Reasoning

After the convulsive flex of fear,

we come back, we take stock,

and we see

there is nothing we can stand on

except what we have always known,

nothing we can flee to

except the truth

If Life planned to destroy us,

it would have done so a long time ago.

If Life could destroy us

it wouldn’t exist

for it would have discarded

the love-cohesion

that holds things together.

It couldn’t make a universe

without being Love,

and it couldn’t be Love

without cherishing each of us.

What Love cherishes,

it can’t destroy,

so we are safe,

as is every being

that moves in the grand circles

that constitute everything.

This is the truth we stand on.

Fear couldn’t find it for us,

and fear can’t take it away.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 31, 2015

Heritage

On your shoulders,

no weight of generations,

on your head

no folly of past years,

no unredeemed misunderstanding,

harbored, confusedly,

by your parents, your grandparents,

theirs —

You are born of this day,

fresh as a swift cloud

after showers,

sailing through storm washed blue

with its answering catch of breath

You are born in this moment,

ever inheriting

the bright conception

that creates itself constantly,

building the whole timeless universe

in every inspiration,

embracing it all, right now,

embracing you.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 29, 2015

I Shall Be Clean

Well, I can’t purify myself

and I can’t improve my state of mind,

can’t add a cubit to my stature,

can’t fix myself, can’t fix another

But I can appeal

to the ageless order of being

that sings through winds,

that plays through rain,

that blows the scent of oceans

up majestic mountains,

that brings the scent of snow back down

I can appeal

to what twines together

the intricate lacings of life,

the waves of movement,

the harmony of breath

There is a knowing

before which my own concepts

are rendered silent.

Dip me in seven times

and I’ll be clean.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 28, 2015

Changed

In the color, in the music, 

in the soft light,

I couldn’t say how I was different

Something like a dark steady draft —

wind tunnel through me like a canyon

whistling along the crevices

indicating a deep passage way

cleared in a couple of hard nights,

something swept away by floods, by winds

Exposing geologic layers,

making space for more wind,

heavy, sweet with rain,

to sail through

All of this is held in the sacred darkness —

few people knew anything had changed me,

and even if they had the story of it,

it wouldn’t capture

the holy, windswept truth.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 27, 2015

Importunity

I press myself down

importunate

into the hollow

of my desire,

Wet with storm,

so rendered pliable,

cleaving in to feel the contact

at every point

For this is how I reconnect myself

with my creator

This is how I know

everything I am to be,

this is how I give up

all the dividing space,

all the illusion of separation

I press myself deep

into my desire,

I let myself be wet,

I wait.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 26, 2015

Peace, Be Still

Don’t worry,

Your fears can’t trap you

in a maelstrom

The thoughts you wish would leave you,

would cease to haunt you,

cease to pace in anguished loops

along the echo chambers

of your mind —

they can’t hurt you

They can’t stop the light of Truth

from streaming in,

so clear, so gentle —

can’t stop its compassion

from finding you there,

just where you are,

from scooping you up in tender arms

and carrying you out, delivered —

The storms of thought

are nothing

before Love’s vast, commanding calm.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 25, 2015

Baby Steps

And if we must begin again,

let us take the care to do it right —

Let us take each breath with love,

let us delight

in the extraordinary quality,

the singularity

of this divine and precious entity

Let us lay a foundation

of reliable support,

let us be clear 

how much we, too, are blessed

by this relationship

Let us let her own source

unfold her nature,

true as it’s always been,

fully empowered,

at every moment able

(even now)

to bring her blissful splendor

into light.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 24, 2015

Feeding

When the mouth goes seeking,

the whole beast needs to come along —

the impulse of desire must bring

the ribs, the shaggy rump, the hocks

They all flow in one movement,

they summon grace,

they give it their attention,

they feel the call kicking them alive,

they carry out the shared intention

What the mouth finds

they all partake of —

in the feeding,

all the beast is blessed.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 23, 2015

Great Shall Be Their Peace

I will not teach anymore

and I won’t imagine teaching,

won’t package up my

thoughts and observations,

won’t make lessons

I have recognized the danger

of such practices —

more than my lack of leverage,

more than the difficulty

of moving things from the periphery,

is my lack of knowledge

of another’s center,

and the fact that I can’t diagnose

someone else’s lack

“They shall teach no more every man his neighbor

and every man his brother saying ‘know the Lord’

for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,

saith the Lord”

“Thy children shall be taught of God

and great shall be their peace”

I will not try to teach —

Instead, I’ll listen,

I’ll strive to learn,

on each occasion,

what the infinite has already imparted

to each thirsting soul,

each waiting heart.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 21, 2015

Soft Light

There is no place for fear

here where we have embraced everything,

where we have acknowledged

that no one lives outside

the great benevolence,

No one gets stranded

in pain and grief

Every tear-attended passage

is lit by the soft reflection

of the ever-tended love

that marks us holy,

the Love that is the author 

of us all.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 20, 2015

Release

I release you

from parental fears,

from all those ties, so warm,

so fierce, so intertwined,

so precious,

initiating me to love

in such intense dimensions

I release me

from parental fears

that wound themselves

so tightly with my love,

I couldn’t tell the difference.

They were never really mine

and never did define my love.

Where fear would bring us down,

our love is lifting —

Your love for me is free and pure,

and so is mine for you —

In this place we’ll always meet each other,

In this place our love can soar.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 18, 2015

Plaided

The needs of the day

lap over each other,

motion blending into motion,

a plaiding of perception,

interrupted longitude of thought —

shortness of reflection

coming to feel like shortness of breath

I take myself away

where other things

can think for me —

tree in brilliant red surrender,

hands to the sky,

pigeons making life where they are,

on urban concrete and grass,

nudging each other into waves of movement.

Lone mushroom still signaling

its ownership of everything beneath —

These meanings can seep

into deep stretches

for my mind.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 17, 2015

Room

Fear not, little one,

Here is a truth you can curl up in:

Everyone has a place, everyone.

Goodness is the quality we all share,

the fact of life,

the guarantee of being.

There has never been

one chair missing

in the place where dignity is served.

No one is left out,

so you can be sure

there’s room for you.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 15, 2015

The Daily Humble

Each day requires me to go deeper. 

Yesterday’s enlightenment

is today’s false floor. 

I must not be fooled.

No glibness is allowed,

no easy skip

down the path that yesterday discovered.

There is always

something to surrender,

some way to sink anew

into enveloping oneness.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 14, 2015

Keeping Faith

We do the little things,

clean sheets on beds,

lunch and dinner,

smiles like small fires

providing warmth

We wait on grace,

we keep the faith

and days yield their gifts —

shifts of light and color,

settling of thought,

and the sweet flow of everything

along the quiet lines

to their source.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 13, 2015

The Gate

Sucked or stumbling

through the gate,

it takes a while to notice

the steady wind

and how our feet were made

to walk upon it

Our stature fills

and we stride across the landscape,

our footsteps establishing

primal order, our hands

putting everything right

We have been here

longer than we could have dreamed.

We will continue this stride

clothed in potent currents,

sure in our steps,

knowing each truth

just as we need to know it,

on our eternal rounds.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 12, 2015

My Tears

My tears are

dark clouds at the end of a storm,

scudding over wind-tossed hills,

the scent of firs carried through the hollows

They call forth wolves, who take up the howl

one after another,

their sweet throats lifting toward the sky

They summon the answering rivers,

rumbling swiftly across the earth,

the encompassing tides, flooding and ebbing

They find their place

in the cushioned atmosphere

in which the entire earth’s comprehensive rush

is one.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 11, 2015

Divine Adventure

There is no place

on the shore of Love

for fear or time.

They disappear

like footprints on wet sand

(bright gleaming hollows

mark their departure)

There is no time of fear,

there is no fear of time,

for neither one has relevance.

There is no weight on the hours

and no waiting for hours —

Each of Life’s moments

answers for itself,

singular, sublime,

packed with blessing

in the unfolding seasons

of Love’s adventure.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 10, 2015

Standing Wave

I will not try

to rearrange the water,

I will not fear

your form can falter.

I will look to your source —

the ever-flowing power

that forms you as a standing wave,

embodying its essence,

expressing the joyful surge

of all being,

undisturbable

in the pulsating grace

of your shape.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 9, 2015

The Function of Tears

Here at the very bottom

I begin to detect

the function of tears —

They are our call for reconnection,

to feel again the waves

that flow through our lives,

to be borne up, to be carried,

to let go of trying to know anything,

wash away our failed attempts

to make things work,

get us to the place where all our heaving ends

and we can feel

the still and gentle Allness

embrace us once again.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 7, 2015