Navigating

In this fractal hall of mirrors

where everything you think

reflects itself on every level

everywhere you look

till thought resembles thing, resembles cause

You need to trust a different sense to guide you:

Close your eyes and pause

until you feel the inner weight and balance

always present, always true

that gives you poise, and finds your center,

sounds the thought-scape through

so you can find out where you really are

This is how you know what are the lies,

what are the laws:

In the grand dynamic that is you

Your deep harmonics clarify the view

And every scene that’s fractured must dissolve

Leaving you resplendent in your love.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 31, 2012

Sustenance Prayer

Hold my days, Spirit

Hold my days —

I won’t find satisfaction any other way

You are the wind that moves all;

It’s so clear

Nothing else is substance; nothing else

is even here

You are the breath of my desire and its fulfillment

You provide the inner fire 

and the inner stillness,

my going out and coming in,

My home and my adventure

Each thrill, each triumph, every friend

And all I can imagine

It does no good for me to build my dreams

with bricks of circumstances, things and schemes

Which are ephemeral

as ripples intersecting

They flash and disappear, and no projecting

of meaning onto them can make them last

(They only glint in future and in past)

But that which moves in me and gives me life

Sustains me always,

Always makes me thrive.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 30, 2012

Clarity

Everything about my being

comes from my source

Not from the channels into which I flow

Not from the interactions that engage me

So if I feel splashed, diverted,

sullied or depleted,

I only need to turn

back to where the primal fount

of who I am

springs forth

and bubbles boldly

into being

and courses forward

Strong and pure and clean

Affirming and defining me again.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 28, 2012

All of us

There is no inner circle

of those who know the secret

There is no outer darkness

worrying the edges of the light

There is no us and them

No “ninety-nine percent,” no “one”

No unconverted, unevolved, benighted:

If anyone’s enlightened,

not one is blighted

Our ears know how to hear the clear tone,

to filter out the static

Our eyes know how to see what’s real

Our hands know how to touch it

And every goodness we can own

must then be owned by everyone

shared by our hearts

which always seek each other.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 27, 2012

Without Words

I came to you

in a place without words

in the quantum field

where all my electrons

were kicked into a higher orbit

and the speedy surging of the particles

thrummed against my ears and eyes and skin

So merging at the edges

Centers pressing

We approached ourselves

(the physics-induced distance seeming

ever more unbearable)

We rose in mighty effort

to breach its mounting wave

We crested more than once

and still the buoyant sea remains

And we will learn this new each time —

This being —

Open, without rhyme

or even words —

The primal pulse of life

Asserting its own essence

in our forms.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 27, 2012

Gardens

So many things in my garden are bolting

Racing against death

Preparing a dual departure:

Packaging their life into capsules for the future,

Letting their stalks fall back into brown

In the face of my neglect

The plants perform their dramas

Weeds stake out their turf

Flowers stretch and bow extended stems

Bees and rain bestow their ministrations

Some year, I think, my garden may be tended

Each tender plant well fed

with soil amended,

The weeds, with gentle firmness

kept in hand

The flowers celebrated, blooming

lushly, just as planned

But I’m distracted by another realm

Where, like fennel weeds

My dreams extend their gangly fronds

And wave about, seedy and untended

When I visit them, I have no clue

Which ones to pull, which ones to prune

Or what to do to garner greater flourish

So neither garden gets my full attention

And both grow wild, and dry, and spare

But still, in both, the sun-drenched flowers

Summon me, and touch me there.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 26, 2012

Daily Bread

If I could give you anything

I’d give you one moment

of knowing

how deeply you are accepted

How perfectly you belong

in this particular place and time

In this singular infinity we call

Here and now

I’d give you the grounded certainty

that you are loved

Seen for what you are

and loved for that 

— all of it —

(What you hoped was normal

What you feared was strange

What you didn’t dare affirm

to be your precious, holy gifts)

Having given that

I’d give you it again

I’d give it to you every day

and every time I saw you

One time of knowing is a touchstone

But knowing all the time 

is daily bread.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 25, 2012