Tag Archives: purpose

Something

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My sight clears, and I notice
that I’m peering at the emptiness again,
not sure when the things I took for objects
faded out

Seeking the refocus
that would find me something in this day,
for certainly, there’s something here –
even this inexplicit satisfaction
is good for something

No need to scrape down into
the memory of tears, and their offer
to bring this day down into
something I can feel –

There is feeling, too,
in this craving for deeper purpose,
and it can lead me
to where I find it.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 23, 2022

Service

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It may seem easy
(thanks to force of habit)
for me to see the opportunity
to serve some lofty goal
if only I were there instead of here

The service here
is far more humble,
and may seem almost pointless for its smallness
(voices say not even worth the effort)

And yet this frame,
the one my eyes see out from,
this moment, and the things that I might think,
this truth, from which my love arises,
is the only point of action that I have

I move, my thought moves,
and I bring this with me –
the way to see, to love, and to uplift,
the present place where I can bring forth blessing,
a constant portal to the infinite.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 20, 2022

What we are made of

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Joy is our carbon,
what we pull from air,
what we use to grow our essence,
what we use to make home
and sanctuary,
shelter and support
for all that we hold dear

We pull joy from the air
and give off that which blesses
other life, and, too, ourselves

Everything we’ve ever made
we’ve made from joy –
it is our gift, our legacy, our contribution.
Joy’s traces will forever show
where we have lived.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 28, 2022

The underpinnings of existence

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And when I look up from my pages
the evidence is everywhere  –

The psalm of geese
calling and curving
through the foggy frosty morning

The murmur of the fire –
its warming flames
an acclamation of release,
the gratitude to be delivered
into a lighter phase of being

A road into the brightening day,
fog lifting to reveal the opening  –
steps enough to know the way
to place my feet – feet flexing
in anticipation, journey awaiting.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 27, 2022

Walking it out

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We walk around the neighborhood,
looping back around the streets like scribbles,
talking out the tangles, winding free
another layer

There is much to do, many miles
to unwalk, reclaim, release  –
we will take it in stages,
come out again for another loop,
trace the path till everything comes clear.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 14, 2022

Story Arc

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(From the virtual biking philosophers’ notebook)

My feet step down each day on earth
but don’t define my story.
My story leaps in looping arcs,
bounces down the street
like children tethered to a parent’s hand,
their darting jumps forever anchored back,
encouraged by security

My story leaps for meaning
and will connect sometimes
to consequences that light it up,
closing all the circuits down the line,
illuminating bridges, tracks, and tunnels

Showing what was relevant
from all those steps throughout my time,
showing what was destiny,
or thus defining it,
the future giving meaning to the past,
the place I land creating my past path.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 17, 2021

Normal

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I said, we’re where we can imagine
living a normal life …

But what is normal, anyway,
and who decides that,
and who measures it?
Who advertises it,
who uses it to sell stuff,
and how does it relate
to what we’re building here?

The whole point being
to be forging
a different way of looking
at everything  –
purpose, comfort, how we do things –
the whole point being
the incremental learning
of how to live an honest life.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 12, 2021

Back to basics

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Well, I have to remind myself each morning,
have to go back to it again
however many times in the day
I feel myself slipping

Follow the cause lines back
through the tendrils of my longing
and the flitting lights of my desire,
under and over the fears and blocked places
back to where the light comes clear
and the desire flames without guttering,
and everything in my being
that needs to be nourished
finds its connection to what feeds it

I have to go back
so I can start from there,
so what I am can flow freely
all the way down to where I find myself,
all the way through to what fills my days
with the giving of my gift
and the holy song of praise.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 2,  2021

The song that I am

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I’m called now to notice
the kindness with which
the line of my life has been laid down,
the patience with me in the places
where I let fear and arrogance
cast me indelible
to colors and lines I was offered

How I’ve been given, each time,
another opportunity
to receive the opening
that will render me more alive, more true,
to my intended being. Look,
this isn’t a finite page, a finite play,
this isn’t a chance I could miss

This is the infinite,
this is its song of me,
these are the colors, the lines and the light,
this is the life that is steadily given me,
this is the song that I am.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 27,  2021

Tree Talking

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You talk to the trees.
They won’t preside
over your rush of memories  –
if they hear them, they don’t judge

Some of them have been here
a long time. If not as long on the earth
as you, still long enough
to keep on reaching up,
to have lost branches
but not the branching impulse,
not the surging
expression of their being,
not their place among the living
or in the land

They may have things to tell you
about roots, about service,
about the inevitability
of being true to the seed you grew from
and true to the seeds you bear.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 2,  2021