There’s no pressure on you,
just the skin-light touch of Life
as it invites you to dance,
the lean and press and pull and spin,
the upward push of air under your wings
No pressure
just the clasp of Love’s embrace,
supernally content with who you are right now
There is no need for pressure —
you leap forward
on the lift of your imperative,
on the joy of opportunity,
on the sweet soaring ride
of being you.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 2, 2017
We first relax
and then begin
to take our tentacles out
of your father’s life
We called them love
but they were something else.
We felt our love required them
but (on further thought)
our meddling does not improve his life
We take out the tentacles
so he can die if he wants,
and if what he wants to do
is ride the currents
of his own volition
wherever they may take him, well
This is what we also had to do
to free our children. So now
you’re treating him like an adult,
my daughter said. Letting him decide
what he wants to do
Oh yes. To learn again:
Love is not exerting
what we think is best for them —
love holds on
while also letting go.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 12, 2017
Isn’t it obvious
that all this time
we couldn’t have been
holding ourselves up?
(As scientists posit “dark matter”
because there isn’t enough substance
in the known universe
to pull itself together)
(As it is clear
that if we needed to rely
on our paltry interactions
to create love,
we could never do it)
When the mighty rush
of Love, its sheer infinity,
bears us up, carries us along,
powers our swoops,
becomes our song,
then we know what holds us,
what held us all along.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 5, 2017
When understanding dawns,
no pool of sorrow,
however hedged about with care,
however poignant,
gets to remain
Truth evaporates it
with the constancy of tender love
Love floods it
with ever present joy
Joy heals it
by being exactly what was needed –
all the tears are wiped away.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 2, 2017
What I want to tell you
is how it felt to notice
in the space between the objects,
in the places of my thought,
the wide open lightness
of feeling no fear at all,
of knowing surely
I never was rejected,
I never was forgotten,
I never was alone
What I want to hold to
is the way I understood:
the stuff that seems so serious —
life and death, shame or acceptance —
has never been a thing
because there never was a contest.
Our belovedness
was established before time
in the place that never changes,
in the place that is assured
Our creator
was never impressed
by the threats of death or hell,
knowing that she wouldn’t choose them
and that she’s in charge
of us all.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 28, 2017
Today I have proof
that nothing is lost,
though the hounds of regret
may howl and whine,
though sorrow sinks like cold air
into the place where hope has been uprooted
The great Love that fills all space
will finally be felt embracing everything,
and every loss will prove to be
a place that fills with joy
and all misunderstandings
will be redeemed
Even the most unconscionable blindnesses
will be revealed — eyes will be opened,
remorse flowing like tides
till all is equalled
and everyone will get to go home
Nothing is lost —
not chances, not years,
All will have their moment
to be the gift of love.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 10, 2017
If love is everywhere
then all the little
tubes and channels
we’ve devised
may be irrelevant —
we may not need
to jostle and twist
in efforts to achieve a perfect match,
may not need to write off thousands
who prove to have a different kind of thread
If love is everywhere,
we may be able
to bypass the conditions of engagement,
to deliver the sweet liquid of acceptance,
receive the luscious fruit we deeply crave.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 30, 2017
I’m learning the language of light.
Like all languages, it takes practice,
it takes immersion,
and there’s a great sense of victory
when I dream in it
I’m learning the language of light,
just a few words at a time —
the names, for example,
that people have for themselves,
a name, perhaps, that they
forbid themselves to use
but wait in deep longing
for someone else to speak it to them
The verbs, also,
like soar and lilt
and rise, and meet,
and own your truest name
I’m learning the language of light
from countless tutors, large and small,
the flash of a moment, the steady care of years.
Though my words are halting
I say them anyway,
for that’s the only way to really learn.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 13, 2017
Pardon me if I’m not fired up
by words of contempt,
however justified its dealers
may feel it is
Makes me want to walk barefoot
in water-sheened sand
and feel my footsteps melt,
and let the words that come to me
in my perplexed objection
be smoothed out as well
There’s no room for love in contempt
and there’s no room for contempt in love
and in the revolution
we’ll need traction,
not the gear grinding slippage
of mutual accusation
But there’s no traction either
for these words of mine —
makes me want to give them up,
and myself as well,
to the leadings of a higher Mind.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 19, 2017
We come to this place
where we have agreed
that love is presence —
that if you are here
then you are loved,
and in your love is an expansive blessing,
more than we had dared to hope for.
We understand
there will be healing —
not in the sense of change
but as in coming into wholeness,
recognizing what we’ve always been.
We come to this place as refuge
from other patterns
that we have used to think about each other.
We put those aside here,
we learn not to use them,
we forget about them entirely,
caught up, as we are —
totally transfixed —
in this way of being love.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 12, 2017