Falling to yes

There are so many yeses in this world

A yes to each cascading course of water’s fall

A yes to leaves surrendering to soil

A yes to seeds that nestle in for winter

to live the chill that later triggers them

to rise up with the upswing of the seasons

A yes to eyes that meet and know relationship

A yes to recognition of a kindred soul

A yes to dance

A yes to touch

Yes to the silent, smooth synchronization

Yes to your breath, yes to your voice

Yes to your fingers’ call

In a response that transcends choice

My body

says yes

to it all.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 30, 2012

Freshman

It is not fathomable 

to imagine you gone

though we see you little enough

in the small crossings of orbits

when we are all awake

and all here

and not sequestered

in our respective caves

When I think of you

out on your own

I wonder about your laundry

and your innocence

I want to wrap you in a cloak

that’s been too small for several years

Protect you

from a world I’m sure you think 

you know much more about than I do

I want you to soar free and far

I want your mask of self-assurance

to be filled out, from within

with trial-tested confidence

I don’t want the world to prove you wrong

I want the world to prove you strong

It’s not fathomable

to imagine you gone

So I will think of you

Somewhere, next year

Exploring some as yet uncharted here.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 29, 2012

If everything is made of thought

If everything is made of thought

Then there are no separate things

No rolly, clunky, cluttery things

No inscrutable, intractable things

Nothing to fall out of place

Nothing to fail to move

If everything is made of thought

Then there is no past, no gaping track

where things tore through the fabric

of our hopes and plans

leaving shreds along the course of time

No regrets and no alarm

No irreparable harm

If everything is made of thought

Then all these things

we think are non-negotiable —

the way things are, the way they have to be —

can really change, in any instant

Blink of an eye, awakening from dream.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 28, 2012

Application Deadlines

Actually,

You can’t make things be

what they’re not

You can’t make a stream

run faster down its course

rapid or languid as the fall line designates

You can’t make the clouds

configure themselves

into neat, ordered little puffs

And we can’t make our son

hop to, conform, align

when all his atoms stretch

along some still-unmarked direction

as he charts the constellations

of his singular universe

Obligatorily,

there will be hoops to jump through

See how he bends his lanky form

to condescending depths

and somehow manages to find some grace

complying with the needed tasks

Some things fall behind

and yet we can be sure

Everything that’s really part of him

will find a way to flourish,

to endure.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 27, 2012

Tonight’s gift

Translucent clouds blown from the north

across the face of the three-quarter moon

who sees them

bathes them in benevolence

as they pass before her face

making the sky milk-marbled

till they dissipate

revealing a single star.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 25, 2012

Jacob’s Ladder

(Notes from the fifth seasonal five women gathering)

We fold and unfold and refold

Constant surprises of new faces

appearing and then hidden

reemerging later somewhere else

We see each other

We see ourselves

Faces that we recognize from now, 

and, too, from other times

We mirror, and are mirrored

And in the grand revealing of our paths —

our being, spread across a stretch of time —

Great gardens spring to life, to light

their fragrant blossoms sweetening the air

We are a circle

A circle of love and caring

A circle of women

Holding the safe net

we all jump into

Feeling the tug at the sides

as we hold each other up

Feeling our cords strengthen

in the stretch of the give and take

Feeling the ties of our intersections

hugging us close

We are angels

Ascending and descending

Bringing ourselves messages

and the dear assurance

that this land, this place

has been prepared for us

and we will inhabit it

and bring forth our fruits.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 24, 2012

Mending

Retreated here from all activities

So many proffered offerings

roll by like water

The waves of doing things —

Fun and togetherness —

(photos as proof)

thunder over my head

and are gone

There’s hardly even

space for regret

deep, as I am

under the turbulence

where it is still

and I am still waiting 

for the internal calm.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 23, 2012

Gratitude

Gratitude is stronger than pain

Like bright sunlight, it flows forth

Outshining the burred edges

of stress, of fear

of tiresome perturbations

Gratitude is stronger than the manager

Who posits reasons I must suffer

Bargains me away in its strong zeal for condemnation

Tells me why I must be being punished

Gratitude releases me

from the harsh sentence

cast by the rasp of complaint

on my day

Gratitude fills me,

Lifts me up, holds me

Sets me with grace on a lovelier way.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 22, 2012

Colors

I like

the color that shows

between my toes

the warm burnished glow

of wood tone touched with orange light

which also laps its sumptuous tint

across my instep

and licks my toes, at their curling tips

No color stands alone

They all throw their reflections on each other

I see the orange, the green, the red

silent and smooth, caressing every surface

I gaze, transfixed

at what I would have called one tone

But they are many

All mixed

Repeated on my feet, the door, the wall

Each different colored thing

shares the same palette

to harmonize and unify them all.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 20, 2012

Prayer for Now

In the deepening clarity

of your light

A new conception dawns

upon my sight

My focus shifts —

a sharper definition —

A measure of the pressure lifts

and I feel richer

There is no mindless wave

No storm

to roil me in its sharp relentless flailing

There is no course that I must follow

leading through a time of pain and ailing

The now belongs to you

And so, as well, to me

It is my nature to express it fully

Your law is steady, true

My being — peaceful, pure and holy

And all of my perception

must feel this and conform

My times are yours

and it’s your love

that holds me hale and warm.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 19, 2012

Seeking Peace

Time to let the clamor cease —

all the chatter, all the different voices

who insist they have a right

to say their piece

Claim to speak for formidable forces

No

They don’t have a solution

They are only looping

words to give illusion of some substance

a sense of presence out of much rushing

But there’s nothing

Nothing true in anything they say

Spirit, tonight

You take over

Burn your clear light

through all my mental clutter

all that complains and mutters of discomfort

all that claims decline and disappointment

Instead, Spirit

You speak for me

You bear witness to the one

that you created me to be

Brimming with your power and your light

Shining forth your calmness through the night.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 18, 2012

Contact Improv

I took a class today and yesterday in a dance form called contact improvisation. One of our teachers said it always feels for her like a metaphor for life. I felt this to be so:

All that went before

belongs to us

And we can move

in the way of early life

Draping, oozing

Traveling along an impulse

that moves through bodies

as it moves through space

Wave on slow-cresting wave

The movement opens us to mystery

The fluid way to find our way in

Into the place of curling and curling

where we return

to begin

We start to feel

the coil that winds us

find its way to spring

We start to live

the settled surety

of this aliveness

Always knowing we belong.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 17, 2012

Cradling Prayer

Arms of Love

I see

how your hold on me

and on this house

so gently cradles us

and so allows

the meek and sweet emergence

of every heart’s desire

and each extending outward

of what we glimpse we are

Which, with the simple screen of your attention

You nourish and augment

While all our grinding efforts

and the fears and thoughts that block us

simply fall away into the void

And in your arms

we glow, we shine

Safe in this hallowed place

we snuggle in

and then reach out

resplendent in your grace.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 16, 2012

New eyes

Here our new eyes

recognize

(a coming into focus)

things we never saw and scarcely sensed

How things before deemed unrelated

coalesce

So much here to see, to learn

New systems to divine, discern

New thoughts to send and watch return

So many new conclusions

A thing we’ve tried to sense by feel

which now our wiser eyes reveal

A new take on what’s solid, real

and what is just illusion

Our old eyes took in objects

Our new eyes reckon forces

and links and currents that connect them

to their power sources

So though we view the same terrain

our sight will never be the same

effected by a simple change —

the shift in what we note and name.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 15, 2012

Prayer for myself

Fear not, little one

You aren’t responsible

for imaging yourself

It’s not your thoughts

that make you ill 

It’s not your thoughts

that make you whole

It’s not that you must find

some secret button to control

the things you feel and manifest today

The Love that heals you

is its own bright, steady source

It reveals you

and sets you on your course

And you can feel

its tender, cleansing touch

You’ll know it’s real

You’ll know it is enough

Fear not, for every cell of you is held

in perfect calm, 

serenely peaceful, well.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 14, 2012

Turbulence

So I want to tell you about this

This catching of my heel up

in the turbulence

The drag I felt

The downward pull so strong, so fierce

I thought it would engulf me

I want to tell you because then

I saw your face

I thought of how you’ve spoken

of waking to a sense of dread

I thought then

that I maybe understood

And when I took myself in hand

Began the fight

I felt you there

For you have fought for this before

So as I fought

I fought for you as well:

No, I won’t be taken in

I won’t succumb

I won’t allow the dread to win

in me or anyone

I’ll stand for me, I’ll stand for us

and when I overcome

I’ll bring the sweetness back for us to share.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 13, 2012

Seeing each other

We come here in our chosen roles

Whatever we’ve decided to present —

The selves that we’ve assembled to display,

The stories propping up our self-esteem,

Our plans of how we’ll move and what we’ll say

We come here hoping

what we’ve made ourselves to be

will be enough

And that some transformation

will reach us through our tedium of stuff

We seek a blessing

while doubting it is something we deserve

We keep on guessing

what course will make us feel alive, secure

But Ah —

Despite ourselves

(and everything we hoped to hide,

so clearly seen by everyone who’s hiding)

Our precious souls shine through

And these

These souls, so holy

So wholly free from all regimes

that we or others have devised —

Since they are here

There’s nothing else remaining.

Like dust, like ash, like smoke

those old self-constructs blow away

And so we see each other as we are.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 12, 2012

I Am

If indeed I am a galaxy

in this broad space

My care embraces much —

Planets in their orbits

and the dance of stars

and all their swirling movement

ordered by the law

unerring and eternal

of I Am

I Am speaks in calm and potent clarity

Nothing moves outside its present current

Everything within it wheels

in sparkling and majestic power

Everything is cared for and is held

Its course projecting outward

Its harmony unchallenged

The waves of pulsing energy

defining its domain

And I need never think

that I am weak, inconsequential

A pawn in chess games

moved by meaty hands

For if I am a galaxy

My center spins out worlds

that fill the grand design 

this truth demands.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 11, 2012

November

We are not hardened yet for winter

though it is November

and trees stand almost bare

and though each day is noticeably shorter

The frost on roofs this morning

met us unprepared

Our bones felt cold,

our flesh tensed up against them

We are not hardened yet for winter

though it’s not as cold as it will get

We have the heat turned up

inside our cozy house

And we turn back like cats

when we go out

No saunters on the sand today —

A brisk walk is required

And even short forays outside

have left us tired

We are not hardened yet for winter

But soon

we’ll open up our doors to what it gives

Feel the brisk cleansing of its mountain breath

that, summoning our inner fires,

calls us to live.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 10, 2012

Freedom to Marry

(Regarding Washington State’s passage of Referendum 74)

Today I’m breathing freer

because Tuesday

We pushed the sky

up a little higher

So there’s more room to breathe together

in this tent we share

There’s a larger space for all of us

to celebrate care

And we move a little closer

to the understanding

That every love is sacred, holy, good

And every love commitment

is a wonder and a gift

that warrants open honor and support

And we move a little closer to the proving

That law is never properly tyrannical

That we can trust our inner truth to guide us

And don’t need to be pushed about externally

And love is love whoever does the loving

And we need more of it

and never less

And each of us can know

our love is beautiful

In each relation bringing out the best.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 8, 2012

Vision Prayer

Spirit, today

You can have my eyes

Hold them holy

Guide the light they gather

Give them focus

Let them synthesize

the clear truth you display

Let them harmonize

the elements of your day

Let me empathize

with everyone I see

So that I understand

your comprehensive ownership of me

The way your grace illumines

everything I know,

all that I am.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 7, 2012

Preparing for a storm

We have done this many times before

Set our house in order

Hunkered down

Loose ends put away

Extra anchors set, and ties

to hold down everything 

that could be borne away

Most often it has passed us by —

The next day dedicated

to putting all things back to order

Reopening, resetting our displays

The busy tasks fast filling up our days

But this time could be worse

Thoughts turn toward cyclones

Making us stay low

While yet we scan the sea, the sky

Tsunami warnings urging us

to go high

And we can’t know what we will do

if suddenly our landscape is completely changed

and all the things we trusted to are gone

and we become

like all the other sufferers

who don’t know how

to claim the rights we took for granted

until now.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 6, 2012

Guidance Prayer

Today, Spirit, I entrust

all my thoughts to you

because I must —

I know the courses I have run

have many sinkholes, many ruts

And if I set out on my own,

their deep-worn tracks

will ever thrust me

down the same false paths again

Spirit, today I float

with your calm breath to guide me

Hold my quiet hope

a growing light inside me

Let your wisdom cope

with every maze my thought may chase

Let me fly with you

Impart your grace

Wean me of those old recursions

Make me new

Let me be your mirror, through and through

Let me grasp, in this and every minute

your vast and shining world

and my place in it.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 5, 2012

America Blues

You only lose if you lose heart,

I told him —

It was a good Sunday School lesson,

and he agreed

He’d seen his teammates flag

but he had rallied

Made five goals to bring his team up to a tie

(being a better shot than many seventh graders,

he confided.)

You only lose if you lose heart

And here I am

In the face of all these lies

that up to half our country

seem to have swallowed

And the bought campaigns

meekly reported in the news

as if they were legitimate

And I am at a loss for heart

All the deep sighs

that keep escaping me

And the head-bowed stupor

that keeps engulfing me

And my feeble protest

as if someone would hear

Will do no good

If I’m to help us rally

I need to find my heart.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 4, 2012

Night Walk

In the space between our palms

(our fingers clasped,

 our slightly swinging arms

familiar and enchanting as we walk along)

In the space between our palms

there is a world

Contained, enclosed, but infinite

in its scale

Planets glide around small stars

Warm energy converges in the center

And messages can be conveyed

across the sphere

Not words, not anecdotes

not concepts and conclusions

not tasks or resolutions

but something better

The simple joy of being here.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 3, 2012

Being You

This is such a simple thing

No pressure to perform

No criteria to meet

No selective judgement

Nothing that you need to measure up to

No one to be measured up against

No grade, no quota, no one better than

the simple act of being who you are

No voices, from outside or from within

can coach you to the center of your being

But all your yearnings lead you there at last

The place you can look out from, clearly seeing

Your truth delivers you

Gives you the lens to find

The simple core of home, the clarity

that frees your mind.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 2, 2012

Internal Tapestry

We begin

with music-indexed memories

Scenes and signs that rise up with the songs

Laid down on their strains

Returning faithfully

every time the song is played

We add

Impressions from the day —

The rain outside,

The cozy orb of home,

Companionship and tasks,

The texture of our efforts 

and the thoughts that group around them

This becomes

another layer on the songs —

will mix with older memories:

Next time we play them

these images will surface with them, too

So the colors deepen and grow richer

So the days add flavor to our view.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 1, 2012