Today I consider
putting my whole weight down,
settling into life, letting it
bear me up
Funny, until now
I didn’t notice that all this time
I’ve been holding back,
keeping the tense pose,
assuming I needed
to hold up my own weight
(As if I could, as if
I wasn’t fully riding on this adventure,
as if I could withhold
any dependence on Life’s uplift)
Today I consider
nestling into Life’s shoulders,
feeling its wing thrusts
surging us on.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 10, 2019
Though I talk about
techniques for survival,
I really mean
ways to maintain joy —
there is a level
where it amounts to the same thing
And it’s easy to find uplift
in the faces of young fathers
and their children,
in reachings out for connection,
in all these things that
right now
are of utmost importance to people,
however fleetingly they catch
the light-elixir that sustains us all.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 12, 2019
And if we know
nothing we do
holds any weight,
we won’t try to sit down
on our achievements
and we won’t fall through them
wondering, as we fall
what happened — why
we weren’t supported
If we recognize
we are held up by our breath —
all we take in, all we give out,
all we see as true, and honor —
we will move lightly through the day
unmired by past or future,
nimble in the turnings of the moment.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 8, 2019
Consider your capacity
to bring joy,
for it is the great gift
you share with every living thing —
it is what rouses you, what feeds you,
what makes you feel alive
There are so many ways,
small and large, that your being does this,
just like these trees,
just like these flowers,
just like these people working,
doing their job well,
just like the swallows that fly chirping
through our open house,
the sheer delight they have in living
lighting us up.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 3, 2019
This, right here, is the place of adventure,
here with the hole in the clouds
where blue sky sounds through,
here with the broken bootlace
and the black bugs that ate our greens,
here with the work that needs to be
pried and prised from our powers of invention,
and then, on top of that,
needs to be done
This is the place of adventure
where we plumb the depths
of our understanding, then go deeper,
where we live in the light
as far as we know it
and still keep going
There may be other adventures,
years down the line, lifetimes away,
but this is the path by which we’ll get there,
placing our feet down
in every step of today.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 23, 2019
The true thing
present in this green and golden
afternoon, with events suspended
while time ripens
and firs sing wind songs
while little birds converse
The true thing,
older than all the human stories,
newer than anything we’ve thought before,
is Life’s unfurling of itself
in multiple dimensions,
in ever awe-inducing harmony
for all of us to be.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 19, 2019
In the dream, the little girl
pulled the shining life jewels
right out of the air,
and when others scrambled for them,
reaching out in desperation
for the ones that pulsed with power,
she seemed surprised. “It’s right here,”
she said. She opened up her hand
and pulled out more
On waking, and in latter days,
I find that what she said is true —
It’s right here — infinity of life power
waiting to be pulled out from the air,
waiting to be lived.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 18, 2019
Not even time is exempt
from the rushing wind of Spirit,
not even the past can harbor wrongs
that don’t get swept away
All things are clean —
no atonement is demanded,
no punishment required
before you enter
the liberating kingdom
of the law of Life
Right now is when you’re governed
by that which has no adversary,
that which holds as sole demand for you
that you be subject
exclusively to Truth.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 16, 2019
I’d come to think of my life as small —
small circles, small desire,
small prospects, small needs,
and it felt truer, certainly, than
how I used to wave my hand,
and utter grand plans,
and watch, with something less than confidence,
for some great wave to come along
and bear me up to what I felt
was a deserving height
I recognize that humbleness
is both the starting point
and the essential stance
for riding on the arc of being.
I notice, too, that service to infinity
does not make me small
And so, though I don’t know
what it is for, or how it will work out,
I now am willing
to enlarge my tent.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 9, 2019
Nobody’s life is a straight course —
they all have their crashes,
public and private,
they all have their changes,
complete uprooting
of what they thought was true
The various chasms
may not be seen
on the paper veneer
of a life’s facade,
but we can understand
they are there
Nobody’s life is a story,
however much we’re trained
to think they are —
our lives are more like trees,
branches broken, other ones grown in,
taking every path that puts forth green.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 3, 2019