What we wanted

All we ever wanted

was to be reunited

with our source,

to be in that communion

like water is

as it travels on its journeys

to be reunited with itself,

as it carries light in liquid ripples

through rills and streams

All we wanted

was that certainty

of what we are —

that we are good,

that we are one

with that which lights us up within

We may pursue our winding path

through darkness, 

but it’s the gleams of light that lift us

and our light reflecting essence

that guides us

(as we will see when we look)

to everything we wanted.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 24, 2019

Twinkle

A lot can ride

on the twinkle of eyes —

the smoothness of days,

the feeling of having done well,

the ease of incitement to laughter

These things testify

to the presence of

that which engenders the twinkle —

the substance it’s made of,

how it appears

out of what you might think of as nowhere,

thus proving as everywhere

what you may never see

but still most certainly need.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 13, 2019

Flow

The river calls its tributaries —

they are drawn to the flow —

all water follows

by virtue of what it is

Of water moved by Spirit

we are formed, we are born,

we are borne along the course prepared

Of water and of Spirit

we find ourselves

new as this breath,

steady as the presence of the infinite.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 7, 2019

All That Is

Health springs up

from the same place

that life springs up,

from the same source

of all thought

which is all action

You spring up

every day, every moment,

from the source of yourself

which is infinite

And nothing can be placed

except as it is thought,

except as it is known

and as it’s loved

And nothing blocks

the power of presence,

nothing can impede

the All That Is.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 9, 2019

Plenitude

There is no bridge

from lack to bounty,

no accretion that won’t sink

into the endless, desperate pool of want,

and that is why we won’t go there

We’ll start out where we are,

with here, with presence,

we’ll let the tendrils of awareness

reach in deep

to find the fact

that we have always been supplied

with plenitude, in everything we need.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 7, 2019

Presence

Let me wake up to presence

and feel the substance of it,

how it fills up everything —

time and space and consciousness

Let me feel how presence

is both mine and its own,

how it speaks to me,

how I embody it

See? I can’t be absent

any more than presence can be gone,

and I can’t fail to dwell in presence,

the all, the law, of here.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 28, 2018

Sun and moon

For one moment the sun today

looked like the moon last night —

white disk with clouds around it

A moment later

light flooded out of the circle,

the limit overcome, the essence revealed.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 4, 2017

Rebuilding

Lift up your eyes from the rubble —

these blocks are broken, crumbled,

they will not be re-stacked, reset,

they won’t be home or citadel

No use to pore, again,

through all the plans,

no use to wonder

where they were wrong

or why they failed

to keep the city from going under

Let us arise and build —

not with these

but with the substance

we are made of —

bright vectors of intention,

strong cords of close connection

and the steady purpose

that knows us even when

we don’t know it, the one

that guides us ever to our own.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 1, 2017

Spirit-filled

You could see how

the Spirit might take

any one of them,

how they would be filled out,

would take shape

from the rushing power

that formed them from within

You might notice

how they really never

were anything else, how they are

maybe not so much Spirit-filled

as Spirit comprised,

maybe the most joyful

the less they hold onto

the thought of being the envelope,

the more they embrace Spirit

as their very essence.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 3, 2017

What Holds Us

Isn’t it obvious

that all this time

we couldn’t have been

holding ourselves up?

(As scientists posit “dark matter”

because there isn’t enough substance

in the known universe

to pull itself together)

(As it is clear

that if we needed to rely

on our paltry interactions

to create love,

we could never do it)

When the mighty rush

of Love, its sheer infinity,

bears us up, carries us along,

powers our swoops,

becomes our song,

then we know what holds us,

what held us all along.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 5, 2017

Treasures

The treasures of the true world,

the harmony, the peace, the immortality,

can’t be taken back

into the false world

You can’t adorn yourself with them

to raise your status, can’t teach them

to those you peg as fools.

They are, in fact, as useless there

as sun sparkles, for paying off of debts

The treasures of the true world

must be enjoyed right where they are.

There’s no need to go back anyway —

why not stay

in the consciousness of omnipresent good?

©Wendy Mulhern

June 3, 2017

Real

The loop and curl

of hunger met,

the kiss of being needed,

the feeling in one’s body

of being beloved

and what it does

to the curve of one’s form

We live for these things.

which we find as we plant ourselves

face to the earth,

wet with the dew of heaven,

taking seven times, or as long as it takes

to enter the territory

where no words have been there yet,

where they must arise

out of the ground of experience,

long enough after the fact

to truly be real.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 5, 2017

Matters

Black lives matter,

and fair contribution matters,

and mending and cleaning and sorting matter

And underneath all the matter

is the current of Spirit

that doesn’t even need to get involved

in all that tortuous stitching,

full, as it is, of its own surging intricacy,

its fractally multiplying joy,

its amnesty for all.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 15, 2017

photo by Edward Mulhern

Impending Departure

How can we leave? you said,

How can we let this all go?

We let it go because it never held us —

We held it, just as we hold ourselves.

We contain each feeling we’ve imbued this place with,

we take the substance with us

when we go

After all, we always have been travelers —

before our birth, and through this time

and onward,

we move, to our delight,

in waves of constant newness,

explorers of infinity,

our never ending home.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 11, 2017

Sifting

From this side

it feels like Spirit sifts me

and all that is opaque

falls by its weight

while all that is transparent

dances and shines,

proving its substance

by how it stands unmoved

by tugs upon it,

and how it swoops and dives

unwavering from Spirit

It is my heart’s deep joy

to be found thus,

and I sense

that from the other side

there is no sifting,

but just that Spirit

knows its own.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 2, 2017

Holy Night

We come to understand

that we are holy,

not in closing ourselves off,

not in excluding anyone,

but in refusal to be anything but kind

and in insistence on keeping our light shining

and bearing witness

to every other light

and not permitting any

to be snuffed out

We come to understand

that this is our protection —

not in hiding but in standing up

to any imposition on our wholeness.

We will not allow ourselves

to be unloving or untrue,

and this will bring all impostors down.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 24, 2016