Reflections at Year’s End

The last day of the year

dawns foggy, and continues overcast.

We sleep later than our habit,

tendrils of memories

interspersing themselves

with dreams, and with images

of streams, currents of possibility

weaving open and closed,

forming lenticular shapes along the flow

Artistic expressions from others’ lives

placed up against my own

invite reflection

These days we keep being asked

to take a side. I will not take a side,

for that is what conquers us.

I will take a stand.

I will stand for what is free and true,

I will stand for ribbons of stream flow

braiding lives into thirst-quenching unity,

I will stand for the excitement

of streaming, soul to soul,

along the course of life,

I will stand for pure reflective pools

and the welcoming in

of everything that yearns,

everything that hears.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 31, 2016

These Days

We try to find momentum

on this ride that carries us

with glacial ponderosity

along a course in which we have

neither steerage nor vision —

just the slight sinking feeling

that we are moving. Maybe

at the speed of days, maybe slower

We look for grace

in the things that feed us —

smiles and conversation,

progress in our work,

the glow that comes from being kind

We will find a music for these times,

we will use it to fly

a few feet off the ground,

just enough to give us delight,

just enough to feel alive.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 30, 2016

Fathered

We had felt ourselves fatherless

for so long. Bereft of the security

of a wise hand, a holder of place 

for us, a steady arm

guiding our wobbly efforts

We had been fatherless, and

so had our fathers, betrayed

when they reached out

for crucial aid

We carried ourselves thus,

tentative, cringing from expected blows,

trying to take up less space,

to go unnoticed 

and so avoid expulsion

So astonishing to learn

Our Father has been with us all along

providing bright support around our heads,

plenty of ground to stand on,

plenty of headroom,

extending past to future

all along the presence of our days

As we walk, now royal,

in the exclamation

of our stature as beloved

sons and daughters of our Father,

welcomed home.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 29, 2016

Business

My little mind, with all its love

held in potential, 

awaiting its permission,

awaiting right conditions,

is in the business of deferring good

It has its explanations and excuses,

it has its blame, it has its resignation,

it tells me that my joy depends

on things that happen and what others do

I choose, today, the grand act of surrender

of my mental machinations 

to the one Mind —

my partial, hesitating love

to Love, the universal and divine.

If I can stay with Mind, with Love,

that’s all I have to hold,

for Love is in the business

of turning straw to gold.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 27, 2016

Nearing Year’s End

The scent of orange oil on fingertips,

the complex progression of its taste

when breathed in, is like the moments

a year lays down — when I look back,

I see the way my thoughts

were all of a piece,

though they seemed different as they unrolled

I feel I traveled both farther and less far

in my progress through the year

than I could register

at the time

Now wind beats rain against the house,

staccato counterpoint 

to the radio’s music

And the darkness at end of year

sits in puddles in the street

while we step through each unmeasured day

toward an undefined tomorrow.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 26. 2016

Choice

The atmosphere of my temple

is my choice. If I feel clouded,

if I can’t find the joy amid the sorrow

of my story, if the words I use

to help remember what I am

fall flat, if it seems that things

far beyond my control are at fault,

this is what I must remember

The atmosphere of my temple

is my choice. I can choose now

to let the story lie inert,

a sleeve with no breath in it.

I can choose to let warm infinity

fill me in tones of gold and orange,

I can let my peace rest, soft, around me.

I can turn away from words

to that which doesn’t need them,

I can fill my temple

with what I live to feel.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 25, 2016

Holy Night

We come to understand

that we are holy,

not in closing ourselves off,

not in excluding anyone,

but in refusal to be anything but kind

and in insistence on keeping our light shining

and bearing witness

to every other light

and not permitting any

to be snuffed out

We come to understand

that this is our protection —

not in hiding but in standing up

to any imposition on our wholeness.

We will not allow ourselves

to be unloving or untrue,

and this will bring all impostors down.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 24, 2016

Dramas

When we thought we walked on solid ground,

our world was full of dramas —

so many things that could go right or wrong,

and underneath them,

the persistent weight 

of hopes that never quite vaulted

to their victories, and the resultant lowering,

over weeks and years,

of the ceiling of our possibilities

As we began to learn that substance

is something else,

that what we thought we walked on

was separating, like melting floes,

but we were still standing,

the dramas, too, took on a different meaning

Things still matter to us deeply

but not so much for turns of plot

as for the places, shining through everything,

where our truth transforms the story,

where we prove that we are free.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 23, 2016

Treasures

In the moments before waking

I find myself walking through veils

searching for treasures,

collecting them like strands of light,

curling them around my consciousness

to hold on to them

as I transition into day

I choose them for their cuddly warmth

and how they glow like hope,

how they make me feel: this

is what I live for — 

all the good in life

for me to learn to bring forth

throughout my hours awake.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 22, 2016

Our Stand

We stand on holy ground.

You can feel it through your feet,

how it isn’t about this place

(opposed to any other place)

but it is about this place,

this here, connected by all points,

the way the feet of everyone

who touches down

are holy, drawing up, as they do,

all the sacredness of earth

As we stand in this place

we will not be moved.

In our holiness

we cannot be enslaved.

A thousand efforts

to catch us up

will just fall,

and we will stand as free

as vapor, as wind,

ever only responsive

to the Love that breathes us.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 21, 2016

Once

Truth is so potent

you only need to see it once.

After that, all the constructs

that were called right

are seen as powerless,

are seen as shams.

But if you haven’t seen it

you may be fooled.

You may think good

just means compliant

or sanctioned by the current tyrant power.

You may think you’re in

a zero sum game

in which it is a constant fight to live

If we don’t know truth

we need a savior,

someone to show it to us once.

Once we’ve seen it we’ll be free —

That will be enough.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 19, 2016

Simply

That which saves us

doesn’t need to overthrow anything —

it simply opens the inner

gates to infinity,

simply replaces the whole landscape 

— all its former haunts of fear —

with something far more solid

than we’ve ever walked on,

each footprint now

flooding with light,

each footstep bringing new views

That which seemed to hold us

so firmly trapped,

we simply slip from

into a different frame,

a kinder set of causes

— no longer the indifferent laws

that don’t care how we fall —

Here our cause loves us

and arranges our safe landings

and our exhilarating flights.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 18, 2016

Coming Home

With great relief, we set aside

the screen of judgment,

and with great awe

in that ungridded space,

we find the light emerging

from within us,

from within each other,

we find the bonding chords

to sing our unity

And we pass under,

the signal coming with us, tree to tree,

presenting presence, here and here and here

along the trail,

the bright reminder of this arc of circles,

connecting network spreading out

as far as we can think

This, now, is home,

the one we’ve always longed for,

this is what we own,

this is our sense of peace.

This is our home

we share with all that lives,

boundless embrace

which we never leave.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 17, 2016

What’s Real

I feel what’s real

has been here all along —

it sometimes stood in shadow

beside everything that we were striving for

And sometimes in our clamor

we would wholly mute it out,

and sometimes in our prayer

it would sift in,

subtle as light between branches

lapping limb shadows

across the other trees,

coming into quiet focus, recognized as substance

by the joy that rises, and the fullness

And happiness turns out to be so simple,

not needing anything but presence —

presence and welcome, kindness and acceptance,

the free gift of loving you

just because you’re here,

the many-dreamed essence suddenly clear.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 16, 2016

Old Photos

I sit here in this winter afternoon

with time laid down in multiple exposures,

coming round to end of year,

softly tugged by nineteen-year-old photos

With carols on the stereo to knit the years together

and drafts around the windows to remind me of the weather

and nothing, really, that I need to do in here and now

except my heart’s deep preparation for eternity

Those friends, who were such sweetness in our lives back then

are gone from us, except in memory,

those little faces, and the strength of love they pulled in us —

they are still dearly loved, though not the same

And we approach a Christmas where we won’t see them

and we’ll put no decorations in the house

as we look for something often sought but found seldom

to fortify ourselves for time to come —

the perfect peace to bring this world safely through its changes,

to play our part in witnessing the birth of truth.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 15, 2016