Tag Archives: life

The Beat

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bark-and-trees

Well, there are pockets of regret
in every cupboard, every drawer —
things that were neglected,
things that were forgotten,
things that could have been but never were

But there is a time for clearing,
and every un-cashed chance
can be redeemed.
Life, after all, doesn’t march
down a track of time,
leaving all that’s missed
hopelessly behind

The time of life
keeps on inviting us
to jump in, double dutch,
and if that seems too daunting,
it will give us another chance.
Life doesn’t let us forever miss the beat —
Life orchestrates us, and Life is complete.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 18, 2016

The Narrative

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waterlightsand

There may be many false starts
to the story. It’s said the place you enter
forms the pattern, the narrative determined
by the angles and perspectives
of the starting view.

That’s why, maybe,
we have to make so many tries.
Finally we find the launch point
where all the story lines align,
we find the motivation, we find the cause.

So it’s important to look again
when viewing a life. To look again
and again until the cause comes clear,
to not settle for a story
of misalignment

Each life after all
is here to bring a grand influx of light,
like heaven, like dawn,
illumining collective understanding,
showing us each, showing us all
why we are here.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 6, 2016

Truth Seeking

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row-boat

Everyone seeks truth.
It is our nature.
Of course our curiosity extends
to all the realms we know —
our curiosity thus proves
the presence of all the realms
in which we seek the truth

To seek the truth is tantamount
to striving to survive:
truth is inseparable from being,
so everything that’s living
lives in truth

And what of lies? And what of self delusion?
And what of petty desperation
that seeks to hide its essence
lest it be found and killed,
and what of that which seeks to kill
in order to conceal the truth?

These cannot live,
they can’t sustain themselves,
they can’t continue to be seen as truth.
Sooner or later, they snuff themselves out
since Truth and Life are one.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 31, 2016

The Surprising Truth About My Being

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october-on-the-land

There is no element of self destruction
in my being.
There is no fatalistic caving in
to something happening to me.
Nothing can “happen to me”,
for I am entirely the product
of my own thoughts

I don’t come to my being
like coming upon a house
and finding rooms and furniture inside.
These feelings, postures, habits,
were not set up by someone else,
are not dependent on some outside source

This is my house, and everything here
is my choice. And I can give it all
the tenderest of care. I can untangle it
and let it all come clear

What I fathom of my source
provides my model.
What it shows me of my essence
syncs me up with elemental joy

There is no self destruction
in my being,
for what creates me
clearly means for me to live.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 9, 2016

Good Use

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afternoon-clearing

No need to be nostalgic for my past,
however lovely photos say it was.
My life is ever here, in the placing
of feet on wet grass, in clouds sifting
between the trees, in the smell of sun
after the morning rain

My life is here, in sitting together
cutting and peeling apples,
joining in a task without asking
or being asked, just because
our hands know what to do

My life is here
in waiting out storms,
in holding the peace, in offering calm,
in giving clear direction as I see it.
I’m learning to put myself to good use
in the small and steady way
of every living thing,
essential member in the web
we weave together,
the web we all need,
that needs us all.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 2, 2016

Commandments

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ferns

Because we are dearly loved,
we haven’t been left
to wander through this dream alone.
The guiding signs have been written
in the pattern of ferns,
in the movement of clouds

They have been placed
in the throats of birds,
irresistible for them to sing,
They have been given to us in scents
and in the breath of winds

And set down, too, in words
which, though in dream state
we may think of as commandments,
are ways for us to fathom
what we are,
these truths that, when we keep them,
anchor everything,
and with their clearing focus
wake us up.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 28, 2016

Light Show

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light-show-on-the-land

Light escapes —
streams under clouds,
glows on fields,
etches the small blue patches
with silver

Light infuses lives,
each of them,
bursts through the edges of sorrow,
overrides disappointment,
finally settles everything
into the gentle peace
of sunset,

Softening into evening,
preparing to emerge,
bright as mind,
bright as stars,
to shine through the whole night.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 22, 2016

My Life

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nantucket-sound-summer-2015

The sigh of waves that reach
but fall back down
again and again,
the washing back
that comes to seem devoid of hope,
the pointlessness of swells that never crest,
that never swoop and crash —
this is just a story, just a metaphor

The roll of water circles satisfied
underneath the surface,
the wave proceeds across the whole ocean.
The catch along the shallow bottom
that trips them, makes them fly forward
is just another phase of what they do

So rolls my life,
fuller, surely, than I’ve ever known,
the power of this moment
still more or less unharnessed,
not waiting for the vagaries
of bottom depth, of ship’s wake,
but drawing from a purpose of its own
to round out all the edges of what rises from within,
to fill the waiting hollows with its song.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 16, 2016

Inner Light

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early morning, late August

Here is the inner shimmer
that glimmers for as long
as I can keep attention centered,
the concentrated glow of knowing
this is a power that will burn off
anything that doesn’t share its essence

(Nearly as a side effect,
I see the sordid stories,
almost comic in how unbelievable
they now appear. How could it be
that I accepted them
and let them hobble me
for such a long time?)

Here is the truth:
our worth is infinite —
it isn’t measured and it isn’t limited,
it isn’t earned and can’t diminish,
can’t be lost or stolen,
swindled or betrayed

Our worth establishes
the law of kindness —
we can’t see anyone as any less.
We must embrace them
in all the fervor
that now arises in the joy
of this eternal inner light.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 5, 2016

Things Come Together

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Sandpoint Cats

And in fact
things do come together,
for that is their way,
like fast friends who
steal away to meet
in their secret hollow,
to share whispers and laughter,
who scheme ways to always find each other,
make plans to often be together

So the things in your life,
what you need, what you desire,
are happily conspiring
to come together in elaborate arrays,
to fill you up, to celebrate your days.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 25, 2016