Tag Archives: purpose

So many people

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hidden light

So many people go through life
without ever having written a symphony,
without ever doing a cartwheel,
without ever knowing what it feels like
to be free

So many people (or so it’s said)
have never known true love,
have never felt the exaltation
of the egoless willingness
to be a blessing
and having that fulfilled

People go through life
buying expectations for themselves
from the shelves of sanctioned social options,
wearing them, though they don’t fit,
eating them, though they don’t nourish,
hardly noticing the pressure of the light within
as it attempts to free itself and shine

But by and by
the light will win,
spill out of some chink,
overwhelm them
as it bursts forth
revealing all the vastness of their being
where they don’t go through life —
they really live.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 14, 2014

Not Quite Home

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pussywillow1

I’ve come to where I thought was home,
five hours along the interstate, one afternoon —
Electric lights, and lights of our belonging
circle, not quite settled, in my mind

It feels like parts of us
that should be home
are not yet here —

Points of future that our thoughts took flight on,
Points of intention waiting to be filled,
Points of departure for our next adventure
not finding stillness in this quiet house

We need a bigger circle,
one that holds these all,
to lasso all these points of thought
and bring them home,
to focus them in unity
and make them strong
enough to hold the weight
of our endeavor.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 15, 2015

A Place

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suntouched trees2

There is a place for you,
an ever present opening
in the dynamic slipstream
of the now

There is a way for you to enter
and be fully integrated
in the endless flow
of life supporting life

There is a welcoming
whose chords touch every harp string
of your being, sending the chiming
of your life song
rolling out and out along the hills

There is a need for you,
and where you are
the need is met.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 22, 2015

When You Know Who You Are

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Edward in Marcola2

You get refocused on the inside —
All the vectors realigned,
the causes reconceived,
a subtle but essential shifting
where all your elements
fit better, settle

And in the new-felt points of contact
a surprise thrill —
Enough to power
all the things you suddenly
can see you’re here to do,
enough to light your flare
so others see you
and you see them, too.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 11, 2015

Life Work

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wetland rose hips

I start to see
my life is more
than finding ways to feel fulfilled,
more than arranging energies,
emotions, thoughts, and movement,
metabolism, focus for my days,
more than finding ways to feel OK

I was made to bear fruit.
My life feels good when,
in essential interaction,
I engage cooperation
with the life around me
and we all thrive

My life is working
when Life’s work
is manifest in me —
The works define
what I’m meant to be.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 8, 2015

Consent

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consent

So gently wooed we are
by quiet songs that thrum
against our bones,
through urgings, ocean deep,
that, irresistible, sweep us
into the slowly rising current

We can pretend we haven’t heard,
pretend we aren’t moving,
pretend we don’t notice
how our yearning now
has gained a little courage,
how it senses itself part of something grand
which never is delayed
and cannot be ignored

We are wooed gently
so we won’t resist
until it’s too late —
Too late because we’ve thrown our whole consent —
our hearts, our hopes, our will —
into the thronging force
that bears us on.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 22, 2015

A Great Calm

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calm

This is a great calm.
This is the calm of beginnings,
of the virgin field

This is the calm of a warm core,
liquid and unformed,
brewing place for strong motion

This is the calm
of a darkness so great
there’s no room for anything but trust

Trust in the warm core
and what forms there,
Trust in the autopoiesis of everything
Trust in the harmony to which
we all are drawn
when we leave our schemes behind
and enter the great calm.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 17, 2015

Clarity

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our land

I need these moments
where the perfunctory subsides,
where its detritus —
the weariness, the dread —
ceases to be tossed
against my eyes
And the clear burn
of fervent purpose
lights my steps
and takes me deep
where the life cords course
in swift, braiding channels
surging me sure-footed and alert
through my day.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 8, 2015

By Design

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leaves falling

We don’t make the sun rise
but it does
We don’t engineer
the seasons’ changing,
And even our internal tides —
our breath and circulation —
don’t depend on our arranging
(Pay attention, oh me of little faith!)

In the splendor of the rolling days,
the mist, the clouds’ drift,
the uplift of leaves driven by wind,
In the gentle hand of sun-warmth
on the dampened land
there should be evidence enough

This life of mine,
more vast than I can comprehend,
is held in order
by a force beyond my own
and all the flights I dream and yearn for
are established
not by my efforts
but by my essence,
not by me
but by the Love that holds us all.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 12, 2014

The mess we’re in

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the mess we're in

The heavy school bus groans
and blinks
and rolls
So it begins
(or it continues, for no doubt
it starts at home)
The inculcation of the mess we’re in
The press of lessons telling us again, again
We can’t expect to do the things we want

We’re told we don’t deserve to
and shouldn’t even ask,
We’re told its childish
and it’s selfish
and such hopes are sure to crash
against the real world
and what other people want

So we are severed from ourselves
till we no longer know
our deepest yearnings
and how they tie us
to the order of all things

Then later on we take a quest
to find out what we want,
And when we know it
we are told
we have to find a way
to compromise
to monetize
to pull out some small piece of it
that we can sell
and hope it satisfies

We’ll be so rich
when finally we come to understand
the things we want are keys —
They are the plan
for how we give our gifts,
how we receive
and how we interlock in harmony —
How we all long to serve the whole,
How doing what we want achieves this goal.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 16, 2014