In small moments, we come around
to knowing who we are –
each time removing us
from grid-based definitions,
from categories and from grades
We know ourselves more fully
in the moments to which words
can only come after,
silent in prediction or prescription
but eloquent in poetic wonder,
tracing the illumination of contact,
chronicalling the joinery of Soul.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 10, 2022
Again I see I haven’t changed
(this observation, too, it seems,
I”ve had with equal puzzlement before)
Here I was thinking I’d come so far,
so many steps on the relentless road,
so many lessons,
so much left behind,
so many strengths newly accrued
But now I see that I was writing
about the same things years ago,
exclaiming over these same revelations
and views I was delighted to outgrow
I could be rueful,
or I could conclude
my wing tilt is designed for updrafts –
it’s in my nature
to feel like flying,
a habit I instinctively employ –
the sense of gain is not illusion really –
it’s just the uplift of my native joy.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 20, 2022
Still walking through the wilderness
exclaiming over still another tree,
marveling at still another vista,
sizing up another rugged climb
Thinking once again
of what there is to tell you,
noticing how nothing
and everything
is new –
could be the same report
I give you every time,
my open eyed surprise at what is true
But I can tell you this –
today, I felt a great calm,
like a still lake,
like deep reflection,
today I felt that everything
is in its perfect place,
and that this truth must surface
in our time.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 6, 2022
I guess there’s really no need
to be embarrassed by my former self,
to cringe at all my blindnesses,
to understand, as I didn’t at the time,
why people said no thank you,
why they slipped out of my life
Now I’ve conveniently forgotten
so many of them, lost touch
with almost all.
Not that they’d be eager
to hear me say
how I was thoughtless –
this was something they knew all along
But I should know –
all our lives
have machinations
that keep grinding us
through unexpected turns,
churning us through changes
we never would have asked for,
never would have thought that we could bear
When they spit us out, maybe we’re better,
reciprocal receptors better honed,
maybe we appear more as we felt ourselves inside,
more how we had hoped we would be seen.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 14, 2022
There’s what you intuit
and how you pursue it,
the stuff that would block you
and how you move through it
The choice day by day
to be free from enslavement,
the vigilant struggle,
once free, to remain so
You can’t have an enemy
without being one.
You can’t be a light
without sharing it.
You can’t understand
the goodness of creation
without knowing
how good you are yourself.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 10, 2022
When you find yourself alive
you still have to walk out
Once you’ve seen the overwhelming light
(not blinding, since it comes up
all around you, since it glows
through you and everything you see)
Once you’ve seen the light,
you still have to walk out
You have to go step by step
over the terrain of everything you’ve thought,
everything you’ve walked on
while not noticing its structure
You have to walk out learning
that every dogged step
can be reframed,
must be reformed,
must be transmuted by the light you glimpsed
first once, but then again
in every step that pulls light from the ground,
that grounds you in the solidness of being,
that makes real for you
the holy ground that bears you up
The light is there for you,
and still the journey’s yours –
you are alive and so
you have to walk out.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 20, 2022
I will know myself
down to the strong curl within,
I will not turn my head,
I will not make excuses
I will take ownership
of everything I am,
leave nothing to the whim of chance
or to the will of other forces.
I will be honest
ever as deeply as I know,
for only then
can I steer my course aright.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 17, 2021
I part the brambles, step within –
I seek a deeper honesty –
the portals that it opens
makes it worth the search,
for here a fuller life
is promised me
The small excuse, the better sounding story,
I turn these over, see what’s underneath –
a fear of being judged, perhaps,
or that my truest self
would not be fit to be more fully seen
Or that the short cuts I have taken,
ways I’ve failed to see another fairly,
were best for me to hide,
(and mostly from myself)
could be concealed, so I’d be let off easy
My honesty will help these flaws in thought to pass away,
and let the skill of my Creator
have the final say.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 5, 2021
Am I brave enough
to put my life under a loupe,
to see and understand
all the loops.of thought –
how they hide themselves
and how they manifest,
and what they do when bathed in sudden light?
And am I willing to be calm and kind enough
to uncover hidden hurts and misconceptions,
to follow down the consequences
and put to right whatever is awry?
One thing is sure –
the way is forward –
neither looking back
nor circling in stasis
will furnish me the needed satisfaction,
and when this work is called for,
and as it is, I’ll do it
in humbleness, and willingness,
and trust.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 4, 2021
Down there in the smallest place,
if I reach gently, if I probe with patience
and precision, I can find and untie
the smallest knot. Here is where change
begins, here is where the whole huge projection
said to cast its shadow on the whole world
can be released
Not till the knot within is loosed
can the big lie, too, be seen
as having no power to tie us up
in knots. Once the small knot is released,
everything begins to tumble free.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 11, 2021i