Tag Archives: light

For The Taking

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lake-at-magnuson-early

I see that actually
the light can’t be hid,
the gift can’t be co-opted.
The revolutionary nature of truth
can’t be bought out or bought off,
can’t be papered over
with worldly celebration

No matter how extensive
and prolonged the misdirection,
our compass, finally,
will guide us home
to where we see the gift
of our inherent liberation
has never been withheld,
and no one stops us
from standing up to claim it

And as we claim it, we will feel
incomparable joy of solidarity
and we will fill
with that revealing light
which makes us know certainly
why we are here.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 4, 2016

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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

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

Ponder

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shore-at-magnuson

We are blessed here
with music and splashes and laughter
and the murmur of little waves
and the splendor of intermittent sun,
fresh breeze, white clouds

A good place to ponder
the infinite riches
of having nothing,
as earlier today,
in gratitude and tears,
I set down the little pile
I had scraped together to call my gift
and recognized
I have nothing to offer
but the everything we all share

Nothing to separate me
from the light each one of us is,
the light we all are.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 11, 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

Fade

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water glimmer

First there is the light
and then there’s the
trying to remember

For awhile the whole blaze
can be invoked in memory
and there are various
tricks to try to do so

Then there’s the gleam,
a light that’s still real
but indirect, and there’s
the gazing at it, trying to think
if that’s the thing
we saw before,
if that’s the light that dazzled us

And it doesn’t seem quite the same
along the shining stones
but the essence is right.

We start to ask,
did we ever see it
as something more?
We try to re-engage
but ultimately
it will take a new dose of sun,
liquid reflected,
to kindle that first brightness once again.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 26, 2016

Splendor

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sunny meadow

A day this splendid
deserves a big idea,
one you can pick up
by grasping anything
and following along the chain of life
until you have the whole of it

The dance, for example,
of leaves in the breeze —
its connection to sun-impelled currents
(heat rising, cool air swooping in)
and to the limbs, supple with water,
bending to wind and light,
and the thought shimmer
that comes from watching

Or the certain conviction
that everything, everything,
is the thought of one Mind,
moved by the same desire,
born to love every tendril,
every flicker, of life, of light,
born to bring its gifts
in gratitude and brilliance
to the day.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 15, 2016

Light

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light through cottonwood

I see you through the light,
I see the light through you —
we map our courses thus,
our vision sometimes blocked
and sometimes opening

The light is all we know
and all that we can follow,
as darkness offers nothing,
no way to track a course,
no light to see by

And so we move from light to light
though we may hope for something overarching,
some tunneled, end-lit path,
some vast dawn —
it could be coming

It could be even here,
but we must navigate
through the thickets of our suppositions,
persistent in pursuit
of whatever light we see,
edging, thus, towards free
just like everyone.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 7, 2016

Inspiration

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lagoon dawn2

The water becomes wine
as induction into
what was dearly sought
and only known
through dim translucencies

What would it mean henceforth
to see the light without the medium
of lantern panes, without
the coloration and diffusion?

How would it feel for that elixir
to well up from within?
For that soft glow to which
we’ve dedicated all our earthly efforts
to be the very center of our being?
What would that change? Certainly
the things we do with thought, with time

Then let us drink that wine
and raise our hands and eyes,
let the shine
that now reveals itself as us
illumine and align
all our endeavors

Let us walk out
into the common square,
let us look
and recognize each other there.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 2, 2016

Dawn

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morning cedars

After the dawn extinguished
all the little glows, all the distant
points of light, all the length
of last night’s vigil

As the warmth flows through you,
softening the rigid edges,
as the climbing sun
releases grateful scents
from fronds and blossoms,
you may notice
that every stumbling footstep in the dark
was needed, every little light was real

And though the dawn would come no matter what,
the yearning that you called your life still helped —
it helped you recognize it,
helped you feel its gifts
and reap its prizes.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 21, 2016