Tag Archives: philosophy

Wishing

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The power of a simple wish
If left in peace to germinate
Will gather secret energies
Push through the surface
And create
As perfect as a tender leaf emerging
The image that impelled the wish’s urging
You wished for home —
That place we all desire —
Not that we travel all those miles and hours
But that right here, with no need to acquire
You feel home’s deep rejuvenating power
And so it was, a few turns down the road
A sign we followed, mostly just to see
Where every token that, for you, said home
Was waiting there in breathless harmony
And not that place alone, but others since:
Each time we let the wish unfold in peace,
It shows its graceful power to evince
surprising bounty
in the meeting of our needs
Such gifts await us!
Such satisfaction we may know
By cherishing the wish
Then letting go.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 30, 2012

(background music:  Isaac Shepard, “Let Me Sleep”)



A Wee Bit O’ Green

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Almost spring
Almost Irish
Altogether blessed
By seeing for a moment
that all inclusive motion
River of the whole bright universe
Carrying us all 
in its ecstatic fall of joy
Everything suspended in its current

Flowing with it, we don’t sense its speed
Or how its ever-presence meets our need
Yet if our ears once notice its resounding rush
Or if our skin once feels its equipollent push
How can we help but feel transported, lifted
And in the miracle of life, supremely gifted

Almost spring
Almost Irish
In the rare, transcendent view
that senses nature’s ancient blessings
ever new.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 17, 2012


City of Illusion

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I realize it’s been a while
that I’ve been walking through a mist
thick with projected images
nothing I can touch
I walk right through them
What I reach to grasp
stays where it is, my hand closes
on empty space, my own fingers—
nothing more.  And yet my feet
find purchase, there is gravity
I can close my eyes and move my feet
and tell by touch and weight
what’s here that’s real
And I can sink into the solidness
of that which satisfies
and by persistent practice
retrain my eyes
and find a way to make my vision clear —
to focus on the things that really are.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 15, 2012


Waking up is hard to do

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Waking up is hard to do
Not only in the so-called morning
in the shuffle of avoiding
the pre-dawn alarm

Breaking an illusion takes
intensity of focus
and a steady concentration
and a willingness to shift
and notice:

What I thought was solid ground
is not
And where I thought I stood
I really wasn’t
And all that I was sure was real
All that I’d strung my hopes across
has never been what held me up at all

What I am, and what I’m standing on
is something else.  It has a different gravity
It follows different laws.
The brightness of awakeness overcomes the force
of every predetermined lockstep course
and every limitation we surmise
that drains the light and laughter from our eyes

Standing up for light
may be a struggle
Waking up is hard to do
but worth the trouble.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 14, 2012


The family of plants

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I’m not so far
From the family of plants 
I know about roots and shoots—
The steady subterranean seeking for sustenance
Something to hold onto
Something to stretch into
Branching out pathways of deft exploration
Anchoring me in my knowing . . .

Intrepid shoots pushing out against gravity
Greening out leafily into the light
Finding my being by how I am growing
Moving in dazed phototropic delight
Life has its signature
Written in each of us
Everything living can read it
Everything living has tendrils that reach us
Everything living is needed.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 12, 2012



Fifty years

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A half century
isn’t even half a dream cycle
for a rock
which may sit impassive
or be carried
or be dropped
where, if it’s reencountered
it will be the same

But in a half century
a forest can swallow a town
that has been abandoned
Push up trunks through old foundations
Cover up the markers with its leaf fall

Fifty seasons, fifty rounds of rain and wind
tracked across the land
Recorded in the memory
of tree rings, river beds
and consciousness
Fifty years, each singular
And at once the same

And if we rise
and travel through
a cycle of awareness
coming back to where we see the whole
Then fifty years is ending and beginning
A season in the journey of the soul.

© Wendy Mulhern
March 2, 2012


Weight and Lightness

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Nothing in this world —
Nothing —
Not houses, not credentials
Not webs of friendship —
Has any strength to hold
the steady falling of the heart

They break like spider silk
against its weight
And it will fall right through
until it feels
the centered force of its own gravity
Until it slows
in thoughtful drift
and feels the atmosphere that gathers
meditatively
around its presence

Everything in this world —
Everything —
Each sense of home, each memory
Each smile exchanged —
Has grace to hold
the precious light that shines upon it

Grace to catch that light
and shine it forth
and be illuminated
Light that has no weight
That sits so brightly
on each snow crystal, each
hair of thistle down, each poised hope
that meekly lifts itself
into its own being.

© Wendy Mulhern
February 27, 2012

(background music: Isaac Shepard, “People and Puddles”)

Sinning and Rebuttal

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As I was reading over the poem I wrote today, I thought, huh, I don’t really believe that.  So I wrote a rebuttal.  In the end, I think there’s room for both perspectives:

I. Sinning

If I shoot many arrows
I will miss the mark
far more often
than if I shoot none
So much to learn:
How to align my stance
The arm that holds the bow
The one that draws the arrow back,
My eye . . .
Some of my arrows may not even fly
And some will fall so wide
you couldn’t even tell
which target I had tried
The ones that land in the intended haystack
will be my early victories
and I may hit the target by and by

They say the verb “to sin”
derives from archery
and means “to miss the mark”
Well, let me sin, then
and often
and wildly
Let me fall colossally
if that is what it takes
to live a life that zings
that’s vibrant through and through
If that is what it ultimately takes
to be true.

II. Rebuttal

The sinning poem assumes
That we are separate from grace
And must attain it incrementally
By many times of falling on our face
This is a thing we’ve been so deeply taught
It’s hard to separate it from our thought
Hard to imagine lambency, perfection
Or certainty, or peace, or clear direction
And yet, if once we’ve felt the light arise
That lifts our heart from sorrow into joy
Delivers praise and wonder to our eyes
And liquid harmony into our day
We can believe that even without work
We can stride forth at once and hit the mark.

© Wendy Mulhern
February 25, 2012





You have to be grounded to fly

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You have to be grounded to fly
As kites well show—
Resistance from their strings
giving the wind the force
to push them high
Which if released would let them fall
slicing tip-wise 
through the layers of air

You have to be grounded to fly
As birds well know—
as they push off against the gravity
that holds the air that cushions them
Through which they carve their flight
with sharply honed intention
and the slipstream of their glide

You have to be grounded to fly
As planets go
through space, 
their molten centers coalescing force
The silent concentration of their cores
connecting them in orbit to their stars

And so it is with us
Within our deeply grounded center
is born the power that sends us forth
on arcs of soaring splendor.


©Wendy Mulhern
February 19, 2012



Convergence

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As words come to me,
my receptivity
rises up to meet them

As my seeking for a way to bless
ranges out across my consciousness
Your arms extend a place for it to rest

Such bliss! To meet in the convergence
My need to give, your willingness
now, to receive
In this, your hunger blesses me
and meets my need

The figure loops, we spin around again
This time you give, and I receive
But then
Perhaps as current flows
dynamic, into one
Our pulse, too, unifies
and every boundary
becomes undone.


©Wendy Mulhern
February 17, 2012