Temporal Tumbling

I reflect on the present times

when I’ve run afoul of the temporal —

burning the chicken,

letting mold destroy the car —

things are fine

until the moment when they’re not,

and then there is no turning back

All things temporal

can tumble …

There is a grace that rides along the top

of all events,

and cooks things perfectly,

and cares for all things well,

and, centered in the present,

is not slave

to how things fall

And though I stand here in this shambles

(such a mess to reckon with)

my next step

is not from here.

All things in time fall down

but grace will stand me on the ground.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 1, 2020

Your daily course

This is not about how you need to be,

This is about what you are.

How you need to be

is so, well, needy —

it chafes against your brows, your lungs,

it sighs, it paces,

it rides itself with a crop 

(gee up!) it stumbles forth

half hearted

What you are

is not like that —

it moves gracefully,

like light on water —

weightless, unsinking, delighted,

responsive, here to serve,

generous, whole and tender hearted,

receiving the reward of its own being.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 15, 2020

Disabused

This day has had surprise gifts in it,

just when I’d trained myself

not to expect any. But that,

as it turns out, is today’s humbling —

Life takes me down a peg or two

by offering tangible things

to make me happy,

proving I don’t need to go it alone

And my belief that I did

was making too much of myself —

I needed to be disabused of that presumption.

I can’t say I mind.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 5, 2019

Be Still

When in the pauses, once again,

the clamor rushes in, the cluttered thoughts

of everything you’re certain

you want, and never want, to be,

the roaring doubts, upon that field,

of where you stand

Be still. Here is a voice that silences

all that clatter. This silence

is like velvet, like infinity.

This silence is the love

that holds both you, and what you thought of

as the other side. 

It renders the winning

and the losing

fully irrelevant —

glows you all like coals

in the same fire.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 1, 2019

The Good You Are

The good you are 

is so much bigger

than the little checkered parcels

that you tried to earn,

the sit still in your seat

do what the teacher says

kind of good

The good you are

is so much bigger

than what you hoped you might achieve

or what you hoped

to be accepted for

Note this: the good you are

could never dim out towards the edge,

could never fail to fill

every niche and corner of your being

The good you are

has no nemesis, no cavity.

It is not part of you — it’s everything —

all of you — clear, whole, free.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 31, 2019

Thanks for this

I hold the blessing

in the laugh behind my eyes,

in the warm spots on my cheeks,

and in the warble that burbles

in the place where I might speak

It isn’t mine — it is a gift

passed to me freely, just an hour ago,

not me alone — given to many,

and I imagine

they all took it home

As I assume also it will multiply

as mirrors magnify,

as smiles create a surfeit of good will,

which cascades outward

touching people who

don’t even know each other,

though they’d recognize the kinship

with anyone in whom they saw the light.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 30, 2019

Clearing

Our enslavement lifts like fog.

Our freedom begins to shine

like fresh-washed air —

Though there may be

many layers till we walk

fully unencumbered,

till we fly

in the manner we’ve always desired,

every little liberation

makes us stand taller,

lets us breathe deeper,

gives us the grace

to love each other

with more generosity and kindness,

shows us that we all are moving

through the same layers of clearing,

our eyelids tingling with the dew of heaven.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 20, 2019

Accompanied

You can find that angels

are walking with you

as your feet step down

the gravel road,

and your heart suddenly fills

with satisfaction

because you’re good at what you’re doing,

because someone made you laugh,

because the air is full of grace

In so many ways

the fundamental fact of goodness

makes itself known to your soul.

You could call them angels

for how they translate truth

into a feeling you so deeply

desire and understand.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 13, 2019

Tone of Voice

The verdict of defeat

is not the final word,

however hard and flat

the voice intoning it

Nothing said in hard, flat tones

can be the final word,

for truth has joy, and truth

is ever singing

When you hear truth’s voice,

the ringing of it

will make you sit still.

You won’t want to do anything

but listen

When you hear truth’s voice,

all that’s hard and flat in you

will melt —

all that speaks to you in cruel tones,

all that is vindictive and contemptuous

will turn to dust and wash away,

and leave you sparkling clear and true,

toning in the voice that knows your name.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 11, 2019

I take my shoes off

Once again, I settle in to Soul,

the home that dwells in every moment

waiting to support, affirm,

waiting to release me

I take my shoes off.

I breathe deep. No longer

out of breath from sweating,

I can find the rhythm

of the full cycle. No longer pinned

under conflicting propositions,

I feel myself float. I let myself expand

It’s so freeing to remember

I am not enslaved. I owe no consequence,

have no indebtedness,

no fear, no shame —

my life is here in Soul,

and Soul knows my name.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 28, 2019

New Sight

I will turn all the pictures in.

I will set my eyes to see

at cross dimensions,

in places that cut between,

that take the same colors

but make of them a wholly different story

Every story told in terms of good and bad

will change to true accounts of fine engagement —

they will sparkle easy grace

and glow with an intensity of depth,

they will shine with courage and surrender —

courage in how much we give for love,

surrender as we recognize

we never need to earn it

There won’t be anything there

that puts us in a bad light,

for there we will be seen for what we are.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 27, 2019

A New Day

Day dawns,

rain gone

(if for a moment)

sun flirts with wind,

clouds glint and grin

We free a dove

that trapped itself

in our young cherry tree’s enclosure,

I try the spirits

and today it’s clearer

whence they hail

These things do not depend

on weather, or on any gods

society has shaped and propped up,

they don’t depend on how we felt

or what we said and did

It is the Spirit

that sustains us,

breathing what we are

into our consciousness,

planting the clarity of our cause

into our frames.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 10, 2019

Re-vision

Retile my past —

take all those broken squares,

those incomplete perceptions,

those ways I failed to see

the truth of being,

so I can understand

through present windows

that nothing in my life was ever missing

Is not this grace —

what wipes away without a trace

the meted consequence,

all our indebtedness?

— and in its place

reveals the fruit that waits

ready to satisfy

when it is seen.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 2, 2019

Jewel

Afterwards, what I kept pondering

was the jewel in the storm,

the calm that could only be discovered

amid the raging, the peace

the storm brought out

by failing to ruffle it

even in the least

This is a thing to know about,

this is a thing to remember

even in lesser storms,

and when there’s no storm at all.

©Wendy Mulhern

August 29, 2019

This Morning

This morning it felt like fall —

fog through the valley, lifting into powder blue,

night’s chill and sun’s warmth coexisting,

different smells in dampness and in dry places,

readiness in the air

A flock of goldfinches

were very happy with our sunflowers,

exclaiming and conversing 

as they landed, swaying,

on the flower heads

I woke up knowing

the only thing real

is the goodness of everything.

I saw it everywhere,

seeming to rest on things

but actually

being what they are.

©Wendy Mulhern

August 23, 2019

The Facts of Soul

When I came back today

it was still there, where I saw it

yesterday — the house

in its perfection, all the laws of it

standing, in their interlock,

in their prismatic color,

in the certainty of completion,

every vector blessing

I was glad to see it —

interested that I hadn’t known before

that it was here all the time,

delighted to consider

what it will offer us

and what we will give it

in these Soul ordered days.

©Wendy Mulhern

August 16, 2019

Patience

Patience moves through layers like breath,

giving each its needed round,

patience lets the frenzy settle

and begins again

There is time, there is time,

there is time for each idea to form,

to reach its fullness,

to let the circle close

There is a firmness that holds

the wind ruffled page,

that smoothes it out

and lets it turn in turn

So may my hands smooth

the tangled, rumpled tasks

so they can lie flat

along the day.

©Wendy Mulhern

August 2, 2019

Day of Freedom

And now I’ll tell you of the time

when we all took off our crooked glasses

and shook our heads to focus our surprise

and spent some puzzled moments

trying to readjust our eyes

but then admitted

that here and now, as never

in our prior experience,

we could see

— because no longer did we need to fear

what someone else might think of us,

no longer did we need to squint

to weigh each other in the scales,

no longer did we think that judging others

was something we or anyone

was tasked to do

So we were free —

free to move with all the strength

and competence, and sweet compassion

that we always dreamed comprised our being,

free to love, with no fear of rejection,

free to trust our clarity of seeing.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 21, 2019

Summer Communion

The heat comes on sudden

and the garden

which yesterday looked lush

looks parched,

and our efforts

which yesterday looked ready to fruit

appear to face a desert

But my boots have filled

with daisy petals and grass seed

from my ministrations to the young trees

and there is a deeper communion

that makes me feel

like a watered garden

that does not fear in times of drought

and I will stay here

in this more verdant place

until the world around me

does the same.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 14, 2019

Not on my own

The journey is to great for me —

I am brought, once again,

to my knees,

I have wrung myself out

and hung myself to dry

and will be slowly converted

as with soft wind blowing through,

the song and sun between the trees 

I will be won over

by blessings which must be just here,

though I don’t see them yet,

and will stand forth strong again

after a while,

rested by my ride.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 10, 2019