Tag Archives: identity

The Moments of My Knowing

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I had a hunger today
that paced around looking
for what would satisfy,
coming up short
time and time again

I wanted that hardwood core,
that heartwood coal
whose glow spread clear and even
with a heat that burnt through
all illusions,
resolving the confusions
of generations of lost souls,
the weariness, the giving up,
the vague loss of attention
that set us drifting
(even as I was today)
in search of something
we have lost the definition for

So to become lost
in a body not of my choosing,
so to be self-punished
for all my shortcomings

When truthfully the center
of my satisfaction
is something that I own
and am able to fulfill,
daily, in the moments of my knowing,
here, in the place I am aware.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 17, 2017

Shapes

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Once I have this anchor point
(base of spine, top of head,
liquid light darting up and down)
I can let go of others
(hunching of neck and shoulders,
slouching of general frame)
and feel the space
opening up between

And I realize
whatever shape I thought was me
was just a way of holding,
and this is another one,
with a very different shape.
And as for me, it seems
I am not my shape at all
but the one that holds it,
or maybe, more truly,
the one that is held.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 12, 2017

Holy Night

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We come to understand
that we are holy,
not in closing ourselves off,
not in excluding anyone,
but in refusal to be anything but kind
and in insistence on keeping our light shining
and bearing witness
to every other light
and not permitting any
to be snuffed out

We come to understand
that this is our protection —
not in hiding but in standing up
to any imposition on our wholeness.
We will not allow ourselves
to be unloving or untrue,
and this will bring all impostors down.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 24, 2016

How We Win

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seagull-at-carkeek

You never were
that lost and lonely soul
that fought back, kicking,
that raged and spat

You never were
that desperate, huddled one
that squeezed, eyes shut,
against a tiny crack,
too small to justify,
to big to hide

You’ve always been beloved,
you never needed to atone,
and all the demons
that wrought all kinds of havoc
in your name
must shrivel, powerless
before the truth that you can claim

This is how we win —
soul by soul, to patiently restore.
This is the beginning
to which we now return —
so let it stand,
so let us soar.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 6, 2016

Seeds

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maple-seeds

Consider how these maple seeds
have within them everything they need —
cloistered protection
and precise instructions
for when to sprout, how to become trees

Likewise never underestimate
the power of this now —
everything contained within
to realize dreams:
imagination, memory,
just right alignment
with time and timing,
protection and release,
everything to move in poignant harmony,
all you need
to become peace.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 29, 2016

Window

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late-november-2016

This is my quiet space,
this is my window
into the universe

This is where
what I can see
is only limited
by the size of my willingness
to receive. I can take in
myriad vistas, flying undulating planes
of microscopic order. I can see the worlds
for whom my being moves
in geologic time. I can feel
the grand repose
of the colossal slowness
of my motion

This is my place to wait for
the touch that lights me up,
that reckons me
in the scale of infinity,
that renders me relevant
in the love of all things.
This is the touch that loves me
and awakens my boundless love.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 28, 2016

Take This In

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lake-washington-morning-november

Here is a secret:
Being is not something you can fail at.
This despite the very loud
opinions to the contrary
and their constant repetition,
throughout all your years

Here’s a truth to take you by surprise:
You didn’t make yourself. And what did make you,
what makes you still, in each moment
of your breathing, each eye-blink of awareness,
is no podunk show, no lazy shop, no third rate joint

The enormity of what you are
(broad as the stretch of your imagination)
bears witness to the size of your creator,
which, besides being too big to fail,
is also the only thing in the whole stupendous
here of consciousness

And it doesn’t let you fail. Not you,
not any of these others.
If you think you stand in opposition,
think again. You are given, after all,
a deep enough understanding
to take this in.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 23, 2016

Remedy

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carkeek-sound-view

Beyond the whole charade of shame and fear
and the confusing counsel to atone,
the place of being where your name is clear
awaits the understanding that will bring you home

Above the clamor of the inner voices
that trace the stories, tally all the fault,
you’ve always sensed there might be other choices —
within the clutter, something to exalt

And so it’s only partially surprising
to find no need to settle all the scores,
not even need to stage a great uprising
to overthrow what held you down before.
Your remedy is simple but extreme —
you wake to find the whole thing was a dream.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 21, 2016

Music

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golden-gardens-morning-water

Like silk in wind,
like seaweed in water
my inside and outside
move as one,
carried in a current
which knows no separation
between the two

Caught up in the music,
as instrument, as dancer,
as transported listener —
the lift is the same,
as is the filling

I can never be
outside its presence:
I swim and breathe in music,
and music swims and breathes in me.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 20, 2016

Forevers

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morning-waves

We are left no choice
but immortality. The time has come
to step into our true nature,
or rather, to stand clear in it
while the winds of these times
blow our illusions away

All the things we thought we were
are now so imperiled, so compromised,
that there’s no point in parsing out
the things that have gone wrong

But what we’ve always known inside
about our worth
gleams forth as miracle
right where we were thinking all was lost
and we will rally
around that bright truth
and it will save us
in more forevers than we need to count.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 9, 2016