On many days
progress proceeds unseen —
It isn’t time so much that’s needed
as the orderly placement
of each element in sequence
in a patient pace,
a laying down of layers:
“Aha”s that lead to new perspectives,
ways of seeing bringing ways of acting,
ways of acting bringing new responses,
so precipitating new perceptions,
which in turn bring new “aha”s
Eventually a clarity emerges,
a hope is met,
the work is done.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 9, 2015
In graceful ways we start to learn
the things we need to know—
sovereignty, surrender,
how the two go hand in hand:
we surrender our enslavement
to be sovereign
And though it seems, at times,
like a hard, hard choice
(because we clung so long to this?
because we didn’t know another way?)
we get to make it
in little increments,
tiny pebbles dislodged from the facade
that had encased us,
till the whole thing crumbles down
and we find
that we can move
in ways we thought we only maybe dreamed
We can stretch out,
we can expand
so far beyond the former surface,
gracefully,
for this is ours to own.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 7, 2015
Every last worry can leave —
they can dissipate
like soft fizzy bubbles
rising from your head
You can feel a great stillness
after they’re gone,
a pool of limpid water
full of sky
So you taste the depth,
the vast expanse
of that which you reflect
and you begin to sense
your purpose
This is like
sweet rising chords
endlessly echoing,
touching the fundamental frequency
of earth’s lowest tones,
completing the circle
of Life’s timeless song.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 6, 2015
The fact that I wrote something
doesn’t mean I really know it,
and even when I feel
within my deepest core
(Lord, I believe)
something is true,
it doesn’t mean I really understand
But coming round again and again,
things start to get clearer
(help thou mine unbelief)
and eventually the swollen, writhing tail
must cease to sweep away the stars,
must fall, jellied and lifeless
as a tail a lizard lost,
before the hand of Truth.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 5, 2015
No, I will not dip one toe
into the roil of fear —
I know how it could take me,
throw me off balance,
spin me under, with its fiercening demands
and not deliver me
(the way that it had promised)
to the other side —
It can’t be forded
and I can’t afford it
I will ride instead
along the winds of peace,
the billowing uplift
that holds my soul
in tender balance,
that fills my heart,
gradual as the dawn,
with the clear perception
that all is well.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 3, 2015
Well, I can’t purify myself
and I can’t improve my state of mind,
can’t add a cubit to my stature,
can’t fix myself, can’t fix another
But I can appeal
to the ageless order of being
that sings through winds,
that plays through rain,
that blows the scent of oceans
up majestic mountains,
that brings the scent of snow back down
I can appeal
to what twines together
the intricate lacings of life,
the waves of movement,
the harmony of breath
There is a knowing
before which my own concepts
are rendered silent.
Dip me in seven times
and I’ll be clean.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 28, 2015
Sucked or stumbling
through the gate,
it takes a while to notice
the steady wind
and how our feet were made
to walk upon it
Our stature fills
and we stride across the landscape,
our footsteps establishing
primal order, our hands
putting everything right
We have been here
longer than we could have dreamed.
We will continue this stride
clothed in potent currents,
sure in our steps,
knowing each truth
just as we need to know it,
on our eternal rounds.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 12, 2015
My tears are
dark clouds at the end of a storm,
scudding over wind-tossed hills,
the scent of firs carried through the hollows
They call forth wolves, who take up the howl
one after another,
their sweet throats lifting toward the sky
They summon the answering rivers,
rumbling swiftly across the earth,
the encompassing tides, flooding and ebbing
They find their place
in the cushioned atmosphere
in which the entire earth’s comprehensive rush
is one.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 11, 2015
I will not try
to rearrange the water,
I will not fear
your form can falter.
I will look to your source —
the ever-flowing power
that forms you as a standing wave,
embodying its essence,
expressing the joyful surge
of all being,
undisturbable
in the pulsating grace
of your shape.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 9, 2015
Here at the very bottom
I begin to detect
the function of tears —
They are our call for reconnection,
to feel again the waves
that flow through our lives,
to be borne up, to be carried,
to let go of trying to know anything,
wash away our failed attempts
to make things work,
get us to the place where all our heaving ends
and we can feel
the still and gentle Allness
embrace us once again.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 7, 2015