The necessity of trust

Here is the openness of trust:

that, all permissions granted,

in freedom to do anything we want,

the things we choose

will trend toward what will bless

That in the field where nothing is forbidden —

No kind of movement,

words, thoughts or emotions —

Our own divinity will guide us with precision

to grace of body, mind and interaction

Here is the necessity of trust:

Each gift we have needs freedom to unfold

to stretch out perfectly

and fill its purpose

Not from a regiment imposed on it

But because, internally

it must.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 30, 2012

Relativity

Everything changes

No one’s sense of self is static

Each one grows

Things you were so sure

would be impossible for them

become their norm

And things you thought you’d never do

You learn 

(That’s why it makes no sense

to hold on to a past offense)

Nothing changes

The primal pattern reasserts itself forever

The track of every orbit orchestrated

The cords of union hold us fast together

However far we think we may have skated

(That’s why we recognize ourselves

in everybody else)

Never too far from home

Never too far

from where we can close our eyes

And let the scene reframe

In that bright centered place

From whence we always came

(The way of being that we always hoped to learn

And where, in soft precision, we return.)

©Wendy Mulhern

June 29, 2012

Kids playing soccer in the park

Focus power

Focus kinetic skill

Concentrate the energy

Make it do your will

Let it return, so it can fulfill

that sense of presence

that brings you joy

though you don’t name it

nor consciously employ the game as therapy

For you it’s fun

But there is more to it

for in your sending forth

and trapping back

you have created some kind of spirit track

The vectors emanate from where you run

You and the ball and field becoming one

magically connected to your team

So suddenly I understand

This isn’t pointless playing with a ball

This is the growing practice of command:

By owning this part of your world

you own it all.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 28, 2012

Angel Wings

As I was driving home

the sky was full of angel wings —

Angel wings of all kinds

and I 

having slid through two tunnels of sleepiness

(the first one, a battle with my eyelids;

the second, a little closer to surrender)

Was finally awake enough 

to take in their splendid spread

of grays and whites and yellows 

against the generous blue

Portending something

(I hope)

greater than another day of rain.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 27, 2012

Ode to Improv

In this playful place

We have permission

to ride on currents

that we surely feel

though they don’t map

on what we call reality:

A fabricated character

may still know joy, 

know grief, know glee

A made up situation

triggers genuine emotion

in a synchronistic serendipity

A lobster may engage in final banter

with one for whom she’ll be his evening meal

We’ll laugh because we recognize the truth in it

and how, for us, the lobster is so real

And we’ll love because the laughter binds us tighter

and shows us something deeper that we share

And this reality will make us richer

as we move in our quotidian terrain.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 26, 2012

Release

No one needs to be defined

by failings, or ancestral line,

habitual smallnesses passed down

through fathers’ tone-deaf, caustic snide remarks

or denigrating tone of voice

or wordless attributions 

that would put them in a box

Each one is free

Each father free to grow

beyond the frame his father put him in

Each son to rise to fill the call

of his internal plan

Each father can release his son

from every tiresome lie that held him down

Each son can find the truth

of his I Am.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 25, 2012

After the last tone

In the silence

after the last tone has ended

there’s enough time

for anything —

For judgements to melt

For things that were constricted

to float free

For the tension, and then its memory

to seep away

Words then impressed upon the silence

have deep weight

Don’t waste them 

for they can set

a clear and steady course

across the next cacophonous abyss.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 24, 2012

Stardom

The sun came out at six pm

Grand, sporting brilliant blue sky

And a few gratuitous fluffy clouds

A fine entrance

escorted by strong winds officiously

brushing away the excess warmth

But it was charming enough

to warm us anyway

Make us sit and bask

if only for a moment

It is a busy star

with many others it must see

We can’t expect its glow to last for very long

and so we try not to depend on it

try not to hang on its every gesture

But face it

We are smitten

We will pine for it tomorrow

if it’s gone.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 23, 2012

Being Free

In this weightless place

Released from all the loops of thought —

of problems posited, solutions sought —

I offer presence

In this open space

where gentle currents 

run clear and smooth

with time for many folds and curls

I yield my preconceptions

In this present grace

where eyes connect

and we have locked attentive

in a mutual orbit —

In this sacredness we move

and so we learn

Thought stilled of looping is free

to follow grander leadings

ever receiving the impulse

to show forth the truth that we are.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 23, 2012

Listening

I let myself sink deep

into the gentle gravity

of conversation —

let the weight of listening

match the weight of words

let the chain of story

pull the meaning out

let the feeling be expressed

till it was felt

In its time, but only then

I spoke

responding not to words

but to the fundamental frequency

revealed in this space

where we walked together

So we have learned

communication —

the ready give and take

the ebb and flow

that pulls us ever closer to each other

where words become the froth, 

and understanding

is the sweet, recurrent, steady undertow.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 21, 2012

What you can take with you

Arms spread wide, radiant face

Laughing, twirling, diving

Pulled by the music, impelled by grace

Moving at one with it, holding

true to the moment

the point of perfection

Filled up, filled out and fulfilled

in the joy of it

Never more sure of your essence, you dance

into your primal divinity

being this you for the very first time

the you that has been you forever

Afterwards, sitting alone

in the tingle and glow

that is all your cells’ memory

This is a truth you can own

Beauty has danced in you

full and enhanced by you

so now it won’t let you go

You’ll carry this mark in you

Love giving spark in you

Whoever sees it will know

This is the treasure you don’t hide away

the gift you will bring to each day.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 20, 2012

Surveying

You can’t map this perfection

on anything less than infinity

No fairy tales —

happy ending or not —

can chart this vast terrain of love

No dreams, no plans

can catch or name it

Yet here it is

You can’t carve out for yourself

a portion you can take away

to eat alone, in some unnoticed corner

You can’t encapsulate it

in rules of thumb and formulas

for easy future access

Each time you love

you fling yourself

into the wide, unmappable

and ever perfect whole

of fully being

Your learning: not to make it better next time

but just about

the wonder of the now

Now that encompasses 

all of eternity —

Everything Life can endow.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 19, 2012

Teach us to play

Spirit of wind and water

Spirit of dolphin, otter

Teach us to play

Teach us the readiness

in every moment

for swift and creative response

to each impulse offered

by each of your creatures —

The swoop that follows the drop

The twirl that follows the swoop

The delight of surprise

at our supple capacity

brought out so suddenly

brilliantly, happily

perfect precision and time

Spirit of song

Teach us to play life

like a flute, like a drum

like a cello

All our cells being

the deep sounding board

sending our praise to the sky.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 17, 2012

The Vision

The way of being that I so desire

may not be all that far from where we are

—A state to reach, not waiting

but by steady practice:

the art of seeing underneath facade

to what the fact is,

seeing beyond persona to the realm of Soul

where we can know ourselves

and see each other whole

And when our countenance —

the way we feel inside —

gives up its clenched up fears

and opens wide

We’ll find ourselves

with no resentment, no complaint

No stultifying inhibition, no constraint

No more defined by blindnesses and failings

Or by the things we wish to leave behind

But by the moving edge where we are sailing

Along the wide expansion of the mind

It is a coming that cannot depend on death

but on the present power

of every breath.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 16, 2012

Light Maintenance and Rescue Work

I will be there for you

for I need

the bright gold liquid currents

made of truth and confidences

that flow between us when the channel’s open

I will tend that channel

since it’s such a source of life

nourishing, illuminating 

me and you

Yesterday I saw a stoppage

Saw my light

rolling off you and not going in

Saw the block of burden

and the hooded sadness

and the drifting starting up, the downward spin

So I reached out — no

I would not let you go there

Would not let you feel I didn’t

need your light

Or that I wouldn’t stop everything

Everything else

to get the channel flowing free again

Thank you for responding

Thank you for receiving my insistent light

For coming here to where the current

can continue bright

Thank you for reaching back in trust

For we both know

it rescued both of us.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 14, 2012

Wet June

I will compose a song

in the tune of June

while the dark clouds

let light in at the distant edges

and four red lilies and one campanula

have opened in the rain

and a squirrel 

chomps almost-ripe cherries

shaking raindrops from the branches

Wet June

cloaking the length of days

so close to solstice

summer so far away.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 13, 2012

How could I not?

Considering what it is to love,

Why would I not?

How, among these people

could there be any reason —

Any reason not to love them?

Would I 

not love them 

because of their pain?

would I 

not love them 

because of their wounds,

and how they carry themselves

shielding what is vulnerable?

would I 

not love them

because of the way they’ve found

to move in the world —

what they use to feed their hopes,

and their patched-together life-rafts of the things

that let them know that they are worthy?

Or how they talk, or how they look, or how they smell?

No.  There is no reason not to love them

No reason not to throw the cloak of caring

over their shoulders

and wrap them in the fabric of my presence 

and be there for them.  Whenever.

Considering what it is to love,

How could I not?

For to love is what defines us

and love is what we are.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 13, 2012

I will dance

I will dance because I need to

Dance because the world spins

faster than we know

Dance because the currents

call on me to throw

my coalescing self into the swirl

Dance because in dancing I will know

from the pull of the dynamic

who I am

I will dance

I will dance because it feeds me

with the rhythm of connection

and the instant-forged affection

of the spin

Dance because I learn, thus,

the elemental oneness

that summons us together from within

I will dance because this gift of dance is given

This gift of music which has been expressed

to fill us with our heritage of heaven

and let us know for sure that we are blessed.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 12, 2012

Little tears, little tears

Little tears in eye corners

Little tears in fabric

Little sighs that come up

without my even noticing

Time to find some kind of mending

Time to hug, time to cry

Time for love and prayer sending

Time to greet each other without speaking

When the grand script is lost

and all its pieces

flutter separately against the fence

and we have chased them, tried to find them

patched them all together

and see in dismay

that now they make no sense,

It’s time to drop the story

and begin again

A tone, a chord

something to draw us back

to reestablish union

Something to fill the gapping lack

Somehow a new communion . . .

Frayed and scattered, we will gather

and will trust

that we will find ourselves again

because we must.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 11, 2012

Two for Foret

(Our friend Foret passed on yesterday evening.  This evening I took a bike ride, thinking of him, and these are the images that came forth.)

Life Affirms Itself

Life affirms itself

in brilliant blue of sky

and clouds laid out

in languid abandon

of wisps and splotches

brightness of the late sun 

softening the evening

It is a time for wistful thoughts of angels

and imagining us all gathering

free, now, from all our limitations —

all the times we felt we couldn’t share —

When we can recognize each other by the essence

that before we only saw in flashes

but which, in each of us, now shines clear 

Life affirms itself

in this and every yearning

and in each instinctive turning

to our Love.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 10, 2012

For Foret: A Tribute

Rainier-sized force of gravity

on the dance floor

Packing massive passion

Centrifugal powerhouse

Roiling currents with your playful storms

Humble and hoping

Romantic troubadour

Proffering sweet flowers plucked from air

Barefoot on your minstrel cycle

Seeking out harmonics, blending song

Forging from outlandish parts and phrases

A role you owned, a place where you belonged

I offer you this evening sky, this mountain

And through awakened feet, this farewell kiss

My feet to earth, and earth to you, Foret,

May you walk on in peace, inhabit bliss.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 10, 2012

For Foret

We will hold the light

We will acknowledge

What you are is ever filled by Spirit

As cupped hands catch falling water

Always full, and always, too, releasing

Refilled, in every moment, by its source

In this bright stream

no harsh insertion of a foreign object

no collision

can mar the substance of your being

No extraction, no subtraction

can reduce your essence.

So we’ll keep on seeing

your strong life

asserting still its sacred place

Still radiant, still free

Still reestablishing itself

in steady flow and unremitting grace.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 9, 2012

The ones I want

These are people who I want to be with

How do I decide that?

What are the components

of the equation

that make me look upon our gathering

with eager openness, anticipation?

These are people I want to be with

Can I say it to myself about anyone?

Can I just choose to so regard them

and then feel that glow?

— I don’t know.

This is how I am drawn:

When I think of them, I light up inside

As I approach them, coming from a distance

New layers of aliveness

keep waking up

As I get closer

I start running

What qualifies them so?

I didn’t make a judgement

Didn’t pass them through a screen

Conducted no tests

I don’t know exactly why my heart

just said yes

These are people I want to be with

I didn’t engineer it so

It isn’t something I deduced from calculations

I just know.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 8, 2012

Serenity

This morning when the 5:30 alarm blared,

Wrung from sleep, I noticed

that the Lord’s Prayer

was singing in my mind

And it remained there

left over from my dream

And it continued

its words and melody into my day

So I considered

How do I let myself be so centered

that every breath of Spirit moves me?

How does my agenda stay 

on how the law of Truth can use me?

— I held it dear, this clear intention

let it sift and order each dimension

let the songs, kaleidoscopic, overlap

let my memory keep coming back

to that keynote: to only seek to serve.

— thus coming into evening in serenity

savoring this small taste

of eternity.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 7, 2012

On the decision to choose our daughter’s birthday over a large social gathering

We will stay with you

These things cannot be weighed in the same scale:

The sense of social inroads

against steady family presence

What we are trumps what we think we want

And we are here for you

Even if you end up doing something with your friends

And we figure very little in your plans

We’ll still hold the day

Just like that one twenty years ago

Where nothing else was happening

And it was mind boggling 

to imagine anyone could think 

that this was any day

A dawn like no other

The start of parenthood

The birth of our family

A thing no one could train me how to do

A world that suddenly grew tiny

in the constriction of the moment

And I said, if something has to break for this to happen

Let it break

And it did

And you arrived 

Sapient miracle

Blinking with wise and quiet eyes

Yes, we will stay with you 

We’ll mark this day

With all our lights commemorate

your shining way.

©Wendy Mulhern 

June 6, 2012

Family time

Rain closes in around the house

Constrains our orbits

Sends our energy in inward circles

If we were alone, perhaps we’d sleep

But gentle interface keeps us awake

And moves our projects forward

We practice homestead arts —

Cooking without recipes, 

Designing clothing without patterns

Minds and hands together in support

Elsewhere in the house

The sound of music composition

Or something playing on a video

The rocking of a chair, a rustled paper

Doors that squeak as people come and go

We’re family here

The cycles of our movement

flow alone, then intersect

pass by deftly, sometimes interact

So weaving in our days a quiet ease

and subtly feeding us with needed peace.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 5, 2012