Your Passage

Though it seems amazing,

even to me,

I am not afraid.

Though you face this void

and I can’t be there,

though I can’t take your steps for you,

I am not afraid.

I know the riches you’ll reap

from this passage

are without compare,

and are for you alone —

You will attain them,

you’ll bring them home

Then we will celebrate,

for you will share this with us all —

We’ll be elated,

and you’ll be free and whole.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 30, 2015

Confidence

I’m really good at

holding your hand

and keeping up —

skip-step in perfect trust

I like it, too, when you swoop me

high through the air,

our laughter mingling

under the bright sky,

I’m good at

filling up with joy

There have been names

given to me, and to my family,

names establishing our strengths

and our shortcomings,

generations of stories,

many never told, about them

But today I don’t want any name but yours,

don’t want histories, don’t want prognostications —

Today I’ll hold your hand and take your name:

I Am.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 29, 2015

Mooning

A handful of families

had come to see the blood moon,

standing around outside their cars

(like us)(children hopping around

and talking loudly)

And there it hovered

just above the trees,

just around its maximum shadow —

a smudge, a smile, a whisper

But every day has something singular —

a dance of clouds, a curve of leaves —

and every night holds out the opportunity

for moon, for stars, whatever brightness

the city’s glow may let come through.

Many people raved over this one

on the internet.

We got back in our car

and drove home.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 28, 2015

Faith

No one else does it for you.

That’s OK —

This holy work

is what you’re made to do.

The you essence,

so pure in your mustard-seed core,

must draw in the life water

that makes it swell,

must split, and multiply

and open out

so bringing forth

everything you are

There is no turning back,

there is no giving up —

once started, your unfoldment

must continue

till you, too, bring forth precious seed,

spreading your blessing

wide across the land.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 27, 2015

Storymongers

The incident is immediately

thronged by storymongers,

elbowing each other for your time

Some offer blame,

some offer quests,

some offer juicy roles —

the martyr, the oppressed

Any one will take you

down a convoluted path,

offering light 

just around the next corner

Some may offer softer rides,

some may promise more intense life lessons,

Each of them will swear

they are the only way,

None of them, however, will deliver

The one thing that can give you what you need

gives it quite clear — apparent from the start —

the cleansing waves of light across your brow,

the steady flow of truth into your heart

Stay open, and resist the stories,

urgent and compelling though they seem —

Hold out instead for comprehensive vision

and rise, thereby awakened from the dream.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 26, 2015

Shadow

It was a cloudy, misty day,

and we did little,

It was a shifting in between day,

a shadow,

overlapping transparencies,

intransigent opacities,

a day of waiting —

waiting for clarity,

for any forward direction,

where even fresh pursuits

fell muted

into the gray cloud

of what we don’t know.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 25, 2015

Flying Lesson

I knew from dreams

that it would be effortless,

guided by thought and not mechanics,

and that every cell of me

would be awakened, would be exclaiming,

over and over, how free, how right, this feels

I knew that there would be no fear.

I knew I’d feel companioned,

so closely held and guided

by the Truth with which I gratefully commune.

I knew I wanted this, with all my being

What I didn’t know

was how close at hand this is —

not something lost to me

(at least until I walk a span

wherein I am defined

by some corporeality,

wherein I am confined to tracing

mostly pre-determined, fear-laced paths,

wearily, from birth to certain death)

I didn’t know I didn’t have to wait —

that this reality of who I am,

equipped and fully knowing flight,

has been here all along,

simply awaiting my lift-off.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 24, 2015

Squiggle

I search for inspiration

and see the bright image squiggle,

naked as a sunbeam,

upward and out of grasp

except my mind

is its medium,

so it can’t escape —

it can only

open out my sight

to where I see it

blending like heat rising,

releasing its radiance

into a greater shimmer,

bringing me there with it,

breathing the broad freedom

of communion.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 23, 2015

Seven Times

they shall drive thee from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field, and they shall make thee to eat grass as oxen, and they shall wet thee with the dew of heaven, and seven times shall pass over thee, till thou know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will.

Daniel 4:25

I’ll take whatever baptism I can get —

Let me be wet with the dew of heaven, 

till I know:

1)

Not my scheming mind, 

not my fretting, fearful mind, 

not my story seeking,

straw-grasping,

hoping and despairing mind,

but the Mind of stars and seasons,

of microscopic earth connections,

of fragrant sweeping tides and cedar boughs

guides the action of my life

2)

Not my self-concerned, capricious tastes,

not my opinions,

hot my brittle sense of what I am

determines me,

but the Soul that sings through every morning

and sustains the song all through the afternoon,

goldening the evening,

coloring the mystical transition into night,

chiming through the stars,

tuning the subtle shifting

in every blessed hour until the dawn

3)

Not my cyclic bursts of will,

my spurts of motivation

(between the slumps of lethargy)

not my halfway efforts

to accomplish something,

but Spirit’s steady, constant inspiration,

that brings life’s fruits to fullness,

each in their perfect time —

this crafts my being

4)

It’s not my sense of life,

its little arc, and my attempts

to fill it with the things I think I want,

but Life’s design that brings me forth —

so joy-filled, so abundant,

spilling forth delight,

limitless and free

5)

Not the set of things I’ve thought I loved,

nor the (also small) set

of what I’ve thought loves me,

but the unrepressed infinitude

of Love comprising everything,

fills me up with its desire to be

6)

Not my former judgments of what’s true,

based on what I thought I understood,

but this great Truth is what I must acknowledge —

which makes a place for every being,

each one with its center, each a centered love

7)

Not my sense of law — of what is right

or what I might decree,

but that full Principle,

which holds the world

in ever-moving harmony,

is the law that governs me

Seven times, and then 

my reason will be sound

for I will know

The Most High, the All Good,

makes me what I am.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 21, 2015

Delicate

In the grand array of Life

there’s nothing fragile —

The most delicate of flowers

is securely held

in the space around it,

in the air and light that haloes it,

and in its neededness

within the web of everything,

the tenderest of fronds

is supported

in the isometric force of life,

pushing out and down,

and in the cycling of energies within it

The finest of perceptions

and the sweetest of emotions,

the deep empathy and sensitivity,

are anchored in a love as vast

as all the universe

where nothing ruptures them

nor overrides their purity

So, too, this day,

this epoch, and this moment,

are held in their perfection

by a law, a love, that leaves 

no room for falling —

a law, a love, that cherishes us all.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 19, 2015

To Heather, visiting from the east coast

For me you have often

stood in as my daemon —

spirit beside me

giving me courage,

feather-light anchor

securing my sense of my right

to be here

Even of late

on opposite coasts

I still feel us walking together,

seeking our heart instruments

and our song,

practicing light lessons daily

Now, while you’re here,

all the tasks of my day

suddenly seem light and easy —

buoyed by your presence,

in joy of your essence,

my spirit is lifted again.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 17, 2015

A Matter of Law

A bird in a picture

can no more fall

out of the painted sky

than you can fall

from the grace that attends your being

No matter how high that bird might be

and how young — a fledgling, really —

no matter how hard the painted trees

may show the wind to blow,

that bird will stay aloft,

so have no fear,

for so shall you

I try to explain these things —

I know my own fear

in former times

was hard to overcome —

It was hard for me, as well,

not to think of these words

as some incantation

to keep the bird from falling

Believe me — I know

that words aren’t enough,

that you, too, need to feel

the upward-bearing lift

that holds you, blanket-sure,

on your true course.

And so you can —

you, too, can feel that Love

that is the only law.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 16, 2015

Mid September

It’s not quite time

to settle

into the coziness of darker days,

the smell of inside heat

while winds blow outside

and the sun comes just

in scattered, rapid glances,

and rain spatters

and there is no guilt

in staying inside all day

Now the squash have played their hands —

some will roll in flush and full to harvest,

some are banking on a longer season,

their fruits now small and hopeful and daring

And the heart race

of this span of opportunity

pulls me forward —

right to the edge of what I can know,

right to the hungering yearning urge

to keep leaping, one bound after another,

into open space.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 15, 2015

Well Drillers

I recognize the goodness

of your sturdy strength

and your willingness

to get completely dirty

and to muscle the heavy equipment

into the ground,

your endurance

and your experience

and the way you signal to each other

above the motor’s din and through your earplugs

and you both know

what you need to do

The joy in this shows through

like the brightness of your eyes

in mud-spattered faces,

and how you hold yourselves

after the heat of the day

and the hours of work,

fortified instead of slumped by labor.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 11, 2015

Right

I’m finished with voices

telling me to do it right

I’m finished especially with

voices telling me not to do it

because I can’t do it right

right off the bat,

such that I am left

helpless and immobilized,

waiting for someone else

to do it for me

or teach me

to do it right

For I have discovered

that if I just begin,

my action and attention

will teach me very quickly

not a rule for rightness

but the motion and awareness

that works perfectly

for right now.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 10, 2015

photo by Edward Mulhern

Fledgling

Short swoops of comprehension

give me the exhilaration of flight,

my heart filled with sky and already,

even in the breath-catching pause

after the high,

the prospect of the next rush

is forming, small,

in my mind

I don’t have to remind myself

how to do this —

just have to go out and

do it again.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 8, 2015

Building

“You almost always plant

for people coming after you,” he said.

“The trees we now enjoy 

were planted here by others,

Your vision will be seen, perhaps,

in thirty years (except for fruit trees —

they may bear in two or three)”

The things we’re building now

will be loved by others,

and maybe that’s the reason —

Maybe when that impetus is gone

and what is left is just the search

for what to do today —

what entertainment, what exotic play —

we find our colors cooling,

and the urge to live

to gradually begin to fade away

But as long as we’re impelled

to keep on building,

we’ll be living in the timelessness of love,

blessed by others who have built before us,

blessed by what we give to future years.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 6, 2015