We, too, are woven
into the tapestry of sky,
of trees, of clouds and oceans
Our being can't fall off
or fall away, or fail
to fill its place of purpose and fruition
So I serenely settle,
supremely integrated
into the warp and weft, my glory
planned from the very outset -
what I am, and all my destiny,
securely worked
and safe within the whole.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 30, 2023
A day can break forth
from the crust of the other ones,
can boldly stride with progress,
unfurl its possibilities,
attain fruition
I can have this reminder
that what is manifest,
while never my invention,
still matches, intimately,
my fruits to my desire
And like today,
each day can open up -
create the field
for what will multiply tomorrow
We're here to manifest,
and that is what we'll do,
today, each day,
beyond the end of time.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 28, 2023
I stumble around unthankful,
burdened by my petty pain,
growling like an injured beast
Is this how to approach
the presence of all being?
is this how to esteem
omnipresent Truth?
But Truth needs no approach -
indeed, there is no operating
outside its realm
My only agency is Love.
Does Love have pain?
My only consciousness is Mind.
Is Mind in disarray?
Quiet, then. Go to bed.
Let your peace return.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 27, 2023
After the whirlwind engagement,
the kiss of possibility,
we wait to settle down -
we float in that unweighted space
achieved through swift
acceleration and release -
a practice place for astronauts
and anyone who needs to feel no gravity -
anyone who needs
to learn a realignment
independent of the forces
of other fervent orbits
Anyone who yearns to move
in concert with the whole,
recenter to the source
that tunes us all.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 25, 2023
I walk myself back from the edge
(or tell myself to)
before I throw my hopes down
on something that could never hold them,
before constructing a set of cautions
which themselves are anyway
already over the edge
I put myself back
(or remind myself to dwell)
where light falls lightly as light
upon my scenes,
illustrating and establishing
what is real
So I avoid a heavy handed projection,
avoid an expectation,
avoid interpretation
of what simply is -
the evidence of present care
and nothing less,
the everpresent touch
of tenderness.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 24, 2023
So much to give thanks for,
silently expressed, as in
the glow of moonlight, and its shadow,
across the porch,
the mute shining of the fields beyond
I can't even list all the good things -
this gratitude
is for the presence
that lies along perception,
sudden significance
of every smallest thing,
the Love that wraps them,
regardless of their form,
in their own incomparable truth.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 23, 2023
Kindle my candle -
incandescent kindness,
my heart, my hearth,
my earth, my art,
my kin, my ken, enchanting.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 22, 2023
I'll take gentleness -
it's better than offense.
It gives a landing place
where anything that's beastly
can snuff and settle,
turn around three times
and fall asleep, maybe even feeling
gratitude for being let down softly
I'll take laughter - it ripples over
anything that otherwise might snag.
It turns a snarl into a song,
lets us feel happy,
lets us be together
as day glides into evening,
easy forgiveness replenishing affection.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 21, 2023
Look inside to find
the things that can't be crushed
even under pressure -
they will keep you safe
They emanate infinity -
they joyfully spring forth,
and nothing can compress,
repress, depress them
They sing like streams through rock,
sing of their source,
which is their substance,
which is what everything is made of -
you, too - yes you,
and all your life
and everyone you love.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 19, 2023
We watched the fog
come in over the hills
and then swallow them.
We saw how it banked around
to fill the valley in. It took the fields,
but not the closest trees,
and then, itself, was swallowed by the dark.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 17, 2023
Help me to tell
a story of beauty
pointing a path of patterns
We could follow this one
and it might teach us
a generous weaving
We might learn a way to be together
better than the one we fell into
(projections of someone's fears)
If given the first step,
we could follow it out.
If given the whole image,
we would glow
right here where we are
We would be the way and the light,
we could join hands
and walk out together.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 16, 2023
Last light across the field,
glory again revealed -
day by day we wend our way
toward gracious
What we see outside, within,
unveiled across the hours,
across the years -
the opportunity to see it glow with grace
in every beat of presence
steadily appears
Where we are now, partially unformed,
we're still beloved -
this early space where things seem messy
still reveals the lovely stuff we're made of,
and shows the processes whereby
we rise to meet what loves us,
always welcome,
always welcomed home.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 15, 2023
Windows open,
doors open,
thought opens, and with it,
possibility
There is no chasm
between desire and its fulfillment,
however much we've heard there is,
there's no obstruction
between Spirit and its action,
between intelligence and its ideas
And therefore
we will see the opening
of all the pathways,
we'll see them traveled,
we'll see them thrive,
we'll see the hoping
rise overflowing
as fondest visions
emerge alive.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 13, 2023
I stand beside, with,
along, along - the verticality
extends above, beneath,
with no end I can see,
an estimation of infinity
I touch the current,
above, behind my shoulder,
reach as for a subway strap,
step back into it, and race
up and down and up
within the current
And now define myself as this,
see that the story
of small unlikely glints of glory,
peaking through a mostly mindless structure,
was never what defined me
No. This is where I understand
everything about myself -
size and shape and purpose,
sphere of harmony,
ribbon of peace.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 11, 2023
Look - look at our world,
and tell me, what's not possible?
Can it really be possible
for us to wallow
in casual cruelty? Unwittingly
acquiesce to unmitigated horror?
Is it possible we would allow ourselves
to randomly give up our power
to those who use it
for the demise of all?
Look at the dawn, look at the field
when the fog lifts, and the sun
greets golden leaves of autumn trees.
Look at our hearts, and recognize
what's possible.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 10, 2023
A tub full of failure
considered in the evening hours
is just a story about me,
one I can kick off,
climb out of,
let down the drain
My creator does not
demand reform of me,
but only that I come to myself,
only that I let Love's truth
be what it's always been for me.
I don't even need to let go -
what I was clinging to dissolves
like dream into the day.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 9, 2023
Take away a layer,
a layer, a layer
Move through a veil,
a veil, a veil
And what you find is more,
not less. In leaving husks behind,
you find the juice, the pulse,
the flavor,
the quickening, the rush,
the reason
It's not a sacrifice
to give up what hides,
what dulls -
to take up life
in the full flow of desire,
to drink the pure purpose
No need to wait
for false views to erode,
when you can just go in
and find the truth.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 8, 2023
Moments can come so clear -
light over the hills, between the rain,
sudden declaration of love's presence
after the dream of dark times
So I see I have a choice,
and why would I ever
choose anything but love?
Why would I scribble dark marks
across the page of what I see,
what I tally, what I hold in thought?
Sunlight dances out of the shadows,
love slips in between complaint
and offers softness.
Light is what we see,
and love is what we know.
Within us all is power
to make it so.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 6, 2023
A peaceful evening,
and strains of immortality,
in song and image,
gather round me
Much there is to reconsider -
all the nets I used to try to weave,
fall apart, unable to enclose
the substance I am finding here
So I proceed in hushed stillness,
keep letting fall my former definitions,
endeavor to embody this new knowing
that shows us infinite, at one, and free.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 5, 2023
The love I had for you
was so much bigger
than the tiny locus
through which the story said
it had to come,
so much bigger than our forms
It started teaching me,
though I was slow to learn,
to cast my sense of you and me
much wider than the noose that claimed
it must contain us,
contain, constrain, with time and space,
and all the things we knew we didn't understand
I look up now to contemplate
how we might be to each other
beyond the myth of human birth and death,
beyond possession and responsibility,
and hidden terror at the thought of failure
We would be loosed from those constricting ties,
and wouldn't love each other any less -
it wouldn't be proprietary,
but knowing you, I'd still be blessed.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 4, 2023
Nothing that you have to earn,
this sense of home
courses like a stream that you are one with -
you feel the water
and you are the water,
and every bright imagining,
each leap you take,
your precious contribution
to the river's song,
what hums in you
and what you sing out,
continues ever timeless,
ever new.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 3, 2023
Wake up here with me
in the place where you are loved,
in the place where your belonging
is rooted in the web of all that lives,
all that loves, all that rises up
with joy to be alive
This is your soil, your seedbed,
this is where hope
undergirds your every breath,
this is where you wake up
and find yourself
fulfilling all your promise -
everything you've always known you are.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 2, 2023
Day moon dives into clouds
after a long night of brightness -
cuddly blanket after dawn
Warmth sleeps in, but rises before noon,
and the day slowly becomes
balmy enough for bees
Frost has taken out the basil and tomatoes,
and most of the marigolds,
but there still are flowers to be found
And we are glad for indoor fire and music,
and comforts greeting us at end of day,
and we're glad for everything we're learning,
each with its brightness, all along the way.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 31, 2023
Liking is our nature -
this is what we are like -
we match ourselves point for point
with other beings, and are delighted
We like what wakes up currents
inside ourselves, reminding us
of what we are. We like
what mirrors back our goodness,
we like what makes us feel
that we are liked
Let us remember:
No part of our being
requires us to dislike -
there is no judge condemning us
for failing to be snooty,
or unforgiving,
or for siding with the enemy
(or other team)
We can understand what's true
by what we like,
what we are like.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 30, 2023
Go to sleep, to wake up
from the bad dream of the day,
the stewing fear, torment
of being cast as enemy
I've told myself to not be taken in,
but evidently I have failed
This is not my battle,
This is not my battle,
This is not my battle,
Let it go.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 29, 2023
In this game, my object
is to remember
(in the face of strident efforts to distract me)
the source of my perception and conclusions,
and what I settle in my mind as fact
So many times the adversary
tries to steal my pieces off the board,
or change mine out for something small and helpless,
or sell me something I can ill afford
My object is to see what's being done,
to put each piece back in its rightful place,
to never be the voice repeating lies,
and meet each challenge
with honesty and grace.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 28, 2023
The north wind whips the chill like a flag,
brisk snapping agaisnt skin, incursions
between the weave of clothing,
having chased away the damp cold of fog
that wandered mutely through the morning
Frost tonight, I well expect
(I picked the peppers in the afternoon)
and so we dip into the changes
I seem to never fathom
till they are here.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 27, 2023
Kindness overcomes confusion,
and being lost, and grave distrust
Kindness lights the way
to step between the layered lies
and not be caught -
it blows those webs away
and leaves the song of ancient memory
on lips and skin
The memory of who and where we were
before there ever was a tale of wrong,
the memory of who we've always been -
kind because we are
all of a kind.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 26, 2023
I will drop
into this quiet place,
into this cozy nest
where I am cherished and protected
I didn't make this nest,
and I can't make one for you,
but it is here
and you can drop in, too
This could be
the belly of a fish,
this could be your last fall
into desolation,
but what you find here
is the forever love,
the law that claims you as its own.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 25, 2023
Now that I've quit
the business of judging,
how you comport yourself
makes little difference
We all deserve mercy,
and we all have the stature
to grant it. And maybe that
is the greater role
we all have longed for -
mercy over judgment,
universal ease.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 23, 2023
Our tentative offerings,
our hapless lurching -
towards what we wish,
away from what we fear
Our ill-fated attempts
to make some sense
of you, of me, of work, of friendship,
can hold together
no better than
marbles balanced on each other
They roll away so quickly
in haphazard rattling,
and what holds us together?
Yet here we are.
Call it miraculous,
or call it a simple fact of being,
one that helps us
more than we know.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 23, 2023
All of us are foolish,
and all of us are wise,
and most wise when we're tender with each other,
and allow each other's foolishness
to roll off like water,
evaporate and disperse
in the cooling awareness
of our sweet presence
and the warming radiance
of what loves us.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 21, 2023
There is a happy way to be,
a happy way to hold you -
hold you like water,
where you know
there are no holes for you to fall through
Hold you like a bowl
that lets you take its shape,
and lets you be yourself,
and lets you ripple,
but doesn't lose you out the sides
This way of holding you
lets you be at peace,
and lets you find yourself
and quench your thirst.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 20, 2023
Beyond the simple counting -
what is desired, what is required -
beyond the march of days,
a quiet call that can't be masked by anything
wells up within
This is more than the touted reward
for getting all the slots aligned,
this is not something
that comes to you by chance -
what looks like scattered glimmers
is in fact the indication
of a brilliance overwhelming all the tokens
Release manipulations
and line yourself up with this -
the power to power your unspoken hope -
beyond the march of days,
this timeless truth
speaks the infinitude
of what you are.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 19, 2023
This is the patient work:
letting every frond unfold,
fronds within fronds, fractally onward,
Letting each discovery
be its own wonder,
newness blazing out,
connections coming back around
Being on the ground
and letting every step be grounded,
no perception skipped over, glossed over,
taken as a given
Thus will every moment feel its value,
all the beings know their solid worth,
each idea unfold in pure perfection,
heaven well established in the earth.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 18, 2023
The trees are faithful,
the trees and water,
the trees and water and the moving air,
and the embracing sky
So when I wander into fiction,
another's or my own concoction,
their steadfastness in what they arewill guide me back to truth.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 17, 2023
Fog softens
the earliest and latest parts of day,
invites the fusing
of things cocooned
with those that live in dream
October threads warmth through coolness,
stitching up the moments
like a needle,
light leaks through the punctures
like time.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 14, 2023
You may be grateful for the many things
kind elders taught you,
you may wish you had wise elders
where you had none
But if you've ridden on strong shoulders
or floundered on your own,
you still will meet a challenge
that you face alone
And this is where you'll learn
to tap the infinite,
this is your moment
to take off and fly.
Everyone must do it,
so we all can -
it is the one, the first and final,
empowerment of man.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 14, 2023
No longer whipped about,
you find the sure alignment
that settles you, upward and solid,
fully at one with what sustains you
and gives abiding joy
Now that you know,
you will no more be fooled
by tallies of conditions
prerequisite to peace
Peace flows into you
and from you. Intelligence and calm
hold guard over all you love,
over your entire realm.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 13, 2023
In great relief
I wake to see
I am not in the ropy undertow
of fallen snarls,
not tugged and lost and tangled
I am here, connected to my source,
held in the smooth flow of being.
I don't need to fight that battle -
I am not there.
I remain unfallen,
floating free.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 11, 2023
Fire's heat
has filled the stones,
lulled our bones,
defended and defined our home
The rain has likewise
owned the outside,
sending its grey waves
across the hills,
softening the earth,
raising the green
Now night has fallen
upon us all,
and we'll range
through concentric circles
of every here we may remember
or imagine.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 10, 2023
I will not give voice to rage,
however justified it claims to be,
rage against rage,
justification on top of injustice,
indignation tearing at dignity -
this is not the voice
that can bring quiet,
this is not the voice
that leads to satisfaction
I will listen for the voice of peace,
seed crystal,
deep within all sentience,
present, thus, in each of us,
its symmetry and elegance
poised to grow,
ensured, by its very nature,
to reconstruct the whole space.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 9, 2023
In this hope colored morning
there's no need to have a reason -
the buoyancy lifting from within
doesn't wait for permission
Life proves itself like this -
before demands for evidence of worth,
this presence simply presents itself,
and nothing need be said.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 8, 2023
Today I reconsidered what's possible,
and what's not. And it's not possible
for me to be outside of harmony.
Therefore any stories to the contrary,
of my blame or yours,
must be untrue,
and can have no effect
on you or me,
or what we are here
to bring forth together
This moment belongs to something higher
than we yet understand
of you and me.
This moment is ours
to find out what that means.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 7, 2023
In this fluid shift near the balance
of night and day,
the contrasts move past each other
in intricate dances -
fog licks in wisps around the drier air,
warmth blazes through the cool,
cool wafts through warmth
All the scents of change rise up,
morning sun and shadows interlace their fingers,
grass gleams with dew,
new green shoots amid
summer's darkening brown.
Joy rises unbidden as the dawn,
sense of adventure
sweetening the day.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 6, 2023
It stops being a thing you are trying to do.
It becomes a present fact,
the sun touched moment
a reveal of something timeless,
something always -
the truth of now's perfection
enduring through eternity,
and you realize
you never need to leave.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 4, 2023
