Motivation

How we each got to this place

is actually irrelevant,

as are the stories we have spun

to justify our current situation

What motivated us

is deeper than any of these things,

deeper even than what we thought we wanted,

and even what we knew we needed

What motivates us

has power to overcome

all the particulars

of time and place,

all the ins and outs

of history and reasons

What motivates us

will keep on burning

while all the papers fall away

and in the end, 

beyond all of our roles,

in fearless clarity

it will shine.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 16, 2017

Weather

The weather in mind

is the only weather,

so I am finding, as the rain

pauses after a steady night,

as I consider what atmosphere

will greet the old man

as he emerges

after a night of interrupting

our sleep (and his) many times

with bed changings and redirection

Surface cheer won’t hide

a grumbling interior, nor can

the lack of words, heard or spoken,

prevent the sunshine

of a deep welcome

This is my lesson for today,

which I will take out

into the overcast,

which I will shine into

any dreary places,

which shining

will make my day.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 15, 2017

Harmony

Harmony lives in my house —

This I insist on,

even and especially in

the multicolored movements of thought.

I witness them converging in

towards a small collapse, a place

where disappointment could form

and sadness, where the colors

would dissolve into mud, and

other structures would raise

their mud-encrusted forms

to impose some ugly order —

resentment and its minions

But I will not have it.

Harmony lives in my house,

and the net of generosity

and sweet caring 

keeps the channels open.

We all will get what we need.

We don’t need to demand it

from each other. We all

are harmonized in the One Mind,

who gives us our full fulfillment

and our radiant peace.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 14, 2017

Foretaste of Spring

It’s February

but the yard is fragrant

with sweet box

and small birds are chattering

and the air is balmy

It’s not yet time

to go inside

though our outside tasks

are done —

It’s time to breathe this day

a little longer

while the tops of the fir

and the pine and the cedar

are full of sun.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 13, 2017

Presence Church

We come to this place

where we have agreed

that love is presence —

that if you are here

then you are loved,

and in your love is an expansive blessing,

more than we had dared to hope for.

We understand

there will be healing —

not in the sense of change

but as in coming into wholeness,

recognizing what we’ve always been.

We come to this place as refuge 

from other patterns

that we have used to think about each other.

We put those aside here,

we learn not to use them,

we forget about them entirely,

caught up, as we are —

totally transfixed —

in this way of being love.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 12, 2017

A Slice of Time

Evening has rushed up to the windows

and peers in

at our curious cavern of time

after the day’s duties,

before a young night,

where the hope and emptiness of our prospects

converge

We found moments of calm today

in the pushing aside of many things,

our work, our waiting,

our restless wrestling,

and we heard, faintly,

the clear direction

that will pull us through the coming days

This evening will stitch itself closed

without our doing anything —

we will miss the bauble of a night out,

though we may gain

(as is our deeper need)

something timeless.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 11, 2017

If You Knew

What would you do

if you absolutely knew

you are loved — if you could

feel it inside

like a bright coal,

like a soft breath,

like the concentration of

everything you can take in

into one potent sphere inside yourself,

pulsing calmness and joy 

in fountains, spilling laughter

bubbling and streaming

through your aura

What would you do

if you knew

the love you are

could light the same

in many others, anyone, in fact

that you can see?

©Wendy Mulhern

February 10, 2017