In gratitude

Who can calculate

the worth of these moments

of coming part way out of sleep,

turning over, and returning —

not fully —

just enough to touch base

with the sinuous, lusty reality

of being here, now

in this body?

With the certain vitality

of plants in spring

reaching for growth,

With the confidence of currents

of being one

with the flow of life.

By morning

they have woven

a springy web

to hold me

in the brightness of the day,

to show me

which way to turn my leaves

to drink the sun.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 31, 2013

Solitude

I can be like solitude

if that is what you need

I can walk beside you

And our breath can sink

as deep as it needs to 

into the roots of being

And there can be time

for the whole silence to rise up

as far as it needs to

to meet the embrace of the day

And for each wind-touched frond

to offer

and accept

the invitation to dance.

There is enough space

for me in you,

and for you in me,

that we can walk

in this shared solitude

however far the journey leads our feet.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 30, 2013

Tricks of the Light

It seems we are

so refracted from ourselves

That we don’t recognize these lights

as having anything to do with us,

So attracted to what seems

so out of reach

That we can’t trace

the inner spark from which they radiate.

These tricks with mirrors

make us feel alone

Closed off by glass

Confused by all the faces 

that gaze back at us,

looking all the same —

Faces that wear all our fears, projected,

All asking something of us

that we can’t quite name

But all these lights are ours

And they reflect our center

And all these lights are us:

Through our own core

we enter

the place where we can soothe

all these eyes

Allay these doubts and fears

And let these facets

magnify the One.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 29, 2013

Natural processes

The organism moves to heal itself

to fill in gaps

And to make whole

its pattern of movement

And when it is restricted

it will move against those bonds

repeatedly, inexorably

Directing all its energies

to crash against whatever chains it

or hems it in

It needs the wholeness of its movement

Just as it needs the wholeness of its body

Needs to be free

to fill the sweeping arcs

for which it is designed

It will break through

Or it will find a way

to move beneath the barrier

And there

Soft and persistent and unmoldable as water

It will wear away the walls

until they fall.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 28, 2013

Going Under

I close my eyes and watch the scenes that rise

My mind makes stories

for the sounds it hears —

A not-too-terrible retreat

from the bizarre intrusion —

Two heads intently staring down at me

Two pairs of hands with instruments employed

Where they have safely cordoned off

the messy natural functions of my mouth

My tongue sits under rubber,

too numb to do much.

Best to go under —

To watch dancers

And parallax of buildings’ walls

as I approach them

And flowing swirls of river water

Best to relax

into the yes I’m learning to lean in to.

Wake me up when it’s over.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 27, 2013

Spring Signs

The kindly moon

Riding almost full

Through the shell-pink sky

Presiding over all the arc of night

On leaving, drew a blanket

Over the sleeping earth

To keep her warm till morning

The softness of today

Attests to sweet sleep

The birdsong finds the air gentle

As it lifts its clear tones across the breeze

The bulbs are up, and many trees are greening

Shoulders lift in lightness

At the day’s ease

And in the bustle of the evening

We see each other cheered

By the enduring light

That spreads benevolence across the traffic

Extending hope and welcome towards the night.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 25, 2013

Vignettes from the day

1.

The nappable sun

on the bench in the park

found me mellow

while boys and their fathers

launched out in a red canoe

fishing gear ready

for bonding and adventure

2.

An elderly lady and I

raced our shopping carts

down the aisle

I pulled back to not collide with others

She laughed and pulled ahead

I squeaked out through my door ahead of her

but her car was closer, so she won.

I kept laughing all the way home.

3.

This coffeehouse is empty

but for us, and the owner

and the western sun

that gleams through the windows

which frame out different sections of the sky.

Day flows into evening,

We pack up and head home

Plum blossoms scent the air —

Sweet delicate spice of Spring.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 25, 2013

Exploring Yes

I wanted this:

I wanted to be overcome,

Wanted the unknown mysterious tide

to rush through me, lifting away

everything I thought I was.

I wanted this internal suspension

Where my molecules,

With sudden phosphorescence,

Flow in a toroidal circulation,

Waking me all up inside.

I wanted this astonished state

of being rendered formless —

My caterpillar body melting

in its chrysalis —

Feeling in an ongoing surprise

The newness taking shape within.

When we are done, I’ll soar —

Of this I’m sure

though I can’t fathom how,

or what I’ll be

For I am drawn to this

with all my essence —

This yes to you is yes, still more,

to me.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 24, 2013

Days like this

Days like this,

It’s easy enough to understand

how a springing plant

can do nothing all day

but bask and expand,

reaching out the pleats

of newly unsheathed leaves,

drawing water up,

making sugar from the sun

And it’s easy to sense

that it’s enough

to lie around like a cat,

every rise and fall of breath

a purr of gratitude

for how it feels right now.

There’s a full job description

in the attention

to the precise gift

of this moment —

The need to witness it

can’t be neglected.

Days like this

It’s easy enough

to claim the task of being —

A sweet duty

not to leave undone.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 23, 2013

A Fairy Tale

He looks at her bewildered

as if to ask,

“Why are you here?”

Her look returns the same unsaid surprise:

“I came because you called me —

Called me by my ancient name,

The one I didn’t even know

but had to answer.

I came because you knew me,

And I needed, in your eyes,

to learn myself.

I came because you needed me,

And I, I needed to be needed,

just like that.”

He shakes his head. “No,

I never called you. Not like that.

Well, sure, I find you charming,

as I find many women. But no,

I don’t have time

or strength

to hold the whole of you,

to meet your offer.”

He talks like that, 

but she doesn’t believe him.

How, after all, could he reach

so deep into her soul

and still not know her?

And knowing her, how could he fail

to be entranced?

Yet no is no

And so she knows

she needs to let it go.

She makes a sail

to catch and radiate her love.

She uses it

to sail around the world.

For what is once called forth

though left unclaimed

cannot go back,

And what has been once named

must fill its place,

must rise up in its light.

She’ll use her new-found grace

to crest the night.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 22, 2013

Healing

Love flows in

to all the hidden places

Love’s balm,

Love’s calm

allays all fear, aligns the inner graces.

Every anxious flailing churning clamoring

is put to rest in Love’s deep-running channeling.

Only what is wholesome can grow here,

All progress so attuned to Love, 

All purpose clear.

Let me humbly move at Love’s direction,

Hallowed in Love’s joy and pure affection,

So removed from every claim of pain,

Firm and settled in Love’s holy reign.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 21, 2013

Sinking into One

Honesty has gravity

to sink me

into the integrity

that touches our humanity,

our unity, our oneness.

Oneness is my wholeness,

Full circle for my movement,

Inclusion wherein I can know

no strangers, and no strangeness.

There will be things to wrestle with,

to floor me with their rising;

I’ll find the weird and wonderful,

enchanting and surprising;

But nothing I can’t snuggle with

when the day is done.

So, embracing everything

I learn to know the One.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 20, 2013

Prayer at the End of Days

Spirit, be a rock under my feet,

For these sands are flowing hard against me.

Hold me with your steady hand,

Unite me with your center,

Give me strength to stand

Against the seething flood of matter.

Be so clear

That all these tidal flows

Will fail to grab me in their undertow.

Let them only serve to bring illusion down

That I may stand in freedom

Knowing Truth alone.

Hold us all, that as the turbid turbulence subsides,

We all will stand together

Seeing new, clear-eyed.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 19, 2013

Strategies

I could go off into drift

I could let the sense of disconnect

condense,

fog up my sight with sadness,

close me in,

make me curl up into a small place

to collect the seeping darkness

in my body’s still,

to manufacture tears, perhaps

and soft howls.

I could wait there for you to notice.

It could be a long wait.

And it would start to seem pointless

after just a little while.

Plus if you did see me there,

what would you do?

I would be

one more unpleasant task,

another instance

of the universe’s obstinance

or bland indifference.

Better to laugh.

Better to consider

that none of this was made with me in mind

There certainly was no attempt

to cut me off

And maybe all of this was an illusion anyway —

Emotional hallucination

of an errant tooth.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 17, 2013

Barriers

It’s easy for me to put up a barrier.

I can say

Here is a thing I need

And without it I can’t find

the full connection.

It can be a very reasonable thing,

A need that anyone would understand

But however compelling

my justification,

It’s still my choice.

I don’t have to let anything

be a barrier

between me and full connection

Not my inhibitions, or yours

Not your preoccupations, or mine

Not habit, not rhythm, not time

Not species, not genus, not gender

I can run into these barriers

but I don’t have to.

It’s my choice.

Let me remember.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 16, 2013

Sisterhood

In this moment

We know why we are here.

We don’t know what we’ll say

Or if we’ll even talk

Or if we’ll dance, or sing, or pray

And yet we sense

We will support each other.

We each will ask

For what will feed us now.

We each will find

Within our yet unspoken wisdom

The truth that meets each other’s present need.

We each will rise

Impelled by what’s required

To know our selves as capable,

As bright providers

Of what sustains us while alone

As while together.

We are, in this shared role,

Our greatest treasure.

So we flow upwards, outwards,

Splendid wings unfurled,

A sisterhood to overcome the world.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 14, 2013

Homecoming: a vision

She makes her way along familiar streets

now rendered narrow

by the broadness of her vision.

Her light-filled eyes

scan these scenes

of her recent past

which tug up tears she scarcely understands.

Her skirt snags on corners;

She tries to pull it in;

It keeps on spilling outward

Like her love,

Like her tears.

She wants to gather all these up;

She wants them to come with her,

Wants them to see her.

They are afraid

that they have lost her,

that she won’t stay home,

that in her brilliance

she has no time to see them.

She will find a way to bring them in

She will be patient

She’ll come up from behind,

Shine through them softly

So the light they see is theirs

Rising from within

to meet her own.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 13, 2013

Visiting hour, King County Jail

None of these restraints are what they seem:

Though we may feel the structure is

the walls and doors, the iron and the glass,

the heavy locks,

They only are projections of the barriers inside —

The layers upon layers of revoked permissions

set down since toddlerhood,

And the narrow mazes of propriety

inculcated through all our years of school,

Reared up here as final ultimatum:

Stay in the lines, or you will crash, hard, here.

But none of these structures

are what they seem.

Such a surprise to see the guards,

The sentinels of good-defined-by-evil,

Jealous keepers of prescribed morality

Receiving our sweet, wilting, proffered flowers

and stepping over

to our side.

The power of the truth within,

The still, small voice of liberty

Autopoiesis of each living thing

Must overcome these walls and set us free.

Yes, we will pray.

That’s where we must begin.

Against these odds

it is the only way to win.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 12, 2013

My body’s yes

What is it

that calls my body’s yes

in the middle of the night?

— The yes that knows

with the certainty of weather

how to move —

How to flow along the thermal currents

Steady as progressing clouds across the sky

Soft as air

Warm as breath

Smooth as steam

What is the I Am in you

that calls forth this response

somewhere beneath the layers

of directed thought?

I found myself, within myself,

in awe,

Embodying a grace I’d never known,

Inhabiting a place of

effortless, continuous engagement

With some imperative

delectable

ineffable

presence of you.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 11, 2013

Focusing

This realigning of what matters

is like a massive shift in focus

in which vertical lines

trade places with each other

and what I thought was space between

is coming into view as solid

and what I thought was solid

may turn out to not be anything.

And in my reassessment

I still haven’t found

the rare bird

on which I hoped my lens was trained

but those leaves

in bright and waxy detail

stand out, surreal, 

against surrounding greens.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 10, 2013

On Mortality: Four Observations

I.

“It’s all over now, baby blue.”

In the buckling of the sky

(blue, almost serene, beyond my windshield,

Turned, in my mind’s eye

by the lyrics of a song)

I felt how creatures die

in the final overwhelm

that overcomes

the desperate, rising impulse

of life plunged into struggle.

They shut their eyes tight,

They curl up

They let it all go —

A sudden shift in priorities —

It all goes quite easily:

They open their eyes

And it is gone.

II.

Maybe each time we awake,

We die from the dream we were in

All those scenes

So swiftly forgotten

in the insistent brushstrokes

of the day’s reality.

Maybe we have died thousands of times,

or more (he said)

And it is something in our creature memory:

We know what it is.

III.

Against the backdrop of impassive sky

These tragedies roll out,

These cries of anguish,

All this waste, this grief,

The drudgery, the disappointment

And the clamor for relief

Yet we will give our all for life

Until the final moment comes.

IV.

I don’t intend to die today

But if I did

I would be satisfied.

I’ve sown true seeds,

I’ve shared my gift,

I’ve known great love

I have more words

But these could be enough.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 9, 2013

Taste of spring

Days like this

I remember

How the sun can come for me —

How, even if I face it from a place of stress,

Numb to any radiance or peace,

Its shining will start to reach through —

Soft warming on my face,

Dazzle of water sparkles on my eyes,

Subtly winning ground in my attentions

Till I am undone,

Abandon all preoccupations

And stretch, catlike,

Into the luxury of its gift.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 8, 2013

Getting home

There are so many ways

to get back to your foundation.

You can get there by rising —

Your upward thrust locating,

through its balance,

the deep support that sends you on your way.

You can get there by falling —

Tumbling for mercy,

Needing everything,

Drawing your aid from your loves.

You can get there in frenzy —

Flailing till everything extra burns out

and nothing is left but the core.

You can get there in stillness —

Settling into your peace

till you know nothing more.

You can forge for it,

Resolute and alone,

Brave and courageous 

till all the resistance is done.

You can find it in liquid togetherness,

Gathering strength as you pool

in a deep, shared surrender.

One thing is sure:

You are destined to find it, 

Certain as anything known —

There are so many kinds of returning,

So many ways to get home.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 7, 2013

Awakening

Another layer of dissolving dream

sits like mist a little distant from my eyes

I peer to see the sun — pale disk,

emerging

Asserting its dominion on the day

The mist, dispersing, opens out my vision

The ground, now oddly solid

sends its message through my soles:

This is the earth on which you have been walking

This is the contact that will find you whole

I realize that I’d wondered why, while grasping

at all those things, I never really held one

Or why in running towards those goals

I never reached them,

Why the teachers’ lessons

Felt confusing, hopeless, boring

Why I always plodded

When I felt I should be soaring —

Now I know.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 6, 2013

Standing

We’ve been through this before

but this time we’re wiser

and will stand unflinching

as all those shapes pass through us —

those illusions of ourselves,

walking and moving

but absent our deep desire —

ourselves moving in tracks

set up to have us shuffle

mostly mindless,

mostly lifeless,

through our days

This time we won’t 

fall in step with them

For our roots reach down

so much deeper —

through rocks, through magma,

to the mingling with the very core of things,

And our crowns,

full as the most established of the guardian trees —

Our crowns dance with the stars.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 5, 2013