Monday, April 30, 2012

Bedtime Prayer




One last cocooning prayer
before I sleep
One last tuning 
with that which keeps me
One last recall 
of what prevents my fall
The tender cradle
that enwraps us all

The cozy blankets
and the horizontal plane
won’t, on their own
assure my peace
but my true thanks
and prayer with soft refrain
will bring me home
and set my soul at ease.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 30, 2012

(Background music: Isaac Shepard, "Slow Down")

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Infinite Comfort




What rescues you
when you are smothered under
the sense of being thought of as a number? —
the numbing nothingness of being counted,
accounted for, 
packaged and dispatched, 
your measure taken,
assessed, dismissed
and so forsaken?

Any act of life can rescue you
and anyone or any living thing can do it
The scent of petals, kissed by warming wind
A smile unweighed, uncalculated, treasured
Or seeing someone needs you as a friend
A gift of time untallied and unmeasured
Whatever focuses on what is infinite
will make a place for you
and bring you into it.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 29, 2012


(background music: Isaac Shepard "A Fond Farewell")

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Watching the Competition


At a certain point I notice
Being nervous for another
does no good
and the tight way I’ve been breathing
with my breath held at half way
I must replace
must finish my inhale, then let it out
For no matter how I hold myself suspended
I’m still here
with all my weight
Any eggshells I’ve been sitting on
are roundly crushed
so I might as well relax

I know I’m called upon for something higher
I know it’s right for me
to hold a space
but not this one
I need an open place
within my consciousness
A soft, pervading peace
that holds no nervousness
that lets the grace
that always waits to flourish
open out, flow in
in healing waves with which I can take part
and so restore the rhythm 
of my heart.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 28, 2012



Thursday, April 26, 2012

All I have


All I have
to give this love with
are my hands
my hands and my spirit
and my strong desire
How could I have thought
to leave them out
to give love telekinetically?
How was I not taught
to use everything I have
all of my consciousness
including my body
to tune and give this love?
Generations of us
grew up lost
but here it is:
my hands, my arms, my heart —
all I have —
Now I am learning to use, 
to give and receive this love,
all that I have
all that I am.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 26, 2012







Wednesday, April 25, 2012

a humble prayer
















today
let me own no opinion
let me be led
let me not try
to construct meaning,
envision purpose,
steer my craft
there is plenty here
in this receptive place
enough to do
in learning, listening, following
that I don’t need
to pull a plan from the air
don’t need to
invent or vaunt myself
it’s enough
to be here.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 25, 2012






Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Love’s Quest (graphically speaking)


Funny the asymptotic arc
of what we call love’s quest
In one quadrant
(the one that’s called the quest for love)
We find the emptiness that never is fulfilled
the need that cries and cries
and so attracts
only more emptiness
a howling fall
that moans and moans
up an endless shaft
and even when it tries to rise
it never meets its goal

In another quadrant
(the one that’s called the quest of love)
We find the fullness that can never be suppressed
extending gracefully and effortless
an energy that never is depressed
a presence that can never be alone
since everywhere it looks
it finds its own.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 24, 2012



Sunday, April 22, 2012

Sounded Through


A flute, after the song is done
Still holds the silver echo in its shaft
The soft sweet stirrings of vibrations
In all the places where it crooned and laughed

It’s said that flutes, with age,
grow richer —
the frequencies of former songs
all etched along their smooth interiors
which, with each touch,
arise more keenly, newly strong

Love is the same — it plays you like a flute:
Each song in which you let yourself be played
will make your singing richer, deep
The joy with which you then reverberate
will be a quality you’ll always keep
that sings you ever closer to your truth.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 22, 2012




Saturday, April 21, 2012

In tune


To be in tune
is such a natural thing
though unacknowledged
in our benighted sphere
A thing that babies know at birth
and try with some success at first
to teach their parents

Why do we then fall into such confusion
Thinking that we’re born without a clue
and must be plied with tedious instruction
before there’s anything we know that we can do?

It opens up a yawning gap
that stretches over many weary, lonely years
of seeking satisfaction in the proffered tasks
expected failure deepening our fears
When what we really wanted
is so close to us, so simple
To listen once again to infant wisdom
To find the ancient science of connection
Ride on the waves 
that make us move as one.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 21, 2012



Friday, April 20, 2012

Thought Channels


Thought’s landscape — how it changes
         how the current rearranges
                 deepens here, deposits there
                      accenting flows, directing rivulets
Thought follows patterns
        in its swift recursions
                 pushing at the rock
                    wearing deeper channels
           As it flows swifter
                it may push
                   over formerly dry edges
                     trip itself, dislodging stones
             fall into a new course
which then in mounting rushes
      it can follow
            And the force of it
                    occasions new attention
                                And the joy of it
                                    invokes a new dimension
                              And the pulse of it
               thunders the perfection
of another way to think and feel
          another thing
                    now known as real.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 20, 2012

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Legacy


for me and you, and for our parents

You don’t need to be sorry
about your legacy
You needn’t doubt
the impartation of your gifts
These things have never stood
on your performance, your success or failure

Sure as the stars
The light of your being
has sent its beams
and the continuity
of your essence
still streams
steadfast across light years
timeless and unchanged

Whatever gifts you tried to package
Tried, with fumbling hands
to deliver to your children
Whatever they have said
or misconstrued
or failed to see
Your light has always shone on, true

And always shone, as pure
in their bright being
Nothing you have done
could dim it
Nothing you didn’t do
could ever let it fail

It’s what you are
that blesses them
that always has —
Not something you determined —
Something that was given you
before the world began
as it was given them
Rest easy 
for your love
has ever been enough.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 19, 2012



Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Soul holding























And when he leaves his home each day
Embarks upon his sea of consciousness
Alone along the arc he travels
through crowds and conversations, correspondences
Who holds him, stands beside him, with him, guards him?

And when she hugs her cat
and leaves for work
in shoes she chose to play the part
along the corridor down which she walks
so far from any touch or recognition
Who holds her? In whose heart resides her image?
Who keeps a constant cord of close connection
belays her, holds the strong affection
to draw her home, remind her who she is?

How is it that we spend
the vast part of our day alone
tossed in the waves of our perceptions?
So dear it is to hold in thought the anchor
of someone who is holding us within

Then, friends, let us each lift up a soul
For something so intense
it is astonishing
how light they are
And that’s because they’re held already
Glistening as strings on Spirit’s harp
Suspended intricate and steady
Still grateful for our touch
that wakes them up.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 18, 2012



Picture: Jennifer McCurdy, Gilded Wind Nest. Photo by Gary Mirando.  Background music: Max Richter "Andras"

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Lullaby for Edward


Spirit current, take this man
Move as him in light and sound
Bear him on a journey of remembering

Fill the hollow of his soul
Let him know himself as whole
Coursing joy and steady strength engendering

All that he has been since long before the dawn of time
Let it flow through him in a reverberating chime
Bring him through the shadow of these weary days
Fill his heart with laughter and his lips with praise
Let him fly in surety that everywhere he’s roamed
He’s always been in your embrace
And so forever home.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 17, 2012



Monday, April 16, 2012

Touch Hunger


Now that I know about my own touch hunger
I see touch hunger everywhere I look
Faces longing to be stroked
Bodies leaning out toward one another
The boy whose agitated energy
moved him in an oscillating “8”
Just like my daughter moved
when she was small and needed to be held

We live in an emaciated state
Not knowing what we crave, how to relate
Our bodies stick-like, prickly, stiff
from starving for our basic daily touch

Caged off by fears, by norms, by talk of sin
We need to open gates, and so begin
to feed each other’s hunger
so we can
fill up our souls, and so be whole again.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 16, 2012



Sunday, April 15, 2012

The calculus of need


In the old assessment
To speak of need is to confess a lack
Admitting need is weakness
And to ask for what you need
entails a sacrifice
of dignity, of power, of position —
a painful act of desperate submission

In another way of seeing
Needing is the interlock of love —
The contact that inspires our hearts
to gratitude
I need you as I need the air I breathe
Not contemplating lack
but just acknowledging
how sweetly and how deeply we’re connected
Not bound, but bonded —
in our unity perfected

Performing once again
the calculus of need
where we consider what to claim
what to concede
To leave the old assessment for the new will be
the algorithm that will set us free.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 15, 2012



Saturday, April 14, 2012

Plea for a new economy


All the well-paved roads
just lead to wasteland —
The greatest mecca now the shopping mall
where everything is so meticulously placed
and if they could
they would commodify the soul
Refract it into little mirrored packages
so it can make the stuff they sell attractive
tell us if we want some soul
we have to buy it
and to buy it, first we have to sell it
Many are the nets of thought to have us so believe
So deceived, we’re bought and sold
and so enslaved

But let us move into the clarity of day
And see that in reality
there is no “they”
And if we see the roads are broad and yet
their promises are hollow
and just because they have bright signs
we’re not compelled to follow
We may envision some more perfect way

A modest road, that winds beside a river
where folks on bicycles and feet could wander
A common square where people daily gather
for music, song and dance, discussion, laughter
Where there’s no price or prison for the soul
And in our giving and receiving 
we are whole.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 14, 2012


Friday, April 13, 2012

Mid-Spring, 6:10 AM


After I waved good bye
The sweet half moon
Still glowed
Above a soft pink cloud
Still dark
In pre-dawn’s hush.

A little later
The robin started.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 13, 2012


Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Whether or not you already know:


I love you.
These are powerful words
Not to be said lightly
They have consequences

The man I spoke with yesterday said
People have no idea what love is
They have no point of reference
They say “I love you, I love you,”
But they just want
To be nurtured, to be supported, to be accepted
They will leave when their need changes.

I know what love is
And I love you
I’m not saying it lightly
These words have consequences
And I know what they are

I hold you in my heart
Yes, I nurture you
Yes, I support you
Yes, I accept you
And I welcome your infinity.

I love you, and so
I willingly enter
The space where our boundaries dissolve
And we float, weightless and unformed
So at the impulse from the infinite
We can respond as one.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 11, 2012



Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Sacred Unfolding


Around a seed of thought
Substance gathers
The infant leaf
Forms itself 
From nothing
And the essence of everything —
Water from the network of the soil
Last year’s sun released from secret storage
Love that calls them to the service
Of the timeless pattern

It forms itself
Pleated, furled, or crumpled
In its tiny space
Its weightless impulse summons energy
More than it can hold within its sphere
So it expands
Unfolds, unfurls, stretches out
To raise its tender head
And join the dance of spring.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 10, 2012



Monday, April 9, 2012

The Dawn of Spring


The trees arose before the dawn of spring
The running of their sap waking them up
Pulsing invisible and potent
Underneath their bark
Inciting buds to swell

And now their scent
Sent delicate through branch and blossom
Has touched the air with some delicious summons
To wake me up
The way the sap aroused the trees
Aliveness pumping through my piqued awareness

Ah Spring!  Such gratitude you raise
As you invoke this nameless joy
That fills my days.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 9, 2012



Sunday, April 8, 2012

Holding light, holding tight

My halo clasp
tender circle ‘round your aura
invokes my care
my longing to protect you
hold you dear
make you know how deeply
you are loved

My tight grasp
invokes my infant instinct
to hold on, hold on tight
to feel your care
to be loved
to trust that you are there
I hold on never wanting to let go
as if I’ll never get enough
I need it so

Your tight grasp
invokes my mother-love
makes me want to hold you up forever
Your light clasp
gives me buoyancy and wings
and sweet permission
to fill myself with light
and let my heart pursue its mission.
Light and tight, each in its proper hour
Each hold has its purpose and its power.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 8, 2012





Saturday, April 7, 2012

Breathwork


My breath came in and in
Like beach waves into tide pools
Flowing over rocks and into cavities
Rush of filling up the waiting places
Then
Like beach waves
It receded
Out and out, draining every crevice
Pulling seaweed back
Exposing mussels
Washing nutrients across
the tiny mouths
Again, and still again
And I remembered
Yes, we live in breathing
As with breath
So must it be
with everything I am
No isolation and no static being
To be alive, I need to flow
in constant interaction
In venture and return, interdependent
My life sustained by everyone I know.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 7, 2012



Friday, April 6, 2012

In this house of prayer




In this house of prayer
that is me —
everything I am —
With daily intermittent bursts
I find
the freedom from all other law

No weight of history
no drag of social norms
no march of time
no fear, no fading sense
no falling off of purpose
no decay
can touch the being
I am learning here

Surrendered to the dawn of the divine
my every move impelled
by that which constantly
surprises me
I find its grace, its elegance
so intricate, so fine
unfolds my joy to feel
the Soul-force that comprises me

In this house of prayer
I learn to move in love
to see that this is what I am
and all I live to prove.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 5, 2012


(background music: Isaac Shepard, "Fleeting Moments")

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Parallel Paths


(to my friends)

What if we’re walking
on parallel paths of discovery?
Each in our different spheres
with our different lessons?
So when we hold them up 
for one another to see
The windows of insight 
line up miraculously

Then, though our walking 
may be overwhelmingly solo
with times where it feels
there is no one we ever could talk to
It might give us comfort 
amid our own darkness to know
We’ll have plenty in common 
when next we converge in our walking

Light matches light
Light in its buoyancy rises
Beacons from path to path
Giving us courage
Bringing fresh joy to our eyes.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 5, 2012



Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Everyday Miracles


 (Inspired by Leo’s words)













The miracle is what we do together
It’s not required that you or I
should raise the dead
For now it’s plenty
that we be alive
And that we each
bring our small gift
and see it multiplied
by all the others who have done the same

The miracle is what we do together
It’s not required that you or I 
should light the world
But that we each conduct
that bright electric spark
that holds our hands enclasped
while the current
the one that lights our every cell with life
flows through us and illuminates the whole

The miracle is what we do together
It’s how we feel to have our thread of song
caught up in harmony and echoed through each other
in that great chord to which we all belong.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 4, 2012


(background music: Isaac Shepard "back to basics")