Here it is

Look — I want you to see this:

In this view it looks like

light gleaming through a glass brick.

In this view it looks like

a small cat, fearless, poised and purring.

In this view it looks like

you inner jewel —

serving as keystone

to complete the amulet

transporting us to our ancestral home.

Our feet have walked these hills

for thousands of years.

All the belonging to them

leaps up through our soles

at every step.

All the deep strength 

from this land

reaffirms

the thing I wanted you to see.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 31, 2013

Seeking your heart

When you first noticed it,

it was so deep inside

it felt like an ache.

As you followed the convoluted folds,

the fractal turnings

in and in,

it started to feel sharper

and its heat

became insistent.

You followed hard

(as hard as you could,

the fragile softness at the edges

slowing you sometimes)

You came to where

you could see its glow,

still through many layers,

and now you approach

reverently

feeling your way

knowing the great light

will burst upon you any time.

©Wendy Mulhern 

October 30, 2013

Morning

Waking up,

you start to see

that there’s no need to go back

among the scattered shards,

the steady ebbing of your fluids

and the halted breath

to find and try to rescue

all the fallen parts.

Nothing is broken

and your being

shines as fresh within this day

as it has always shone.

There is no tally

of all those wrongs,

the generations of remorse,

the shame.

It’s all gone

in this, the morning:

Your name is clear,

your loveliness the same.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 29, 2013

Fall

Let me take a little time

to be dry,

dry as my mouth against this headwind,

dry as the crunchy leaves on the trail.

Let me take a turn

at the inward curl

that is done emoting

and waits to receive,

not needing to do so in any length of time,

not being watched for a reaction,

just breathing,

just feeling.

Grant me the abandon

to let myself fall.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 28, 2013

Video Presentation: The consulate of Other

Tonight I did a poetry reading. It seems to have used up my poetic juices for the night. But here's one of the poems I shared: (click on the link below the photo)

                                               The consulate of Other

What I will say

I’m getting ready,

storing up the words,

letting them steep in their power.

They cannot be spoken till their time —

They need to leap across a certain space

and they won’t go

until they know

someone’s there to catch them.

In a real sense

this is not a performance —

I can only bring one half of the arch.

I can only trust that,

in accordance with the Law of Love,

the other half will be supplied by others,

and the circuit will connect

and the light will beam.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 26, 2013

Harvest Time

No worries that my blooms have slowed —

It is a time when juices flow toward seeds,

cushion them with sweetness,

bestow the gifts they need

to carry them on to the next grand rising —

A push of final energies,

a giving out of everything —

no stinting for the life that will remain.

After this part is over

and the new life moves on,

there will still be enough —

the nourishment will gather

in my roots and core,

and my stillness send its signal out

along the vast connections underground,

preparing me for more.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 24, 2013

Lifting

And on the fifth day

the fog lifted —

not just the fleeting thinning

where a pale disk of sun

almost comes out,

but the revealing

of a deeply generous sky

and free reign of a splendid sun

that shone through brilliant autumn leaves

raising them from bright to luminescent.

(They had already been warm enough,

against the grey skies, to lift my spirits —

today they affirmed what also showed

in my internal landscape —

the lush detail, the depth of perfection

with which each leaf, each cell,

each object in the universe

is defined.)

©Wendy Mulhern

October 23, 2013

Heather’s Rant

You wrapped yourself up in that rant,

happy for its warmth

and its unique fashion —

how it made a statement,

served to define who you are

And I must agree

you look cute in it —

It brings out the flash in your eyes.

I’ve always liked your taste in rants —

Not the mall-multiplied opinions

we see pasted everywhere,

Not the vitriolic firestorms

that torch others to achieve self-definition,

Not the howls of desperation flung up

from a deep hole —

You find these one-of-a-kind, eccentric rants —

Your rants have soul!

©Wendy Mulhern

October 22, 2013

What I forgot this time

When I come again

I will bring with me

what I own —

It fits nicely into my frame,

I don’t need to hold it in my hands

or have it weigh down my pockets.

I will bring with me what I own:

I own this place —

Well, I own the right

to offer home

to anyone who’s here —

Home in my gravity,

home in my mass

and the certainty

of the right of everyone

in this place

to feel at home.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 20, 2013

Grey

In the mystic grey on grey,

the tiny waves, nearly mute,

lip the shore.

At one certain angle,

they glint transparent,

showing all the stones

beneath the water

We speak with clarity

found in the closeness

that cuts through fog

and shows our insides,

as limpid as the waves

revealing stones

We walk into the future,

not predicting anything,

step on step through grey sand

along the grey shore

while grey and white stones

settle softly

under the quiet waves.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 19, 2013

Catching Up

It felt good

to sit on the deck

weaving stories out of memory and light,

while the fog thinned

and hummingbirds chipped and whirred

through the old cherry tree.

It felt good

to finish the edges of that yarn —

to see it whole,

and then to come inside

for tea and conversation

(our voices calibrated

so as not to wake the sleepers)

morning rolling towards noon,

while steller’s jays

riled the little birds

and colors glowed brighter

against the clearing sky.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 18, 2013

Invitations

The dog at the beach

invited us to play,

and it was as clear as

“Shall we dance?” —

The same ritual gesture,

the same kindling spark of eyes.

We know these signs —

We don’t need to be taught,

but we must feel

we are worth the gift,

and our would-be partner is, too,

so we don’t mask ourselves

or dodge the invitation —

So we can fling ourselves,

as that dog did,

into the bright, cold water 

that rose against her chest,

bringing us with her

into swift joy.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 17, 2013

Preparation

There are so many ways

this whole dream could end

that I’ve gone beyond worrying.

In the end, I have to take my stand,

have to be unmoved,

uncowed by all the threats,

because life is like that, I guess —

Seedlings make their stands

on impossible outcroppings.

Sometimes they grow anyway,

into big trees.

If everything changes

I will still 

do what seems best at the time,

still fight for life and love,

still be

whatever it is I am.

So my best preparation

is to know what that is

and live it,

fearlessly, fiercely,

with all my heart.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 16, 2013

Shema

I can’t keep going through days like this,

full of the steady progress of planned projects

and the routines of pleasant obligations,

flitting through them like high clouds

marbling the sky and drifting off.

Our fathers were instructed to make a portal

(“they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes”)

— a frame to go through every morning

and every time they looked out on the world

reminding them to leave behind

any images that they’d accumulated,

anything that let them move through life on automatic

such that they might forget

to engage with that ever unfolding 

wild adventure of being.

They had a portal to remind them,

Stand in awe of the Oneness.

Our mothers knew:

“My soul doth magnify the Truth.”

This is what I am here for.

Let me remember.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 15, 2013

Leveling

Ah — I must try this more often —

leading with the parts of me

that have no words —

the bubble of my inner level,

the shared weight of contact,

the gravity of presence.

So blind it is of me

to lead with words and concepts

when what is needed is the simple clasp,

the resonance, the holding.

Let me surrender

to the constant liquid flow

that makes us equal

at each moment of connection.

Let me relinquish

everything I think I know,

everything I think I am

for the wordless oneness

in the timeless balance

of life’s unending dance.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 14, 2013

Magnuson Park, Mid October, 4 p.m.

Windless, sunlit afternoon —

The lake has grown smooth and bright,

subtle colors — mauve and silver,

powder blue and olive,

dark blue lines cut through by speeding boats,

waves rolling in towards shore.

We feel the satisfaction of momentum —

things that, now started, will move out on their own

while we bask in solid comfort

of companionship and Sunday

(the waves turn at the shore and bound out,

rippling like animal muscle)

where we have suspended time,

for now.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 13, 2013

Evening music, home

Rich textures of sound

invite me to close my eyes,

to open up the inner view

on which the images can be portrayed.

They play out

in that deep, spherical realm

that opens out above, in front, beneath me,

they fold and recombine

in colors and in forms,

invite my movement,

invite my song.

And when I join them

I can feel how this world intersects

the one my open eyes can see

just like reflections

from these inside rooms

intersect the outside scene.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 12, 2013

Casting

We may love stories

but stories are not our home —

We will feel trapped

if cast in roles

as archetype, as foil,

as heroine, as villain —

We are made to move 

within a larger sphere.

Since I don’t want to be

a character in someone else’s story,

let me refrain from casting others

and let me dwell in no narrative,

place no significance

on the deposit of dialog,

the layered development of events.

This day’s assertion of itself

needs no story,

just my steady attention,

no arcane analysis,

just my love.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 11, 2013

Love’s Calling

Your essence emerges —

matrix, vortex, center —

The infinite converges

and flows through —

Effortless abundance.

You stand,

your gifts pouring forth

from your open hands,

your warming core

providing incubation.

Your inherent love

shines out unbidden, reflexive,

an unintended beacon,

still guiding true.

You are right:

You’re here because

you have been called.

Your answering ensures

the need is met.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 10, 2013

Your Hunger

Ah, your hunger

is so attractive —

the way it pulses

the chords of life’s imperative.

The ready urgency

brings out the wild in you,

edge of aliveness,

the non-negotiable.

And it brings out

the mother in me,

the one whose deepest joy

is to feed you what you need,

to see the frank pleasure

in your receiving it.

To see you satisfied

may be the deepest gift

you give me. So your hunger

makes me crave your presence.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 9, 2013

Sun showers

Sun and rain share easy space

in autumn sky —

light-drenched drops plunge and bounce,

sparkles dance with shadows

on wet pavement

and the day’s mood swings swiftly

from stern to gracious,

from glad to somber.

Places of convergence

delight in their strange mix

and how they wake us up.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 8, 2013

Cloud Cover

Through the dark hours,

clouds raced on their night errands

accompanied by trees’ rush and wind chimes,

fleeting across the sky

(stars peering through from their distant field)

Early morning finds them running late —

patches of emergent blue not yet hidden —

but they’re moving with grand momentum,

sure they’ll have it covered

by sunrise.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 7, 2013

State of the Union

Traversing once again

the thoughtscapes

we have created

and called the world,

I see so many fractured structures,

so many castles

that clearly are pretend,

the fabrications

of such manipulations

that what I find most hard to understand

is how we ever thought they’d hold our weight.

But wait —

Even now they are shifting

more clearly into dream

and we are still standing,

yet not on nothing,

So there must be 

(and must have always been)

something here that holds us up,

some essential structure

that is not broken

and will sustain us still

when everything falls down.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 5, 2013

Like a Mocha

Beneath the froth of stories

is the thick, rich liquid,

hot and satisfying,

that is my reason

to sip this drink of you.

In the dark converging

of all that’s potent,

I take you in.

I wanted to get to this point,

held my lips closed

to keep out the superfluous,

to feel the rush of you

come up from underneath.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 4, 2013

Generativity

The daily bread we’re given

is always enough

to feed five thousand —

We are provided

not for just survival

but for all the generosity

we can fathom,

all the love

we are willing to extend,

all the abundance

we can comprehend.

It’s not enough

to think we have a small pittance

that covers us and no one else,

that we must hoard, hide, and defend.

We are designed

to be an open flow.

“Love your neighbor as yourself”

can also mean

Love your neighbor as who you are —

Love your neighbor as love.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 3, 2013

What I’m here for

I have these eyes —

this intersection of perception,

this way of seeing

I have this truth at my core

that gives me context

to interpret what is here,

to understand the law

that flows in everything

I have this love

(not made by me

but found in me, as me)

It is my life to be it,

to insist that it illumine

all that I behold,

so bearing witness

with my eyes, my truth, my love

to what I am,

to what we are.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 2, 2013

Take Heart

Walk in peace,

for none of this

has ever touched you.

No circling, tossing tides

can surge into your calm.

You are held 
in the Mind

that thinks up everything —

It thinks up you

as clearly and as firmly

as it thinks the stars.

It thinks you through and through —

It fashions everything you are —

no gaps nor fuzziness, 

confusion nor regrets.

Walk in peace,

for Mind is holding you

in cherished ease,

fully enfolding you.

There is no moment

where it blinks out

and so your being

is ever clear.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 1, 2013