Teach me what to give up
and what to hold on to –
these things get so tangled
in the day to day of interaction –
threads of care with threads of
false responsibility,
desire for healing
with efforts to instruct
and I just need
everything to come clear –
to throw it all away
and let You hold
the threads that count.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 5, 2022
The entire world
and how I know it,
and how it knows me,
may be something completely other
than what I suppose,
but the ability to finally
get the air under my wings
and hold myself aloft in dreams
brings a state of relaxation
with enough renewal in it
to bring enchantment
to my vision of the day.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 3, 2022
In the domain of crickets,
in the realm of bright secrets,
things you can know
for the price of precise attention,
is a truth within each of us,
found when your gaze goes between
the beliefs and conventions,
practices, preferences, habits,
and stated intentions,
falling instead on the flickering glow
of that substance of us
that wells up from below
in response to what touches us
deeper than anything,
moving our hearts to delight,
quickening us and our light.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 26, 2022
These old habits I drop one by one,
unravel them string by string,
approaching, thus, a clearer way of seeing
Why not be comprised, after all,
of the light, the spark, the truth
of my core animation?
Why not release the constructs
of needing to accumulate
a fat enough accrual of accomplishment?
I practice stripping my thought
of all but the joyful wonder
of being here, given the gift of sight,
I practice receiving,
honoring life,
finding myself in that which I perceive.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 3, 2022
The eye of tenderness
can see so small
that it can unsnarl
even your tightest tangles,
and it can resolve your complex dreads
into their elements – can separate
your love from the fear of loss,
your strong desire for good
from the belief that it is doomed,
can find your core of courage
and light it up strong,
can touch your anchored peace
so that you feel it.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 10, 2022
In the softness of this cloudy day,
in the quietness of certain moments,
I remind myself,
and it starts to come back to me,
how I have been shown,
how I have been given
a way of walking here
where joy comes up under my feet
and floats from everything i see
I don’t want to keep it to myself,
I seek the deepening
that lets me give it
to everyone I think of
and everyone I see
I work it now in little ways
and wait to see it open up,
not by my will
but by my willingness,
not by expertise
but by grace.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 2, 2021
The lessons of the land
seep in wordlessly
with no taint of instruction,
no directive to change
They seep into my hands, my gait,
my consciousness, they become
the way it has always been,
the way I’ve always seen
When I try to think of what has changed,
how I used to think, in contrast
to how I now perceive,
the whole thing goes out of focus
But I can find it again,
just like I found the cat
who rolled in the dirt and then
almost disappeared in the grass
I can find it again
by setting myself to receive,
to take in and hold in reverence
each life in its singular sphere.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 1, 2021
This is my prayer –
to see you,
to always see you
and not be fooled
by any of the demons
which claim to have moved in,
which use your voice to shout
and say things
you would never say
This is my prayer –
to see you
whole and innocent and droll,
affluent and generous,
bright shine of Soul.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 4, 2021i
There is so much for me
when I remember to see you
unbound from any demographic,
when I turn off that which catalogs
and compares,
and recognize, instead,
the spirit in you – your energy,
your brightness, your appreciation,
and the tender place between your shoulders
where your uniqueness rests like wings.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 22, 2021
The rising of this vision
is like flocks of birds coming home,
finding their familiar perches,
claiming their habitat
It’s like toes and fingers waking up
after a deep dream,
finding their stretch,
feeling alive to the morning’s call
It’s like singing a line and finding
others singing harmony,
the rich vibration of the blended chord
an uplifting surprise,
something that can carry you
farther than you knew you were going.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 2, 2021