Tag Archives: peace

Settling Down

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peeking-sunset

My mind settles down.
The things I had been thinking through,
though interesting, have ceased to chatter.
I find I have no need to draw conclusions

From where I am, I watch, I choose —
I tell myself when ways of feeling
may not be the best use of my being.
I don’t need to feel sad
and I don’t need to feel worried

It’s much better to hear the hum of evening
and the calm continuance
of all the breathing,
and to know that I, too,
fulfill what’s needed,
in thought and presence,
in time and place.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 3, 2016

A Summons

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white blossoms and clouds

Oh, peace,
send your flourish
down all my fractal curls,
let me hum
with the vibrancy of unfurling,
each part in its most deeply welcomed
way, each a marvel,
the “aha” of this moment,
in the soothing ease
of belonging, exactly,
in this here, in this tapestry
where every color
nestles in around us
to uphold, define, and complement
our shape, our hue, our time.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 6, 2016

Foundation

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gray sound

Let me pause long enough
to find gravity,
internal cohesion,
the natural pull
to sink me
all the way down
to the silence

Though there be frenetic raging
on the surface,
though turbulent currents
attend my descent,
it will get quieter
as I go deeper

And I will find the settled peace
that undergirds everything,
I will sit still
and feel its radiance
rising in rays
until it lights and calms the whole.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 24, 2015

Look

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night sky

I was surprised once again
to see the kindness in the night sky
where the dark of clearness
interlapped the lighter dark
of clouds

It seemed to hallow the earth
in its breath.
It still surprises me
that all I need to do is look —
no projections, no expectations required.
All I need to do is look —
the love is there.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 11, 2015

Harmony

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harmony

One day they discovered
there was much more to sound
than the tinny pings they evoked
by hitting themselves and each other

They found they could stand open
and the grand wind would come in,
would focus their tones
like fine bells,
would ring them crystalline and haunting
in a reverberation
that caught them up in holy awe,
and they all stood still
and listened.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 19, 2015

photo by Edward Mulhern

Winds of Peace

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November maple

No, I will not dip one toe
into the roil of fear —
I know how it could take me,
throw me off balance,
spin me under, with its fiercening demands
and not deliver me
(the way that it had promised)
to the other side —
It can’t be forded
and I can’t afford it

I will ride instead
along the winds of peace,
the billowing uplift
that holds my soul
in tender balance,
that fills my heart,
gradual as the dawn,
with the clear perception
that all is well.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 3, 2015

Peace, Be Still

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Peace, be still

Don’t worry,
Your fears can’t trap you
in a maelstrom

The thoughts you wish would leave you,
would cease to haunt you,
cease to pace in anguished loops
along the echo chambers
of your mind —
they can’t hurt you

They can’t stop the light of Truth
from streaming in,
so clear, so gentle —
can’t stop its compassion
from finding you there,
just where you are,
from scooping you up in tender arms
and carrying you out, delivered —

The storms of thought
are nothing
before Love’s vast, commanding calm.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 25, 2015

Achieving Peace

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sunset with fir

It comes down to a few things
that can’t be claimed by sects
or ideologies

Comes down to things
that can’t be argued over,
for their truth is not in words,
but felt in bones, and breath
and flesh, held in hearts
and known, thus, to be sound

Comes down to kindness,
comes down to kinship —
being kind, being of a kind —
It amounts to the same thing,
as long as it’s seen to be
without limits, without exclusion,
binding us into one basket,
one vessel, one Soul.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 24, 2015

Be Still

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be still

Here’s what you need to know:
You can stop fretting,
stop playing back the pain,
stop trying to corral it in a story,
assign it causes, seek solutions for it

There is a refuge from
the tug of sadness
that circles and strains
behind your eyes
and tenses like a sea urchin
in your throat

There is another place within,
and the liquid weight of you
always pulls toward it,
the gleaming quicksilver of you
slips through your structures
but is not lost

Be still — this essence of you
delivers you shining
to yourself.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 27, 2015

Cozy

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Within the warm enclosing orb,
a concentrated calm,
a softly emanating glow,
a home, a welcome balm

Come in, come inward —
Here is the essence of cozy —
This house, this room,
these people,

This place inside yourself
where you are content,
where your inner lamp
warms your corners
and draws your world
into your embrace.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 8, 2014