Lesson for Today

With infinite patience

the land teaches us. The lessons

flow in slowly, altering our attitude,

our posture, changing us

from the inside out, letting us realize

the magnitude of what it demands,

but also the way we can meet the need,

the way to proceed

at the speed of seasons

where everything has time to harmonize,

at the speed of fog rising

and clearing,

of dew forming

and drying,

at the speed of frogs and crickets,

blackbirds and ravens,

grass and fern and fir tree

all breathing together,

at the speed of knowing right now,

of being and doing

what is needed.

©Wendy Mulhern

August 31, 2016

Happy

Having stepped

sometime in the night

or so it seems,

into the land of happy

I have nothing to complain about —

not heat nor cold, not missteps,

not setbacks —

the bubbly truth

about the nature of everything

cancels concerns

I notice I no longer 

feel myself riding in my body —

instead, I inhabit it,

all the way out to my fingers and toes.

I touch the earth and sky

just in my everyday walking,

at home in this day.

©Wendy Mulhern

August 29, 2016

Submersion

The way my body feels —

like jumping with delight

into a cold river,

bright as the sun edge

on the still shining far bank,

mirthful as submersion

where the clean cold is most welcome,

happy and wobbly like trying to

balance on slippery shifting stones

My body feels giddy

before the momentous proposition

of immortality

and the goodness of everything

and the clear conviction

of being rescued

from a sad dream.

©Wendy Mulhern

August 28, 2016

A Love Story

Some recognition sparked between them:

beneath the costumes, beneath

the designated roles,

they could see that they were equals,

that they could hone themselves

against each other, that they

would each feel their own strength rising

in ways they’d never reached without each other

They could see a common destiny —

they rode it for a flash,

they rode it longer, trying to ford

the mounting confusion

gathering around them

because their costumes didn’t match

and the customs that prescribed their roles

had a different story

than their equality

Many imagined their alliance doomed

or just imagined — how, after all,

could they have any common ground?

The end of this story will depend

on what you think is strong

and what you think is true.

Years later,

they will both look back

and see how much they’ve grown.

©Wendy Mulhern

August 27, 2016

Fade

First there is the light

and then there’s the

trying to remember

For awhile the whole blaze

can be invoked in memory

and there are various

tricks to try to do so

Then there’s the gleam,

a light that’s still real

but indirect, and there’s

the gazing at it, trying to think

if that’s the thing

we saw before,

if that’s the light that dazzled us

And it doesn’t seem quite the same

along the shining stones

but the essence is right.

We start to ask,

did we ever see it

as something more?

We try to re-engage

but ultimately

it will take a new dose of sun,

liquid reflected,

to kindle that first brightness once again.

©Wendy Mulhern

August 26, 2016

Things Come Together

And in fact

things do come together,

for that is their way,

like fast friends who

steal away to meet

in their secret hollow,

to share whispers and laughter,

who scheme ways to always find each other,

make plans to often be together

So the things in your life,

what you need, what you desire,

are happily conspiring

to come together in elaborate arrays,

to fill you up, to celebrate your days.

©Wendy Mulhern

August 25, 2016

Joy in Heaven

We’ve been dwelling in that bright edge

called Joy in Heaven, called

glory of needs met, the clasp

of reunion, the satisfaction

of soul-hunger fully fed

We didn’t know

that what seemed to us as

long nights with no stars,

deep tunnels with no exit,

hopes dashed again and again

was really just a backdrop

for the enduring truth

of our awakening

We didn’t realize that the bitterness

of what we thought was our perpetual betrayal,

when sweetened by the taste 

of our belovedness,

would turn out to be

something else entirely,

something deeply craved

by all the host,

something greatly celebrated

as we come home.

©Wendy Mulhern

August 24, 2016

Instruction

In humble obedience

I loose myself

from the bands of my neck,

I rise

I stand up

shake myself free

What missive is this anyway?

What authority so advocates

for liberty? What judge commands

that I serve no penance,

that I be simply released?

What instruction is this,

that bids me fly on my desire

and soar up quickly

to infinity? 

That bids me walk unburdened

from any self-induced

or generational weight 

Shake yourself from the dust,

it says. What will this mean for me

in each new day? What worlds

I will master, if I but cleave

to this direction!

What songs I’ll sing

in the joy of fresh discovery!

©Wendy Mulhern

August 23, 2016

Progress Report

No lumps can stay

in the warm river of Love.

There is such a sweet laughter

when they have melted away,

when they have slid, effortlessly

into the oneness of the flow

and a look of understanding

replaces the conflicted look

of frightened defiance

masked by bravado

It’s such a simple connection

when we recognize

there’s never been a battle —

we’ve always shared the same purpose,

been carried

in the same design.

©Wendy Mulhern

August 21, 2016

Standing Up

Every one of us is sovereign

and the simple act

of standing up

will release us from the currents

that drag otherwise

We can stand up

and our feet will dig in

and what swirls around them

will be as nothing,

strengthened, as we will be,

by the grounded power

rising up through us

and the sight of others standing,

no longer dragged along

Each of us can stand up

in our purpose, in our intelligence,

in our understanding

of what we all desire 

and what we all deserve

and have, in fact, been given.

We will claim it for us all for ever more.

©Wendy Mulhern

August 20, 2016

Self Doubt

Well if the only thing required

is to not give up, I think

I should be able

to manage that

The exposure

of all my years of

not really pulling my weight

will not by itself sink me

just as long as I don’t 

keep on doing nothing

It scares me, the level of my helplessness.

But maybe I can do something.

Maybe there is a use

for my mind, for my perspective

Maybe if I just

don’t give up today,

things will start getting clearer

and eventually

what I’m here for

will be apparent to me

and also others.

©Wendy Mulhern

August 19, 2016

Time

Maybe the whole span of

what we call time,

its mountain ranges and its geologic tales,

the reaches and the misses,

what seems to be haphazard,

the careful plans, extensive engineering,

legacies that mark the futures

of many generations,

Maybe in the scheme of things,

all of time is just a small ripped edge,

a narrow line, the space between

the yearning and the “aha”,

desire and its fulfillment,

the longing and the saturating sweetness

of satisfaction

Maybe it doesn’t matter at all

if something was instant

or took a long, long time,

in the scheme of what we are,

the truth of what we’ve always been.

©Wendy Mulhern

August 18, 2016

Moments

Those moments

wanted to translate themselves

into dreams, wanted to be

buoyant floating in delicious water

and amazed soaring

through suddenly supportive air

They wanted to be

the supreme comfort of offering solace,

for indeed they were that —

they were the clarity seen through tears,

the contact point wherein

our eyes receive each other

The sense of being held

fully as long as is needed,

the fact that people can sometimes be symbols

for something much deeper,

much more desired,

than their circumscribed lives

can offer. They can represent

the truth — the one thing someone

just at that time

most needed to know.

©Wendy Mulhern

August 16, 2016

Splendor

A day this splendid

deserves a big idea,

one you can pick up

by grasping anything

and following along the chain of life

until you have the whole of it

The dance, for example,

of leaves in the breeze —

its connection to sun-impelled currents

(heat rising, cool air swooping in)

and to the limbs, supple with water,

bending to wind and light,

and the thought shimmer

that comes from watching

Or the certain conviction

that everything, everything,

is the thought of one Mind,

moved by the same desire,

born to love every tendril, 

every flicker, of life, of light,

born to bring its gifts

in gratitude and brilliance

to the day.

©Wendy Mulhern

August 15, 2016

Alignment

After the tentative approaches

we slip into comfort

sleek as magnets

finding their close alignment

From here on it’s easy

to enter our connection,

easy to feel how our colors

have blended together,

easy to notice other touch points

of our proximity

The city, of course, is spiritual,

the I Am in which we always dwell,

which holds us in perpetual peace,

receptive vessels of constant blessing

We meet each other here

because it is the only place

where we can really touch each other,

the only place

where we can truly be ourselves,

the only place where our embrace

is ordained,

ultimately, the only place we live

We slip into a comfort

that regenerates 

and fortifies us

for the work at hand,

we walk forth

never leaving the holy city, 

so we bless the land.

©Wendy Mulhern

August 14, 2016