It’s time

OK, friends

OK, winds and clouds

OK, hidden sliver of silver sun,

Silent magic snow, birds warbling at dusk —

I’m ready for that miracle

Ready for some brightness

that I didn’t make myself

Ready for some joyful laugh

to overwhelm the trembling cusp of sadness

Ready for that surprising gift

of simple presence

to move me from this place

to where I flow again

Swift cascade of river

Leaping homeward

Singing constant

through the night.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 31, 2012

Acceptance

In your gaze today, I felt

the difference it makes

How well we know each other

How deeply we connect

How thorough the acceptance

in our embrace,

The fractal path affection travels

in its love of every surface, every pore,

Making us impervious

to any judgement, any condemnation

How comfortable we rest

in the sweet cradle

of being wholly held —

So soundly integrated

So at one

with the vast, eternal orbit

that swings us charmingly

So we unerringly 

reverberate in tune.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 30, 2012

A good dance

Thank you for

the brightness of your eyes

and the sweet kinetic energy

that wrapped us

into one motion

swirling eddies of wind current

flowing through us

push and pull and contact

spinning and surrender

till the music changed

Later

we closed our eyes

and you sent 

chakra opening light

through your fingertips

It was the color

of rose quartz

and I hummed

into your vibration

till the music ended.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 28, 2012

Walking toward the light

As we walked toward the light,

The things we were holding

in our hands

began to melt —

Intricacies of dreams,

Specifications,

Things we thought were so important

to convey,

Histories we felt

distinguished and defined us —

Rolling down our fingers —

Bright trailing drips —

We felt the coolness

of air on wet skin,

Swift intake of breath

at the freshness

As we,

Now empty-handed,

Reached our arms

into the glad embrace

of our whole

wild

unrecorded

being.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 27, 2012

Seeking

We are attracted

to the ancient woods

and to the ancient books

and to the words

that taste like stardust

timeless and mysterious

We are looking

for deep roots

and runes of truth

and something to remind us

of the way home

So long lost

in the ephemera of thinking

we are made of whim

of dust —

pawns in a creation not our own —

We seek the gravitation

that weights our essence

focuses our thrust

We keep on turning to it

Try to be still enough

to feel its pull upon us

to feel it guiding us

We keep on asking for it

We give it all our trust

We will surrender to it

because we must.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 26, 2012

End of Christmas

Day is done

What mark remains?

How was it distinguished —

What has changed?

Yes, we were happy

Relaxed in sweet togetherness of family

But have we yet gone deep enough

into the holy dawn?

Can any day contain the essence

of what must come?

Perhaps I’m called, each day

to lift the latch and enter

Abandon surface chatter

for the sacred center.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 25, 2012

Ruses

The touted need of dark to hide the light

has many ruses.

One of them seeks to define

the light’s uses —

tries to say it serves

(or doesn’t)

to bring advantage

in the twisted logic of the cruel games

that we’ve been duped to thinking

are our lives

Where to the light, there is no game

No win and lose

No rules, no shame

And as for dark

It has no teeth

and no desire

to hide the light.

It meekly waits —

Transparent depth

through which all light can effortlessly shine.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 24, 2012

The Light of Truth

Here in the still quiet

I can’t hold myself down too long

For all around me

Light rises

Like steady bubbles from underwater

Like steam from morning lakes

And no darkness can be amassed 

to stop it

And no denial can distract me

from the fact that it is here

Not a construct of my thinking

Nothing I, through will or thought,

can fail to see

The light is here

The only true fact of being

In all honesty

the only thing

we ever truly know.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 23, 2012

The New Day

Light glides instant

on the water

Faster than the waves

that catch its shine

flowing in their elemental course

along their necessary line

So impulse shoots across us

The call to go, to fill a need

We follow, undeterred by what might block us

Water-like, we find our way

This is the new day

Where we, no longer mechanized

No longer herded by our shame

No longer bound

Can rise to claim our right to bless

all that we love

with all we are

In the smooth liquid of this moment

We move

Led by light

Fed by what it gives.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 22, 2012

Winter Solstice

On this sphere we celebrate

the slinging of our orbit

‘round the sun

The changes wrought in light and dark

As earth, like dreamers turning

rolls around its center, day by day

Surprising from a star’s perspective

that these recurring changes —

Minute murmurs of balance in a spinning top —

Should make such difference to us

Should stand as symbols for our faltering faith

And its rebirth —

Waverings unseen in star time

Where they wheel grandly

Shining ever steady and unchanged.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 21, 2012

The realm of light

Though I have thought myself

A small puddle

Look how much sky

I reflect

See these deep-limbed trees

Reaching, now naked, into subtle blue

Dance of their branches weaving

Towards those distant clouds

Such a little patch of water

But how much brightness

Has found itself in me!

And if you look in sideways

You’ll see the scene extended 

beyond my edge —

Some vast inverted underworld

Suspended and inviting —

Another kingdom 

In the realm of light.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 20, 2012

Arcturus and his sons

There’s no gap

Between what I want

and what I’m given

Between what I need

and present heaven

There’s no desire

that would conspire

to turn me from my truth

For truth and my desire are ever one

There’s no part of me

that’s separate from who I am

No part that needs to be expunged or changed

The Principle in which I am designed

remains the same

Holding my life, like all the stars

exquisitely arranged.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 19, 2012

One Thing

The things I don’t understand

are myriad

I forget that, sometimes.

I forget it when I’m flying

When I’m swooping

When I’m surfing on the joy of life

It’s when I find myself in the morass

Churning, flailing

That all my simple answers seem

like the fur of a dowsed cat

Exposing scrawny neck and bony frame

No longer capable of warming

Void of the buoyancy required

to lift me out

But then

Whenever did my flight

rely on my own knowledge?

Maybe it doesn’t matter

what I don’t understand

Maybe I only need to know

One thing.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 18, 2012

Light’s drawing

Light draws me

I do not draw myself

These dark and awkward pencil jabs

don’t capture who I am

Light glides across

Illumines me

from any angle one might view

The lines I make are stuck upon a page

They can’t move with the day

so can’t be true

Light, draw me

clearly towards yourself

Be my life, my day, my song

I cast my foolish pencil down

to shine with you

where I belong.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 17, 2012

Learning to draw

On this canvas of depiction

Forms are made of interplay

of light and shadow

Gradients from grey to black

and grey to white

Train the light to show a depth of landscape

Light behind or light in front

Shadow from above or under

Where the eye will go

is led by light and dark

Now mine to choose, to bring out, to discover

Such a simple touch

invokes so much!

I walk amazed

into the world my pencil has created

On such a tiny square

with so few strokes!

©Wendy Mulhern

December 16, 2012

Time of lights

It could be Christmas

It could be solstice

It could be soft hope pumping

all but forgotten

Its steady pulse slowly reaffirming

to consciousness so long distracted

The light of our salvation

long through the dark enduring

Indeed, it is the darkest skies

that show the farthest stars

And deepest silence that reveals

the singing heart

It could be anywhere

It can be here

that sacred space is held

for the foreknown arising

of eternal dawn.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 15, 2012

For Carol

on her 80^th birthday

It isn’t veneration 

But bright delight that you inspire

For how you step forth, new

Taking in each day

with readiness

to grow, to learn, to shine

to let yourself, repeatedly

be re-imagined

New-formed like every wave that greets the shore

And for the ageless, trusting innocence

with which you ride that wave

(of you)

Coursing down the crest

of all that you’re becoming

In the surging, swift aliveness 

that affirms you

You remind us

We can jump into that life

and surf with you.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 12, 2012

Moment

In this moment of bright sun

Lighting up the leaves and needles

Making clinging raindrops iridescent spheres

Painting shadows, elegant, along all northern sides

I must write quickly

Fleecy clouds that fly illumined

Dancing in their sudden splendor

Also form the vanguard of a darker front

In this moment

Smoke from chimneys joining steam

that rolls from sun-warmed roofs

Wet roads as bright as mirrors

Trees stretched out across a blue almost forgotten

I must write quickly

before it’s gone.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 14, 2012

Another prayer of thanks

Thank you, Life, for showing me

what it is to love

To feel that bright, igniting joy

at someone’s presence in my days

And with each flash of love

be brought to life

Thank you, Life, for showing me

what it is to be loved

To feel that luminescent circle

holding me

Embracing me in tender, warming glow

Thank you for the shimmer of awareness

that I can always love

and reap the richness of that blessing

all the time

Thank you for the sureness

that I am always loved

And I can rest there

Everywhere at home.

©Wendy Mulhern

12/12/12

I shall rise up

I shall rise up

Not with bravado

Not with self assurance, certainty

Not with something to proclaim to others

Before the rising there will be

A coalescing

A gentle gathering of many particles

A condensation and a flowing down

A pooling in the lowest, stillest place I am

And I shall rise up

Seed swelling, irrepressible necessity

will send a root first, downward as an anchor

And that in me which needs to feel the bright of day

will spring forth

to be greened.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 11, 2012

Veils

It’s tragic

to fail to see

A magnificent creation of grace

A marvel of design perfection

A one-of-a-kind expression

of a truth so exquisite

There’s really no other way

to make it known

It’s a shame to just glance and say

Oh, there goes Sally,

There goes James.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 10, 2012

Fundamental frequency

Let me sink

into this hammock

This cocoon

This softly swaying place

Where my weight is cradled

by the kindness

of the force that holds me here

Let me swing

in the fundamental frequency

of that which breathes the cosmos

Singing me

as it sings the stars

Lullaby of motion

Let me fall

gently to my center

where the quiet pulsing hope

remains connected

to the universal light

and hums the harmony

of that great song

that carries me in sweetness

through the night.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 8, 2012

Wonder Vision

I put on the eyes that see colors

that see the depth and hue of shifting sky

That see the glow of things reflected off each other

Enchanting golds and oranges

softly warming planes and curves

Satisfying turn of shade

gracefully adorning trunks of trees

The colors stay with me when I close my eyes

Now free to recombine

like wind-tossed clouds

or frothing ocean foam

swirling and shifting

Now serving to refine

my understanding

of how the universe

breathing and lifting

gives  wonder to the vision of my days.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 6, 2012

Releasing Light

In the enslavement 

to which we’re bound

(held down by loops of thought

cleverly designed to make us think

they are our own)

We’re trained we’re only due a little light —

Strings of little lights at Christmas

Rare and hard-earned smiles, short vacations

A glimmering of satisfaction

coming up through layers and layers

of drudgery

Only one love in life

and no more loved ones

than we can count on a hand or two.

Why not throw off the loops?

Why not abandon

the voice that says

“How dare you? How dare you think

that you could have some more?

Why not claim

for ourselves and everyone else

all the light —

All the light that we are!

©Wendy Mulhern

December 5, 2012

Mirrors

I think your soul is beautiful

because you mirror me

I see myself seen in your eyes

and what I see you see is beautiful

I see your soul as beautiful

and can’t believe

the things you say about the dark inside

since they don’t match the light I see

when I see you see me

You think my soul is beautiful

Not for my native talents

Not for my hard-earned insights

Not for my steady tending, through the darkness

of my inner flame

But for the way I saw you beautiful

when you saw me

when I felt you knew my inner name.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 4, 2012

Praying in the dark

Spirit, light, today I need

some warming core

some inner seed

some steady, peaceful, self-contained assurance

that all is well within, that my endurance

won’t even be stretched thin by these dark days

that that which rises up within to sing your praise

will carry me in joy along whatever course you choose

will bubble forth and grow more strong

the more it’s used

so glowing with a warmth

that I can feel and also share

thus showing forth your presence

here and everywhere.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 3, 2012

Course correction

It’s OK

There’s more truth

in those three hugs

and their memories

than in all the dread

attempting to array itself

against your coming day

There’s more truth

in those strong smiles

than in the sense of many looming tasks

The truth in every now

outshines the constructs of tomorrow

There’s no trouble

that you ever have to borrow

Every moment

brings its own illumination

So you never need to wander

in the dark.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 2, 2012

Art Work

My head is full of colors

and my floor is full of scraps

Bright detritus from the pictures I’ve been making

And though I tried to stop myself

I kept on coming back

to the compelling concentration 

of creating

And the satisfaction fills me

like the vivid saturation

of the colors that I painted and cut out

And I revel in the evidence

of steady maturation 

of my craft, and the receding of my doubt

My mind is full of color

and it spills into the metaphors

for everything I’m thinking of today

And I think that when I’ve finished

and cleaned up all the paper

These internal scraps of color will remain.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 1, 2012