting colors
Pulsing through your light, transcendent form
I, awake in this world
Waited solid
My slow stroke 
Inviting your return.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 13, 2012


Monday, March 12, 2012

The family of plants


I’m not so far
From the family of plants 
I know about roots and shoots—
The steady subterranean seeking for sustenance
Something to hold onto
Something to stretch into
Branching out pathways of deft exploration
Anchoring me in my knowing . . .

Intrepid shoots pushing out against gravity
Greening out leafily into the light
Finding my being by how I am growing
Moving in dazed phototropic delight
Life has its signature
Written in each of us
Everything living can read it
Everything living has tendrils that reach us
Everything living is needed.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 12, 2012



Sunday, March 11, 2012

All I want


(background music Isaac Shepard "All Smiles")


All I want
is everything —
It’s not too much to ask
All I want is oneness
To soar in tune
in the surging seething symphony
of being
To be the roaring pounding flow
of all things living
To have my own song
constantly meet its harmony
My rhythm locked ecstatically
in polyrhythmic counterpoint
My down-bounce catapulting
someone else’s flight
All I want
in this moment
is the bright contact
that multiplies light
That pulses back the richest chord
and wraps us
in its sacred ring of sound.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 11, 2012



Saturday, March 10, 2012

Cats' Eyes


I, too, have been entranced
by cats’ eyes
Limpid pools compelling entrance
Slow blink confirming contact
Sharing the acknowledgement of secrets
Ancient as the lore of cats
Silent as unfathomed depth
Hinted by the stillness
Or the slow wave of a tail

The cat’s eyes told me:
We, too
can fall totally
unhesitating, unrestrained
In spite of all our surface cat constraints
Into the wide secret
of love.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 10, 2012



Friday, March 9, 2012

Being One






Together we are
so much older
than how we think of you and I
It’s said our DNA is from the stuff of stars
concocted in their furnace
in the ancient skies

The blood we share
knows that it’s one ocean
It doesn’t feel the boundaries between
It pulses through us in a steady motion
Reveals that we are what we’ve always been

Though atomized for now
we are one body
We long for nothing more than going home
to where we feel the fall of every heartbeat
Each keeping our own rhythm
though we breathe as one
To move as one fulfills us primally
Our wave reverberating to eternity.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 9, 2012


(background music: Max Richter "Interior Horses")