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
More important than feeling better
would be the gift of knowing
you are fundamentally sound,
incapable of having something wrong with you,
approved of to your deepest core,
delighted in, to each extremity,
illumined such that no dark shadow -
disappointment, or even disenchantment -
could ever fall across you.
That, certainly, would be a reason
to rise, take up your bed, and walk.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 2, 2023
