And if you feel you can’t forgive,
can’t be forgiven,
if barbs from old stings
tear at your flesh,
let that body go —
it was never any more
than just a dream
Whatever scars it has
will melt away, along with
all its trappings of identity.
The memories it holds
that waited to be triggered
will melt as well, giving place
to what has longed to waken
to the touch of grace.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 30, 2018
Don’t worry — after you’ve left behind
everything you thought you were —
your quirks and your requirements,
your suffering and dearly held delights,
after you’ve abandoned
all the things you once described as “me”,
you’ll still recognize yourself
It won’t be like a distant memory,
vague and foggy, held as maybe true,
or it will be that way for just a little while
like fog at dawn
And that clean brilliance,
that sun-on-dewdrop freshness
of your being,
that young and smooth
as eucalyptus bark
essence of yourself,
will be the meaning of your name,
will be what you have always known.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 17, 2018
All that we own
lies within us,
all that we build
patterns that form,
We may discover it
bringing it forth,
we may recognize it
as always known
All that we love
lies within us —
the kingdom of heaven,
our hope, our home.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 11, 2018
“a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and as a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.”
If it is so, consider
how we will meet each other,
what joy will be occasioned
at the appearance of any one of us,
how glad we will be to receive each other
and to be received
The surrounding land will thrive in our presence,
life will spring up abundantly
in great diversity
And is this not — be honest —
what you have always hoped for?
— Of course it is, for this
is what you’ve always been,
this is what you always have deserved.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 9, 2018
I can say at this time at least
that I don’t fear the shattering
of my world, don’t fear that anything I love
can be shattered
I plant my feet, one after the other,
in each place the earth receives them,
feeling the gift travel up
through my frame,
feeling the blessed caress
around my toes
I find myself in this place
where what I am becomes real
as it is realized,
set down like these footprints
on the terrain of consciousness
in the fruition of my mind.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 3, 2018
There is a place for you,
a gentle, easy place,
a place with no relation
to what or where you’ve been
There is a place where
you won’t even remember
what it was to worry,
what it was to wait to be accepted
All you thought you wanted
falls like sticks before a flood,
before the welling up
of your true unleashed desire
You can breathe it
and also drink it
and it takes you down
to the place that you’ve been longing for,
the place that has so long awaited you.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 28, 2018
I called it a desire for magic,
and so it was — a thirst, a sense of
something missing, something
remembered from another world
You could call it an example
of how we are impelled
to plumb the depths of ourselves,
to find our power, our alignment,
to bring into our days
the essence of our nature,
just like any being,
just like any seed.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 24, 2018
So much more moves
than these cars with their drivers,
these people sitting and talking,
these talking and walking
Each one moves a world —
all that orbits their center,
pulling huge swaths of perception
in their parallax.
Each brings the weight
of unmovable nobility
that stays with them
wherever they go
Each is holy, and underneath
whatever occupies the surface,
whatever ripples ruffle up their minds,
each embodies the depths of oceans
and must be seen that way
to be defined.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 17, 2018
There are those who will take measure
but we won’t be measured. We will refuse
to participate in that game
Foxes may call to each other across the fields,
they may mark out territory.
We will not take sides
There is a truer place for us
than the field in which these things are measured.
We have a worth deeper
than ground, than soil, than earth.
Our being is rooted in the firmament
from which we will not be moved.
There is no limit to our love.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 2, 2018
Let me be a kingdom unto myself,
a kingdom within, a well, a spring,
a law establishing the truth
of all my eyes can see
Let my kingdom rule me absolutely,
and let it offer sanctuary
to all who flee their demons,
to all who come here hoping to be seen
This kingdom of the inner infinite
has room enough
to shelter those who enter by the door,
to nourish what we are and bring it forth.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 21, 2018