Simple Warmth

These days our circles are clipped

by cold, by early darkness,

and my gratitude glows bright

for simple warmth —

the miraculous heat of your body

bringing me in to the safety

that melts my hard edges,

the rigid shivering giving thankful place

to the reception

of your radiation,

effortless, smooth,

comforting to the bone.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 29, 2015

There’s time

Quiet. There will be time

for everything,

as long frost crystals form

through the night,

as iridescent frost melt

shines in morning sun,

and bright green is released from whiteness

as the shadows move

There will be time

for everything to rise into its purpose,

to stretch, luxuriant, in the fulfilling

of what it has always been

and will ever be

There is always time,

and it will be enough.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 28, 2015

Lanterns

It’s not the lanterns that we’re after,

it’s the light. (As far as lanterns go, 

there may be many, some

more beautiful than others,

some more costly

But if you look in someone’s closet

at the ones they have acquired, discarded,

that still won’t tell their story)

We’re all reaching for the same thing,

and as we find it, we’ll have more to use,

and better vision

to find the light right here,

not in lanterns

but reflecting true

from the deep clear essence

of our core.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 25, 2015

Refuge

We slide into laughter,

an intimate cove,

a secret cave,

a place between the sky

and the deep

(the wet of tears at the edges

making the rocks gleam)

Laughter like bubbling water,

thirst quenching and cool,

a little ledge we can hide on,

safe from the churn of fears and tragedy,

safe from the shafts of analysis

and resolutions.

We bring up the things

that made us laugh before,

just to keep us here

a little longer.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 24, 2015

For the Holidays

I will make my home a temple,

I will make this a holy place,

a holy time,

where all who come here

will feel hallowed

No cold will seep in around the edges,

no rain, no fear,

no one will sit in uneasy silence

as if they can’t put their whole weight down,

escaping through the wormhole of their phones,

looking affronted when asked,

“who are you texting?”

I will make my home a halo

so everyone in it is bathed

in golden light

that will stay with them when they go —

They can take it with them

as a homing device

so they can access home

wherever they are.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 23, 2015

Attuning

When the truth comes,

everything lights up at once.

It’s not a chain reaction,

a far off pulse that makes its way

through time, through space

Inspiration alights

simultaneously

in every cell —

They are all awake,

all intelligent,

all delighting in the instant activation

of their attention,

their essential role

in the great attuning.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 21, 2015

Human Effort

Ah, we have tried

with our minds

and with all our art

to bring the dawn —

we have visualized it,

and declared it,

we have understood its theory,

even publicized our musings —

How is it 

that it has not yet come?

What more do we need to do?

People say

that dawn is subjective anyway,

coming at different times

in different places —

If that’s the case,

how will I know it

even if it does come to me?

©Wendy Mulhern

November 20, 2015

Harmony

One day they discovered

there was much more to sound

than the tinny pings they evoked

by hitting themselves and each other

They found they could stand open

and the grand wind would come in,

would focus their tones

like fine bells,

would ring them crystalline and haunting

in a reverberation

that caught them up in holy awe,

and they all stood still

and listened.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 19, 2015

Pre-dawn

In the early morning edges

where sleep tosses its transparent images

in fractal ragged waves

across awakeness

In the pre-dawn chill

where an electric light

fails to bring the vigor of the day

There is still radiance,

jewels of peaceful thought

spreading clarity,

rays of awareness

imparting buoyant hope:

this is a day of healing.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 18, 2015

A Sign

Deepening hue of evening sky

imparts a dusky wonderment

that such a color

(crossed, though it is, by suburb’s electric lines)

carries the evidence

of the goodness of everything,

soft promise

that what stretches out

along my life’s horizon

is also saturated

with quiet joy,

enough to cancel out

the long seep of dread

that used to haunt my edges,

enough to fill the whole bowl of my aural field

with golden sound.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 16, 2015

Yielding

In this endeavor

I will yield

as gracefully

as a pear tree

yields her smooth fruits,

precious seed entrusted to the taker,

juice collected from the sun

concentrated here,

the best gift I can give

of my substance,

in just acknowledgement that

all that I am is perfected

in this exchange,

all that I am is indebted

to this truth.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 15, 2015

Influence

Let’s talk about

silence

Let’s let the rain

do the talking for us

(tapping patter and the rush of rivulets)

Let’s consider

that no raindrop 

does the falling of another

It is not my job

to influence, persuade,

not my work

to make assessments,

Not even mine

to set examples

(thinking that they really should be followed)

Mine, instead, to notice

and to magnify

that which rises freely

from its own reception

of the blessed touch of thought,

that which drops unerring

into its own purpose,

from its own source.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 14, 2015

“today is big with blessings”

And blessings will come with

the dark wind — rain and

bits of leaves blown from trees,

fresh washed air and the progress

of what has moved all through the night

Blessings, too, of dry warmth within

and the remembrance

that the eternal laws of mutual blessing

are forming their delicate but capable arcs,

in Mind, in body,

in the harmony of all life,

even while we speak,

even as we pray.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 13, 2015

(title quote from Mary Baker Eddy)

Simple Science

Lack of a stream bed

will not stop water

from flowing down

Lack of a plan

will not stop love

from carving its way

through and around

every obstacle

Lack of lessons

will not stop dance

from cleaving to the music,

moving bodies in ways they hadn’t thought of,

hadn’t known they could

And no tale

of loss, of separation

can stop the full expression,

intricate and bold,

of everything you are

from shining forth.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 12, 2015

Speculation

People may wonder

about your story —

That is the way of things in this world

People may speculate,

may use their conclusions

to readjust their sense

of how things stand.

People may wonder, or they may not

In any case, know that,

whatever they conclude,

it has nothing to do with you.

Whatever construct they may form

will be related far more to their own story

than to yours (accuracy being irrelevant

to the art of shoring up positions)

Some people may speculate,

Others will reach out —

that is something different:

Take their hands — in that connection

there is something real.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 12, 2015

Each of These

Please forgive me —

all this time I have imagined

each of these as form-bound,

limited in viewpoint and potential,

minds of size to fit within.

I have misjudged them.

Each of them is portal to infinity,

each a representative

of that grand impulse

that sounds the stars, that

sends the waters cycling

in such exultant waves of thundering power

that everything rejoices

Each of these is made

to deliver the precisely needed blessing

in that moment where our circles intersect.

In that interaction,

we are made whole.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 10, 2015

Making Progress

On many days

progress proceeds unseen —

It isn’t time so much that’s needed

as the orderly placement

of each element in sequence

in a patient pace,

a laying down of layers:

“Aha”s that lead to new perspectives,

ways of seeing bringing ways of acting,

ways of acting bringing new responses,

so precipitating new perceptions,

which in turn bring new “aha”s

Eventually a clarity emerges,

a hope is met,

the work is done.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 9, 2015

Gracefully

In graceful ways we start to learn

the things we need to know—

sovereignty, surrender,

how the two go hand in hand:

we surrender our enslavement

to be sovereign

And though it seems, at times,

like a hard, hard choice

(because we clung so long to this?

because we didn’t know another way?)

we get to make it

in little increments,

tiny pebbles dislodged from the facade

that had encased us,

till the whole thing crumbles down

and we find

that we can move

in ways we thought we only maybe dreamed

We can stretch out,

we can expand

so far beyond the former surface,

gracefully,

for this is ours to own.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 7, 2015

As Promised

Every last worry can leave —

they can dissipate

like soft fizzy bubbles

rising from your head

You can feel a great stillness

after they’re gone,

a pool of limpid water

full of sky

So you taste the depth,

the vast expanse

of that which you reflect

and you begin to sense

your purpose

This is like

sweet rising chords

endlessly echoing,

touching the fundamental frequency

of earth’s lowest tones,

completing the circle

of Life’s timeless song.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 6, 2015