Truth Seeking

Everyone seeks truth.

It is our nature.

Of course our curiosity extends

to all the realms we know —

our curiosity thus proves

the presence of all the realms

in which we seek the truth

To seek the truth is tantamount

to striving to survive:

truth is inseparable from being,

so everything that’s living 

lives in truth

And what of lies? And what of self delusion?

And what of petty desperation

that seeks to hide its essence

lest it be found and killed,

and what of that which seeks to kill

in order to conceal the truth?

These cannot live,

they can’t sustain themselves,

they can’t continue to be seen as truth.

Sooner or later, they snuff themselves out

since Truth and Life are one.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 31, 2016

Reset

And how do we do reset?

When the threads of our efforts

are tangled beyond redemption,

when there’s no path in

for anything we might say?

Shall we do reset like fall, like winter,

everything thrown into rain and wind,

coherence abandoned,

distracted into the silence

of going down and down, in and in?

Or shall we do reset 

like chocolate? —

signature sweetness clearing our palates,

spreading to fill the unnamed hole within

Shall we look and notice

our smiles still find each other,

our hopes still run eagerly

to meet in the well-known fields

of our conversation

Shall we do reset without effort —

simply returning

with new attention

to what is always here.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 30, 2016

Memory Lode

The old man has been drifting in time a lot, today.

“I want to thank you for inviting me down to visit you,” 

he says.

I say, yes, it’s been a good fourteen years.

And in the yellow living room

I feel those years in colored layers,

the golden joys, their complicated weavings

with things I was regretting then

and things I would regret later,

the efforts of my striving

for things that had great merit

and others that, perhaps, were ill advised

The times of clearing

where previous intentions

washed like watercolors

into pools of indistinct brightness,

with lines I sketched on them

and called learning

The fleeting pride, the taut hopes,

some realized, some still waiting,

buried under years 

of leaf fall, winters, springs

Yes, it’s been a good fourteen years,

bright and dark, and rich in all I can imagine.

And the goodness will continue,

each unfinished thing, in its time, redeemed,

all the blessings brought to full view.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 28, 2016

Foot Washing

Any moment can be a portal

where the compelling touch

of a neighboring world

connects your current

and pulls you through

Any touch can be the contact,

and as you flow through,

the miracle is

you don’t ebb from here —

instead, some before unknown infinity

rushes in and multiplies you,

rendering you equal to the blessing

When I wash your feet

or you wash mine,

the humbleness and love in which we meet

gathers us both

into a bright world

which we immediately know

has always been our home

although we’ve never walked in it before.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 27, 2016

In Peace

A line on paper, after all,

is not worth getting riled about —

it didn’t cost money, it can easily

be erased or moved

A gesture, too, is just a movement

of a frame, just an expression

of a construct of internal stories

which, themselves (though it might

not seem quite so easy) can be changed

A tone of voice, a whole visceral uprising,

a set of back and jaw, a reaction —

these things are not the person,

they can be released,

for each of us has the right

to grow in peace.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 26, 2016

What I Have Received

I am grateful for flight

and I am grateful for calm,

grateful for blustery wind in early morning

before the sun crested the east hill,

grateful, too, for the warmth the sun infused

in wind-danced leaves

and sun squares through windows

and the cool warm aliveness

of stepping outside

in moments between my indoor 

work and watch keeping

There’s much more in this day

than I have fathomed

but I am grateful

for what I have received.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 25, 2016

Unveiled

My eyes are new,

the dew still rests on my perceptions —

they have that brighter than life quality,

the startling delicacy of something 

not yet parted from their maker

I blink, I feel the moisture

around my eyes —

may they so ever stay!

May every day refresh my vision,

may the new edge of my learning

always roll out in surprising colors.

If there is a destination

let me not dwell on it

till I arrive.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 24, 2016

Home Again

Sweet day

returning to waiting circles

laughter and affection

unpretentious talk with folks who understand

Easy sun

after the night’s rain,

watching waves,

thrilling to chords and colors

Relief of being in our own home

despite systems that are down.

We see a way forward

and that is good. We feel into 

a way of being present,

and that is even better.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 23, 2016

Ribbons

I’m gonna lay these ribbons down,

gonna line them up along the ground,

gonna set them straight 

though the wind will turn them

over and away

I’m gonna lay down all these threads,

all the stories weaving through my head,

all their conclusions,

all my illusions,

the things I thought and said —

they had no truth, they cannot stay

I’m gonna find my patch of light,

gonna home on in with all my might,

gonna bask where I am bright

through the ever glowing day.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 22, 2016

What We Are

None of us are what I thought we were.

We are not bundles

of incremental striving for self betterment

with random heaps of cluttered failures

making for secret shame

and weighing down our efforts with inertia

We are not defined or saved

by one or two shining streams of virtue

which somehow breached the ruts 

we thought of as ourselves

And we are not the patterns

we unconsciously lay down,

learned from our culture, over and over,

hiding our wounds and our power

What we are

in leaving all of this

is free,

what we are is glory,

what we are is here for us right now —

look how it rises up from the stillness,

look how it brings us home.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 21, 2016

Payment

We tuck everything in,

we settle up,

we seal the edges

Cozy endings are worth

what we have to pay for them.

Payment is worth it for

what it does to us,

how it makes us stand straight

so the rushing intake

of all that fills us,

all we are given to provide,

will be strong and clear

and unobstructed

And we will be whole

and we will be generous

because we gave what is due.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 19, 2016

Characters

We found ourselves in someone else’s story

and the characters we were cast as,

we didn’t know them, didn’t know

what words and actions, on their part,

would put us in good graces,

or let us even know where we stood

Then we remembered: this is our story.

We own the tale in which these people 

think we’re something other than what we are,

and may harbor expectations

that we act in ways to please them,

ways about which we have no clue

And grace — the only way we’ll really find it

is to float up free from story altogether,

to hold their words and gestures

in the kindest light

and count on Spirit —

the universal breath that we all share —

to braid our lives together in its course.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 18, 2016

Given

We worked together.

It didn’t matter

that the rain roared through

from time to time —

We were given enough pauses

to move forward. We were given

maybe two sun breaks

and maybe two sun showers

We were given equanimity

and an easy rhythm

and some signs of progress

and now after dark,

rain settled in for the night, it seems,

we are given gratitude

for its forbearance 

throughout the day.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 17, 2016

Back

What inadvertent loop

brought me back to the place

where all the stories of ancient fears

had congregated,

where they sat in cold knots

feeling forgotten but wielding

their influence, oozing their stain

onto my outlook?

How was it not enough

to remember

the warm expansiveness

of my liberation? How could I 

fit myself, cramped as ever,

back into those constrictions?

And how do I get back to free?

Since trying has failed,

I try not trying.

I look for the stillness

of not doing.

I may find myself back here again —

I’ll gain from learning to escape.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 16, 2016

Rain-proof

The gift of today

is rain-proof resilience,

quiet shadows under tarps,

wind about the edges,

rain and cat company,

rain blowing onto the porch,

cat seeking caresses

even from my hammer and pry bar wielding hands

Resilience through storms

of injury and memory

and the harm of old stories

drumming relentlessly down

onto the roof

Resilience bridging all the way to joy

and a warm fireplace

and the bliss of companionship

on a quiet evening.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 15, 2016