Tag Archives: gratitude

Settling Accounts

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sky clearing2

Well, in fact,
it’s not possible to waste a day
but if it were,
it might be like this:
too caught up in chores to notice
how blue the sky was, how crisp the air,
how clear the sun . . .

Since it’s not possible to waste a day,
I’ll cash in the recollection of my moments,
I’ll pull something up from within
that wasn’t even there
(at least, not that I’d noticed)

I’ll remember
the attentiveness and power
invoked by driving
a borrowed stick shift car,
and the sweet search for humbleness
that followed a rejection,
and the glimpse — twice —
that acknowledging the hold on each identity
of the one sovereign, infinite Mind
makes a difference in the thoughts and actions
of individuals and the collective,
and it’s something I can do
today, right now.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 25, 2015

Lavender

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lavender

Just as my body sighed
with the heat of the hill climb
I was met with lavender
singing with its scent
about early morning watering
and gratitude for its essence
and the day

How could I not join in
as welcome wind brings high clouds
and a hint of change
and everything dances what it feels
and what it knows.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 6, 2015

Redemption

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morning fog, Marcola

When scales fall from my eyes
day after day,
When I see with new light,
When I see how many of my constructs
have been wrong (all of them, really)
Should I be surprised that gratitude
grows as easily out of tears
as green blades after rain?

However justly I may have earned
all the isolation in my life
(however weird I was, and blind, and gross)
there is redemption:

None of us has ever owned
anything to cast us from the circle.
None of the condemnations ever
had any truth. None of us
deserve (nor have we ever)
to be anything but celebrated, loved.

There’s no account I need to go and settle,
no debts, no currency of wrongs,
no need to reconstruct an altered story —
I forgive myself, and everyone,
and wake to home.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 6, 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

An Everyday Occurrence

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view from hammock1

Confronted suddenly
with such fullness
I am left without words —
the place where they were
has gone liquid
and it flows around and permeates
all the pores of my perception

I don’t respond
for I am transfixed
almost clumsily
I lean into the contact

My tongue has assumed the aspect
of infants drinking
I feel the suction
against my soft palate

It’s time to fly
time to cry or cry out
time to throw my whole being
against or into the vortex
(I don’t know which)
Time for gratitude
for overwhelm, for wonder
for this Life.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 23, 2015

Haloed

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red dogwood

The halo rests around my eyes –
I see it everywhere I look —
Red dogwood in the heaven of the winter sun,
contented trills of frogs and blackbirds

And in these moments, a lightness,
borne by the sound of wind chimes
and the unexpected scent of daphne —
gift of sweetness to the whole yard

My steps walk connected,
along the path, behind the wheelbarrow,
and in the gentle placement, day by day
of what must next be done
and how to do it,
and how illumination is provided
in the glow of each thing touched,
each touch received.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 26, 2015

Thanks

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MacKenzie2a

Yes, we see each other

The signal that I sent across the years
(which, since it met with no response,
I’d left,
continuing to work
because I needed to,
slowly gaining prowess on my own)

Has now come back
at the right time.
Light recognizes light,
Honest dedicated effort
sees the same
And so we start to forge a higher discourse
Where we redeem the purpose of our being

So I say thanks —
Thanks for how you live your life,
thanks for what you see
thanks for the clarity
that frames your thoughts,
thanks for seeing me
Thanks for attention, instead of norms,
Thanks for the dance within the meta-forms.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 19, 2014

Our Crop

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sunflowers crop1

Summer blazes on
day after sun-ruled day,
Night’s sweet release
comes late

We start to wait
for the wind-chime heralded
south breeze,
to signal change,
to signal rain

For years we wished for this,
A summer we could count on.
We can’t complain —
Every day is splendid
and their still are places
we can hide from heat

And the city haze,
though it accumulates,
has mostly blown away,
Our slightly sun-stressed
crop of gratitude
still sturdy.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 1, 2014

Today

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Joy springs up,
bubbles along its channels,
overflows.

So much goodness in today —
Things that waited many years to surface,
deep in hidden aquifers,
pulled up by gratitude,
sweet from long, cool resting
under rock;

Things that came just now —
the rising to the challenge
of present weather,
the brightness of success in being true.

Joy feeds joy,
as gratitude brings forth the same,
Goodness stays
when circulated day by day.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 22, 2013


Butterflies

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(notes on the second summer five-women gathering)

Let us melt
into the soft, orgasmic
surrender
where everything that we’ve accumulated —
the triumphs and the woes,
the stories of what’s happened,
the win and lose of what we have become —
dissolve into imaginal potential
for our metamorphosis
into our own.

What we have called a false start
or called a failure,
or called a choice that didn’t do us good,
all serve as food for our unfoldment,
unmarred by scars from anything we’ve done.

Here in this company
we feel our wings expanding
just like our hearts
that hold each other whole —
the selves we own
by seeing them reflected
in kindred eyes that shine the light of Soul.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 10, 2013