Everyday Epiphanies

You wake up and remember

what you know —

you may have to reach for it,

coming up from dream,

batting back the thoughts

that fall on you

as you break the surface

You may have to spend more time,

may need to diligently focus,

but it comes in — new each morning,

different from yesterday,

full of its own promise

Sometimes it’s a steady fire within,

able to incinerate anything untrue,

sometimes it’s a sunrise seen afar,

overwhelming with its gift of beauty

And sometimes the old lines

of you and me, us and them,

are totally confounded

in the unity of Mind’s purpose,

working out the calculus

of universal good.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 7, 2019

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

Induction

I make my way by induction,

as by candle light, long before dawn —

I look, first, for the first reason —

why you would even open your eyes,

why you would care, 

why you would rise

I see you couldn’t be there

without the spark, you would be nothing

without desire

And if the spark is present,

it must really be the only thing —

it wouldn’t let itself

be mostly snuffed out

It wouldn’t let itself be used

to power anything unlike itself —

to power dread or burden,

or soul deadening requirements

If the spark is here

then it will dictate joy —

joy, and strength, and vigor —

it will spread the whole day

with sweet harmony,

for so it is, by nature

And if this is what’s here,

I’ll see it. Gently,

modest as the dawn,

radiant as day. I’ll recognize it

in every light that shows the way.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 4, 2019

Always

There will always be a pause,

because the loud shrieks and clamor

of all that tries to claim power

are not continuous, cannot sustain themselves

They start and stop,

as earthquakes, wind, or fire,

as sobs, as tirades, as things hurled,

and there is always a pause —

a curling up, the empty end of a breath,

the spring uncoiled, the flat repose of shards

And in that silence

still as winter, still as ice,

the crystal music will arise

It fills the whole field instantly,

interlocks the harmony of molecules,

sounds the depth, the space, the peace

that owns the matrix of existence

There always is a pause —

and everyone can find it —

that leads us to our home, infinity.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 3, 2019

Purpose

I will not look anywhere but here.

Here is the place where focus is possible,

here it can bore to the needed depth.

Things that fly outside may look attractive —

I may think I wish to turn, to sample, find them,

but that kind of skittering, finally

won’t drill down into

what I need to understand

This is something I know within.

It is a deep unarguable truth.

There may be stories told of freedom,

of flying high and wide,

but freedom without purpose

can’t sustain me,

and purpose is what’s mine to find right here.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 2, 2019

Little Window

And after the thick of the storm,

like a little blue window

amid the clouds rolling and roiling —

a window that may disappear

many times before the clouds clear

and blue displays its winning infinite —

Somewhere before the dark has fully ended,

that blue window of truth

will give you hope,

and the storm’s narrative

will slowly cease to matter,

its irrelevance apparent as it dissipates,

and you can hold on,

for once you’ve seen it,

you won’t believe in darkness anymore.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 1, 2019

De-Wimpification

I spent almost a week

like one of those yard ornaments

with no air blowing through it —

flat on the ground, an odd distortion

to its shape

Today I switched the air back on,

sat up, stood, walked with power,

owned my state

…in which condition

I felt much clearer,

less cold, stronger, and able

to face the day and do what’s needed

It’s good to remember

I have this choice —

it’s not my air

but I can turn it on.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 30, 2019