Choice

The atmosphere of my temple

is my choice. If I feel clouded,

if I can’t find the joy amid the sorrow

of my story, if the words I use

to help remember what I am

fall flat, if it seems that things

far beyond my control are at fault,

this is what I must remember

The atmosphere of my temple

is my choice. I can choose now

to let the story lie inert,

a sleeve with no breath in it.

I can choose to let warm infinity

fill me in tones of gold and orange,

I can let my peace rest, soft, around me.

I can turn away from words

to that which doesn’t need them,

I can fill my temple

with what I live to feel.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 25, 2016

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

Dramas

When we thought we walked on solid ground,

our world was full of dramas —

so many things that could go right or wrong,

and underneath them,

the persistent weight 

of hopes that never quite vaulted

to their victories, and the resultant lowering,

over weeks and years,

of the ceiling of our possibilities

As we began to learn that substance

is something else,

that what we thought we walked on

was separating, like melting floes,

but we were still standing,

the dramas, too, took on a different meaning

Things still matter to us deeply

but not so much for turns of plot

as for the places, shining through everything,

where our truth transforms the story,

where we prove that we are free.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 23, 2016

Treasures

In the moments before waking

I find myself walking through veils

searching for treasures,

collecting them like strands of light,

curling them around my consciousness

to hold on to them

as I transition into day

I choose them for their cuddly warmth

and how they glow like hope,

how they make me feel: this

is what I live for — 

all the good in life

for me to learn to bring forth

throughout my hours awake.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 22, 2016

Our Stand

We stand on holy ground.

You can feel it through your feet,

how it isn’t about this place

(opposed to any other place)

but it is about this place,

this here, connected by all points,

the way the feet of everyone

who touches down

are holy, drawing up, as they do,

all the sacredness of earth

As we stand in this place

we will not be moved.

In our holiness

we cannot be enslaved.

A thousand efforts

to catch us up

will just fall,

and we will stand as free

as vapor, as wind,

ever only responsive

to the Love that breathes us.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 21, 2016

Once

Truth is so potent

you only need to see it once.

After that, all the constructs

that were called right

are seen as powerless,

are seen as shams.

But if you haven’t seen it

you may be fooled.

You may think good

just means compliant

or sanctioned by the current tyrant power.

You may think you’re in

a zero sum game

in which it is a constant fight to live

If we don’t know truth

we need a savior,

someone to show it to us once.

Once we’ve seen it we’ll be free —

That will be enough.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 19, 2016

Simply

That which saves us

doesn’t need to overthrow anything —

it simply opens the inner

gates to infinity,

simply replaces the whole landscape 

— all its former haunts of fear —

with something far more solid

than we’ve ever walked on,

each footprint now

flooding with light,

each footstep bringing new views

That which seemed to hold us

so firmly trapped,

we simply slip from

into a different frame,

a kinder set of causes

— no longer the indifferent laws

that don’t care how we fall —

Here our cause loves us

and arranges our safe landings

and our exhilarating flights.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 18, 2016