Tag Archives: community

No Story

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Laurels

Well you told your story
sounding so justified,
it had me bleeding
for the other side

There has to be a way,
there has to be a win
where forgiveness counts
and compassion enters in

Stories are as common as desires
and as compelling —
I get caught up in the string of one
and in its telling,
and then I see in me
someone I don’t recognize,
I find I have forgotten
someones eyes . . .

No story, please, to set us each
in our appointed place of right or wrong,
just this, the being here,
the blessing and the song.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 31, 2016

The Counsel

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the counsel

We summon the wisdom
of all that are here —
the sentient beings,
with their channels to
the flow of all things,
the moisture as it travels,
as it breathes its meditative circuit,
the rays of sun emerging
low and brilliant
in a sunset pause between the rains

We summon experience, we summon
hope, we summon new-found
discovery of what we are.
This counsel will tell us,
with the certainty of dawn,
how to bring forth the purpose
that calls us to this place.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 8, 2016

Acceptance

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acceptance

I think of this
as if it were utopia,
and yet it should be fundamental —
basic, unrestrained, whole-heart acceptance
of everyone for being who they are

That we could simply be ourselves together —
nothing to withhold,
nothing to bestow,
no accolades to earn, no shame to shrink from,
no hierarchy of “in”, of “hip”, of “cool”,

No chairs to win, tryouts to fail,
nothing to prevent us from just seeing
in ourselves and in each other,
the wholly uncontested and essential,
the deeply needed for the
part that no one else can play,
the curious, ecstatic, quirky wonder
of each of us —
Yes, that would win the day.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 22, 2015

photo by Edward Mulhern

Achieving Peace

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sunset with fir

It comes down to a few things
that can’t be claimed by sects
or ideologies

Comes down to things
that can’t be argued over,
for their truth is not in words,
but felt in bones, and breath
and flesh, held in hearts
and known, thus, to be sound

Comes down to kindness,
comes down to kinship —
being kind, being of a kind —
It amounts to the same thing,
as long as it’s seen to be
without limits, without exclusion,
binding us into one basket,
one vessel, one Soul.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 24, 2015

Equation

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new equation

In the new equation,
motivation can no longer
be considered in terms of leverage
(incentives, consequences,
how to get someone to do something)

In the new equation
we may think in terms of lift —
lift of our collective wings,
mid-flight discovery
of our shared volition
where we don’t know
before we swoop
precisely where we’re going,
where the perfection
of the emergent direction
is the product
of the perfection of each of us,
and how we’re made to fly together

And none of us will need to be director —
We’ll all be listeners,
we’ll all be followers
of the wisdom that arises from our love.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 7, 2015

Second Thoughts

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birds in tree

Well, maybe I shouldn’t have
left the meeting early —
Maybe I succumbed
to divisive voices,
allowed myself the story
that my best work
would be what I did alone

When I could have known
the present need
was for my present attention
to everything in my own thought
that was ruffled
by the words of others

My need was to stand guard
against suggestions of polemic,
to find the higher embracing way
where everyone feels at home.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 30, 2015

Stream

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Holly's house

We never walk through life alone —
the stream of us is intermingled
with the stream of others,
the eddies of our presence whirl
in curving curls, within the common current

The molecules we breathe
and every inspiration
have made their constant cycles
throughout the years,
and carry with them memories
of other journeys,
thought patterns of the minds they have traversed

And our desire to bless
seeps through our days
and through the things we touch
and finds its way
to where it meets the need that calls it forth
and so fulfills our elemental worth.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 23, 2015

Going Through

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marcola morning fog

I anticipate your coming transformation
as if it were my own,
which indeed it will be
in an important way

You’ll go through
and see things in new light —
everything you see, including me.
So when I see you,
how you see me
will make me witness everything
clearer, brighter, deeper

You’ll bring your candle to the circle
and we all will stand
flickering and exultant
while our great collective prayer
rises in the center
to the stars.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 10, 2015

Every Living Thing

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spring maples

Every living thing desires
to clasp hands with another,
desires to feel the interchange of juices,
to be strengthened
by what they give
and what flows back,
to feel potentials multiply

Every living thing desires communion,
to nourish and be nourished
by the whole,
Every living thing
fulfills the call of Life like this —
We can’t deny it —
We know what we want.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 7, 2015

Community

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Oak in spring

We come eager
we come ready
we come expecting to be surprised
We never know
which of our gifts
will make that key connection
that catapults us into vaster realms

We know that something
we haven’t fathomed,
some gift another brings,
some unseen part
will find a way to liberate our vision,
ignite the latent radiance of our hearts

And so we shed our plans and our projections,
come open handed, with no words in mind,
to let our gifts spring forth to meet each other,
hands and hearts so gratefully entwined.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 6, 2015