Navigating

In this fractal hall of mirrors

where everything you think

reflects itself on every level

everywhere you look

till thought resembles thing, resembles cause

You need to trust a different sense to guide you:

Close your eyes and pause

until you feel the inner weight and balance

always present, always true

that gives you poise, and finds your center,

sounds the thought-scape through

so you can find out where you really are

This is how you know what are the lies,

what are the laws:

In the grand dynamic that is you

Your deep harmonics clarify the view

And every scene that’s fractured must dissolve

Leaving you resplendent in your love.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 31, 2012

Sustenance Prayer

Hold my days, Spirit

Hold my days —

I won’t find satisfaction any other way

You are the wind that moves all;

It’s so clear

Nothing else is substance; nothing else

is even here

You are the breath of my desire and its fulfillment

You provide the inner fire 

and the inner stillness,

my going out and coming in,

My home and my adventure

Each thrill, each triumph, every friend

And all I can imagine

It does no good for me to build my dreams

with bricks of circumstances, things and schemes

Which are ephemeral

as ripples intersecting

They flash and disappear, and no projecting

of meaning onto them can make them last

(They only glint in future and in past)

But that which moves in me and gives me life

Sustains me always,

Always makes me thrive.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 30, 2012

Clarity

Everything about my being

comes from my source

Not from the channels into which I flow

Not from the interactions that engage me

So if I feel splashed, diverted,

sullied or depleted,

I only need to turn

back to where the primal fount

of who I am

springs forth

and bubbles boldly

into being

and courses forward

Strong and pure and clean

Affirming and defining me again.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 28, 2012

All of us

There is no inner circle

of those who know the secret

There is no outer darkness

worrying the edges of the light

There is no us and them

No “ninety-nine percent,” no “one”

No unconverted, unevolved, benighted:

If anyone’s enlightened,

not one is blighted

Our ears know how to hear the clear tone,

to filter out the static

Our eyes know how to see what’s real

Our hands know how to touch it

And every goodness we can own

must then be owned by everyone

shared by our hearts

which always seek each other.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 27, 2012

Without Words

I came to you

in a place without words

in the quantum field

where all my electrons

were kicked into a higher orbit

and the speedy surging of the particles

thrummed against my ears and eyes and skin

So merging at the edges

Centers pressing

We approached ourselves

(the physics-induced distance seeming

ever more unbearable)

We rose in mighty effort

to breach its mounting wave

We crested more than once

and still the buoyant sea remains

And we will learn this new each time —

This being —

Open, without rhyme

or even words —

The primal pulse of life

Asserting its own essence

in our forms.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 27, 2012

Gardens

So many things in my garden are bolting

Racing against death

Preparing a dual departure:

Packaging their life into capsules for the future,

Letting their stalks fall back into brown

In the face of my neglect

The plants perform their dramas

Weeds stake out their turf

Flowers stretch and bow extended stems

Bees and rain bestow their ministrations

Some year, I think, my garden may be tended

Each tender plant well fed

with soil amended,

The weeds, with gentle firmness

kept in hand

The flowers celebrated, blooming

lushly, just as planned

But I’m distracted by another realm

Where, like fennel weeds

My dreams extend their gangly fronds

And wave about, seedy and untended

When I visit them, I have no clue

Which ones to pull, which ones to prune

Or what to do to garner greater flourish

So neither garden gets my full attention

And both grow wild, and dry, and spare

But still, in both, the sun-drenched flowers

Summon me, and touch me there.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 26, 2012

Daily Bread

If I could give you anything

I’d give you one moment

of knowing

how deeply you are accepted

How perfectly you belong

in this particular place and time

In this singular infinity we call

Here and now

I’d give you the grounded certainty

that you are loved

Seen for what you are

and loved for that 

— all of it —

(What you hoped was normal

What you feared was strange

What you didn’t dare affirm

to be your precious, holy gifts)

Having given that

I’d give you it again

I’d give it to you every day

and every time I saw you

One time of knowing is a touchstone

But knowing all the time 

is daily bread.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 25, 2012

Amends

A heart that has been touched

will turn

walking back along the path of words —

things said in hope of being heard,

whose impact may have singed another:

“No, that wasn’t what I meant —

I didn’t mean to cause you pain

I only wanted to be seen

Please let me make it right again”

Back along the path

Running now, to close the distance

Running, hoping not to trip

To reach you, and . . . 

What’s needed here 

is not more explanations

Such words, I fear, would only further tangle

Just let me take the time to stop

to witness you

To listen and to hear

Behold you

and really see

Breathe with you 

until you know:

When your heart spoke,

Its language stopped me in my tracks

Made me turn back.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 23, 2012

Possibilities

I’ve been keeping a door open all day

Maybe some bugs have come in

But there’s a sweet breeze

and a gentle whistling of the air

and something that turns my feet

subtly sideways towards the opening

and sets my thought softly drifting

towards the outside

A place where currents blend

And fragrances combine

in ways that offer journeys for my mind

And bees do their persistent work

And birds and squirrels offer commentary

I’ve been keeping a door open

to draw me out

And to offer entrances

In the steady breathing

that’s called home.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 22, 2012

Asking for Heaven

If it is true

(and it is)

that we can have

all the good we can imagine,

The trick is to imagine it big enough:

To get a glimpse, and cherish

what it feels like

to have a good that covers every need —

That doesn’t end abruptly when the time is up

or care is spent

or we are pulled away to fill our roles

as slaves of guilt

or slaves of debt

And so I treasure each of these

Each hope, each joy

Each hunger, every yearning

For they help me frame the asking

for the promised thing —

That which, when requested,

must be given —

So I won’t settle for a grim security

because I didn’t know

to ask for heaven.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 21, 2012

Angel Love

Angels in heaven know how to love

There’s nothing unsatisfying about it

No hints of possible connection

glinting just out of reach

behind a few words

(if you could only get them right)

or a few circumstances

(if only timing would align)

Angels in heaven have no problem

with triangulation, asymmetry

rhythmic incompatibility

And they don’t need to 

negotiate, hypothesize

agonize, analyze

Angels in heaven

are not detached from love

Not walled off from it

by ethereal piety

They embody all of love —

The full-sounding, deep toning

Heart-swelling, zinging, zooming

Pow of it

The joy bubbles and the lasting satisfaction —

The here and now of it

Angels in heaven love you whole

Erase your pain, light up your soul

Don’t take my word that it is so

Love like an angel, and you’ll know.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 19, 2012

Illumination

You and I

together

Make an arc of golden light

A hearth, a home

And the warm bright

aura of its circle

Halos each of us

throughout our disparate days

And it is right to understand

that such a glow

will cast its comfort

further than the bounds 

of you and I

It’s fitting that our love

Light up the sky.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 18, 2012

The Truth shall make you free

Truth won’t let you settle

for a paradigm that sells your soul.

Though you may plead and pray

for what you feel would be

the easy way

(just once to be allowed 

to beat the odds,

to be the one who comes out

on the top)

you will not get it.

Truth delivers you

from the whole paradigm 

of win and lose

of being some unworthy one

Lucky today, but waiting

for inevitable failure —

Don’t despair:

You can let go of all that pain

Truth does have its demand:

You need to know it

Need to let yourself be weaned

from all the lies about your being

Then Truth delivers you

into its essence, where you rise transcendent

Free and whole, divine, beloved, resplendent.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 17, 2012

Healing

It’s good to notice this

It’s good to remember

It’s good to look back in awe

and consider

how this has happened

From fractured trusts

and disappointed hopes

and the attempts to shore them up

by shoving them in boxes

and constricting them, 

depriving them of light

To a calm dawn

of endless possibility

A strong bond

An infinite security

An opening of something so grand

So boundless in its purity

We can’t begin to fathom what it is

Since it happened here

it can happen again

in every sphere

for everyone

The seamless, perfect pattern of our lives

can be revealed

And everything we held as hurt or broken

can be healed

And every promise of sustaining goodness

can come forth

in its effortless unfolding

And be our lives.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 16, 2012 

River Song

I’ll keep the refrain of the song of the river

           Its rumble and shout as it courses along

   Caressing the rock into smooth, graceful contours

                   High leaping arcs as it thunders on down

             The roil and the roll and the coming together

       Frothy rejoining of channels

Soft curling curve of the eddies returning

      Sloshing back over the rocks

              See how it takes me

                    It captures and fascinates

                            I could behold it forever

            Much later, memory takes it to illustrate

Life-thrumming rhythms within

And I find myself feeling

         we’ve come through a waterfall

             Free falling, crashing, and tumbling out

                  Joy of abandon, then jolt of the reckoning

                         Sinking and wondering:

                              Where are we now?

               Deep in the pool, in the calm underneath

           we remember

       Water is one, and we’ve never been lost or alone

We fall with the force from the source to the ocean

        Far-flung but always at home

     So we rise, so we roll, so we merge

           In the pulsing repeat of the song

      So, smoothly, our courses converge

 In what we have been all along.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 15, 2012

The key

This could be

the key to the whole world

More than that —

This could be

the key to the whole whorl,

the whole whirl —

the whole moving

whooshing

harmonic of being —

to flying, to riffing

to breathing, to seeing

The key to the infinite joy

which the teachings

have tried to lay out all along

So what was too high to aspire to —

impossible —

Turns out to be elemental, essential,

that which we simply must be

This is the way we exist in the oneness

The vast fractal matrix for everything, all of us:

Every glory is already here

And our life is now found

as we fling ourselves into it

Finding with joy

Our surrender is met in acceptance

as we’re illumined in multiplication of love

This is the key, 

and to share it, we just have to be it

Daily and constantly

dance this delight, until each one

can feel it and see it.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 13, 2012

Waiting for a computer repair at U. Village Mall

Let me invoke the rhythm

that ties us all together

Grasses bending in the breeze

Little birds dipping in and out

All these people walking

alone, and in groups

P’tick of sandals, heel-toe rock of dress shoes

Words and gestures, turns and pauses

Cars creeping through the parking lot

Car doors closing

Let the backbeat in the background

define the orchestration

Let the running water of the fountain

be a unifying patter

Even when we’re not aware of it

We are connected

Though we may feel isolated

by our stories

(who we think we are,

what we think we have to do)

And isolated by the inroads of acceptance

that we haven’t carved

And the separate trajectories

that only randomly have intersected here

Behind our myths and burdens

we are one.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 12, 2012

Sunrise

Only Love could solve that problem

And Love has — fully!

We only need to wait to see

what splendid ways

this singular dawn

will rise on our sights

What purples, pinks and oranges —

What luscious shades —

will transfigure these remaining clouds

Will make of them

spectacular offerings

Bright gifts to show us

just how glorious

Love is.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 11, 2012

Love’s Flavors

These are flavors of love:

Desire, curiosity, compassion

Whatever leads you,

Whatever lights up nodes of interest,

What you follow,

What tenderly unites each need

with that which meets it,

The tears wherewith you nourish

some secret yearning,

And the rushing, billowing joy

that lifts you up

and sends you flying down your path

So many flavors!  

Enough that love

can paint the whole canvas of life

All the textures, all the colors

All the shapes and sizes, all the speeds

Love has enough — 

no other substance is required

to make the day.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 10, 2012

Witnessing You

No, I won’t believe

the lies of pain

the lies of isolation

Your breath comes rushing in

again and again

and each return of it

is a coursing of life, of joy,

of power, of perfection

Each step you take a miracle

of balance and coordination

smooth flowing of the genius

of creation

I won’t believe

in any gaps in my perception

any failure to see

the deep completeness 

that comprises you

Your full connection

to your love

your painless, strong, exultant wholeness

that testifies to ever-present goodness

revealed amazingly

to each of us today.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 10, 2012

Summer Evening

Clouds on pilgrimage

seeking the convocation of thunderstorm

drift entranced

kissed in soft pink light

calling forth divinity of sky

They let the current take them

slow and meaningful

toward their unseen goal

Sculpted pink on luminescent blue

transitions into grey on lighter grey

and on into white

against the deepened dark.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 9, 2012

Yes! Let’s!

Let’s fill up this room 

with enough of that stuff

that doesn’t need words

to be expressed

So no one can miss it

and everyone here

can drink it up

and be blessed

Let’s fill up these hearts

with enough of this love

that everyone knows how to give it

So nothing they think

that they haven’t yet earned

can render them helpless

to live it

So they can’t go outside of the peace

Since they carry it safely within

So when they go home

they will still feel at one

and continue to multiply bliss.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 8, 2012

Heather’s birthday beach walk

Laughing on the beach

Leaning against a log

Laughing at almost anything

(A couple, comical with their dog)

It really doesn’t matter what

It feels so good to be here

Our daughter, stunning in her colors

and her smile

Our son, subtly connected

Our family, now grown,

no longer needing tight control by parents,

can laugh as equals

Walking down the beach

we stop to play

on a see-saw log

The four of us

enacting our collective balance

(me, weighting and unweighting

making the log tip

feeling the delight of flying

my shadow doing a seagull dance)

Low tide, sea wall

Stone stairs washed to slopes,

engulfed by barnacles

Rare rock crazed with cracks

with crystals growing in them

Seagull cries, and human seagull imitations

Climbing the concrete tower that says “keep out”

Walking together in magical languor

No where we’re needing to be

except here.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 7, 2012

Facing the Void

She moves with confidence

She twirls, she beams

But when she turns to face

the empty space again

She loses steam

and rivulets of insecurity

start seeping through the seams

The gaps between perceived reality

and her most treasured dreams

Now seem to yawn

The fabric she has woven with her hopes

now seems to drift in disconnected threads

What builds her up again?

What deep, supporting truth

can she believe?

What calming voice can counteract

the howling judgment

that whistles down the hollows

of her bones?

A pause to gather courage, to rethink

and reassess the evidence

A confidant to give her new perspective

Or some kind of sign

So she will choose to rise again

and meet the challenge one more time

And this time maybe she will power through

face down the void

and forge herself anew.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 6, 2012

Beach Walk

Bright morning

Walking on the driftwood

Walking on the sloped beach

whose fist-sized stones

roll sideways under foot

Watching rows and rows of tiny breakers

cresting in and in along the shore

Their quiet slaps then echoed in the distance

with the shift of stones —

rock on rock rocking in receding waves

Standing heron, flying gulls, ducks

bobbing out in lines across the waves

Smell of sand and seaweed, sea

Warming sun

paints with shadows on the sand behind the rocks

Scrish of our footsteps

You and I 

walk together, holding hands

sharing stories of our soul journeys

where we go alone

but come together

vectors and trajectories converging

Throwing off old baggage and untying every tether

Awestruck with hope to see

eternity emerging. 

©Wendy Mulhern

July 5, 2012