Path

The way can suddenly come clear,
a path unfolding like a sash
in your mind, all the terrain
that had just been jumbled shapes
laying itself down on either side,
springing up to define
the full dimension

You can know what it is you need to say,
and what it is that makes your life make sense,
you can place your steps with confidence
and watch particulars
fall in line

This is here for the asking,
and for the willingness to let go
of all your clamped conceptions.
This is here for you, for you are forged
of that same light
by which you see.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 7, 202
2

Standing Wave

Turns out it’s not too much to ask
to be formed anew each day,
to let all my being be the fountain
of the surge of my source, all of it
determined by its power, its essence,
its choice, moment by moment

All my artifice washes away
in the first rush. I try to be tender
in teaching myself to let go
of what my fists are holding,
to let the cleansing stream
course through my fingers
and not hold anything but the experience
of the standing wave of me.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 6, 202
2

Life told me

Life told me
there’s nothing I need
to prove to anyone,
Life told me
there’s no way it can lose

What I may see as precipice,
as last chance, as desperate race,
it sees as gentle presence,
all the time in the world
and no time at all –
time for its sweet lesson,
taking us each by the hand,
inducting us into the secret
of its being all that is.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 4, 202
2

Not so fast …

The evening wind
sang sweet songs of spring,
its scent intoxicating,
its warmth causing the snow
to sink on in to the earth

But the morning rain
(which began hours before
what would have been dawn,
were it not for the soggy gloom)
was a dark reminder
that there’s still a long slog
before the winter lifts,
and we’ll have to dig deeper
to find what carries us
through the low passage
and upward and out.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 3, 202
2

Daily

I’m learning not to pine for
the big enlightenment,
the grand moment
when all illusion is stripped away

Instead I practice gratitude
for each new place
where I can be struck with love,
each small blindness from which
I can be enlightened

For there are so many!
Maybe even enough to last a lifetime  –
daily bursts of waking up
just a little bit,
daily bright joy for my new small glimpses
of infinite Truth.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 1, 202
2

A Mystery

I can’t tell you about this,
snow melting, drips of rain coming down,
subtle elusive smells – cabbage? mammal?
crunch of crusted slush under my boots

I can’t tell you why
a smile circles around and catches me
from behind, from within,
or why the sense of something poignant
hovers, just beyond recognition

Once again I feel
waves of understanding, of forgiveness,
of remorse  – of letting these be phases
in the crumbling of old perspectives
so truth can align to hold the
infinitely weighty but perfectly balanced place
where we can hold each other
in exquisite trust.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 30, 2021

Consider

Consider Spirit,
for where would you even think to be
without it? Why would you even care?

Consider Spirit,
for your very breath rises and falls
at its direction. Your desire to be alive
is its very imprint

Since you have never even
lifted a finger without it
(and you have been and done so much!)
does it not make sense
to let it carry you –
through all these seas and home,
through the whole winter
to the springing grasses?

©Wendy Mulhern
December 28, 2021

Enter Winter

We watch the snow come down,
we let the projects
crammed up against the calendar
wait another day,
we watch the sun come through,
and then the clouds
across the snow –
we let it be the main event,
we wrap our day around it

We keep the fire burning,
we let the hidden warmth
of our companionship
create for us a pause,
a place that we can rest in

Some great understanding hovers
just beyond our grasp –
we let its implications
drift down in.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 27, 2021