Perception

In this dimension

there are no lines, really,

only curves that move

as you approach them,

only planes that sport

the spreading shadow of their angle

So don’t think you need

to draw the line —

this understanding is really

about inhabiting the form,

glowing the light from the inside,

feeling the curve and fullness of it —

how that always makes it seem to shift

as the perspective moves.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 17, 2020

Ways to open

You could say we were

victims of our beliefs

or rather

victims of our unbelief —

the subtle closing of the doors of thought,

restricting flow, though we rail

against the blockage

Still we’re looking for the ways to open —

how at will, or through some method,

or by some yet-to-be-revealed incantation

or transformation,

we receive the flood of inspiration

that makes us understand,

that makes us whole.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 16, 2019

Lines and Spaces

The people of the spaces

got tired of trying

to explain their viewpoint

to the people of the lines

The people of the lines had logic —

they could draw clear arguments,

they said “lines are really all we know,

all we can prove exists"

The people of the spaces

tried to say, “no, no —

the substance is right here,

right in between”

but had no words that carried meaning

for the people of the lines

And so it was that many things

that could be known were hidden,

so it is that many things

could presently spring forth.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 12, 2019

Unhooked

I’m amazed

at the stillness

of that which refuses to argue,

refuses to engage

with any of the hooks,

which, in fact, offers

a reality that counters

even all the stridently opposing views

It silences them utterly,

presenting, as it does,

a mode of being that precludes

any of the self-promoting sides.

The arguments of

everything that’s wrong

have nothing more to say

before the simple presence

of what’s right.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 1, 2019

Resolved

Certainty may grow

like shadows as the sun sets,

dark on the water,

heavy as stone

What wasn’t clear before

may now seem always known,

solid conviction,

resolved to the bone.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 5, 2019

Harvest Now

Lest I be overwhelmed

by edges, the places beyond which

I cannot know

Lest I toss my anchor

into shrouded future

and be pulled on and down

into its undertow

Let me stay firm,

focused on here and now,

let me find the depth

of what I do understand —

what I experience,

what I can harvest

as surely in this winter

as many seasons later.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 15, 2019

Silently

I’d rather have no drama

and nothing to say

than something made up,

claiming attention

but lacking the tone

that fills all the spaces

with presence

I’d rather wait silent

and so make an opening —

place for a thing that’s just forming

to gather, to grow, to get strong,

and send its sweet tendrils

in untouched directions

to cleave the clear air with its song.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 22, 2018

Cartesian

Cartesian calculations fall unevenly

over the land —

we walk on the bumps of frost heaves

and mole diggings, deer boundings

and many other unknown forces

It’s the same with everything we thought we knew —

we’ve learned there’s no point in arguing

about minute alignments in the realm of straight lines —

they may inform us,

but none of them contain the final truth.

We need to find the places upon the land

where they all meet,

we need to soften every view

to find what’s true.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 14, 2018

Observations

In the moment of unweighting,

in the moment of release from all the cogs,

in the moment of perceiving

what puts us here,

some observations bear a mention:

The flash of infinity 

is like light

The rush of freedom

is exhilaration bordering on terror

A racing moment has more ticks

than I can count

Everything is possible,

no protocols have to be followed

In the moment of noticing

how this perception changes everything,

there is power. There is power

and there is peace.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 31, 2018

Translated

I got caught like a moth

between the folds of illusion

and the real light, and I thought

I was working the solution

but it was just a dream

running parallel to the truth

but without its power

Let me take the time to wake up.

It won’t seem like the story I’m imagining

but I will be lifted and straightened

from within, I will be infused

with new understanding.

I will not roll down the great conveyor belt

towards death. I will be translated,

I will walk free.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 17, 2017

Choose to Understand

Funny how we used to think

we had to fight for our perspectives,

had to change the minds of those

who didn’t see as we did

Funny how we didn’t know

each view was like a puzzle piece,

each one required to amplify the whole,

each useless if they all were just the same

Now we feel how rich we are

in opened out dimensions

for every view that’s different from our own

that we, with courage, choose to understand.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 13, 2017

The Space Between

The breath between the notes of a flute –

a time to consider

the nature of the spaces

where nothing has been said

And if I need a way to know

the purity of tone,

perhaps it lies in this —

not in the mellifluity of words

but in the calmness

and the listening

of the space between.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 17, 2017

Steps

These are confident steps

we take, under the high sky,

not that we’ve walked here before,

but we are guided

by the tall grass

and the persistent wind

and a sense of direction

that has suddenly emerged within

These are times of moving,

knowing our steps teach us

in ways our projections couldn’t,

receiving their secret knowledge

through our feet

This is why we are here,

we think, and hardly wonder

how we could have called it living,

passive in the shadow

of what the big box told us

before we walked from it,

before we were free.

©Wendy Mulhern

August 10, 2017

“Give me, oh Lord, an understanding heart”

Take me beyond having answers

to the peace that stills the questions,

to the knowing that is the comfort

before which no doubts, no lack, can stand

I don’t expect or desire

to be seen as someone who understands —

I desire instead to see

understanding like dawn

bathing us all.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 31, 2017