Tag Archives: purpose

The worth of a life

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What is the worth of a life?
Is there a metric for this?
Consider the sun on the water
The sparkling path
which always presents itself
right where you are:
Each sparkle is for you—
the meeting of light with your eyes—
Though others see sparkles too,
they aren’t the same ones that you view.

What is the worth of a life?
As if you could separate 
One life from all others—
From the sun’s sparkles, isolate one
Take it away from the sun . . .
What is the worth of a life?
There is no measure for this
No way the question can make any sense
It’s worth everything that there is.


©Wendy Mulhern
February 23, 2012

(background music: William Ackerman, “Anne’s Song”

Pool of Bethesda

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(John 5: 1-9)

No angel at a certain season
guards the gate to wholeness
You don’t have to wait
until the water stirs
nor can the others
clambering before you
deprive you of your right
to stand up free.

Truth needs no conduit, no channel
no narrow source to shine its light
It pours forth spherical, eternal
Its reign established, sovereign and bright

(It has been said
To know the truth shall make you free
If this is true
It means that free is what you are
and isn’t something needing to be given
nor something you’re approaching from afar)

It is the same with love
(Please let my life be one that shows it)
No angel, bright or dark, can claim
it stands there to deliver or withhold it
No one can fail, right now
To be the miracle someone has ever sought
nor fail to see that they are loved
and so bestowed the peace that passes thought.


©Wendy Mulhern
January 21, 2012



Understanding

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Turn the tumblers, one and then another
For you to enter, all must be aligned
It opens to the easy spinning 
of your secret
Or to the deep discernment
of a listening mind.

Don’t settle for the superficial level
The one that opens up without a key
Where all may stroll 
but none may know the meaning
For to be true, the entrance must be deep

Beneath the layer of rationalization
Beneath the tallies of the service due
Beneath self-image and self-fabrication
A more fulfilling essence waits for you

Go deep, for underneath 
the thoughts that you can voice as words
You’ll feel the breath and pause
whose choice is to be heard
in silence, and in limpid images
that let you understand what really is.


©Wendy Mulhern
January 10, 2012


(music in background of recording: Isaac Shepard, “Dimming the Lights”)

Empowered

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To see you sovereign
is my delight:
to see you stand,
your power fully
at your own command.
You wield it, as you must,
from your abiding love
and so, implicitly, I trust
your truth.  And also your resolve.

And though the waves
of doubt and pain
may crash against your walls
I trust your strength
to persevere
till each aggressor falls.

And you will reach 
your valiant hand once more
To raise up anyone
who’s beaten down
and set them standing
upright on your shore
and walk with them
till they can walk alone.


©Wendy Mulhern
December 8, 2011


Freedom

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My sovereign soul
Now steps clear
of all restrictions
Everything that might constrain connection
Any sense of bowing
to dictators of repression
who claim to grant permission
and sanction all my actions —
They have no more traction,
    engender no reaction.
So I can be
the one who is needed now
I can see
the thing you are asking for
And I can give forth
from my own authority
that which you’re needing
that which belongs to me
     steadfast integrity
     homing insistently
     daily delivering
Soul-garnered freedom.


©Wendy Mulhern
December 6, 2011
 
 
 

Fight Mode

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I am called to fight
Roused to fierce defense
Shaking the bland shroud
that duped me for so long
    that said, you are free—see?
You’re free to choose
and you (collectively) have chosen
to step on the heads of others
while running this ugly treadmill
You have chosen
to buy what you want
for the low cost of your souls
and let the land be raped
just so you wouldn’t know.
No! I did not choose this
and no I do not want this
and no I will not let you take
my supple soul.
So I stand
Centered, wary
Charged by a line of power
Pulling an ancient strength
Down through the lines of life
Star-started DNA
Holding me steady
Source-aligned thunder
Clearly aimed, ready
I have been wakened to see through the sham
I will defend us with all that I am.


©Wendy Mulhern
December 4, 2011


The Power of Yes

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It’s not that I said no, I said
In fact, I said, not yes
Which means, let’s talk
Perhaps we can negotiate.

But now, the power of my yeses
Bold and saucy
Clear-eyed, ready
Blasts out all the second guesses

Yes I will say no
No not as a force so much
As just a simple absence
No room in me for that which isn’t yes
No time for wishy-washiness 

The yes of what I love
will blaze on through;
The present positive
defines what’s true.


©Wendy Mulhern
November 30, 2011



Free

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Here’s a possibility —
A space a box creates
by enclosing it
(corners like elbows 
pushing out to make room)
Here’s a possibility:
We could be free.

Free is something 
I have maybe never been
Though we are told we are
We’re also told there’s no free lunch
So there you go.
We are not free if we are bought
We are not free if we must buy our right to be
with work on tasks we wouldn’t choose
on projects that don’t serve us.

Here is a thought:
If I’m enslaved,
It’s my own mind that chains me
That tells me things must be this way
That I don’t have a choice
That I should never deign to think
that I deserve to choose my work,
To own my gift.

Here’s a possibility:
A whisper in a little box —
The box could grow until
it can contain us all
and we can learn
our freedom.


©Wendy Mulhern
November 29, 2011



From a Conversation: Three Points

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1.
I realized, he said
I didn’t need to teach her tennis
My job was just to help her
discover her own game.
And so it is, he said,
in all of our endeavors
Integrity within gives us the cue
The harmony of all we are
and our uniqueness through and through
will form the pattern we embody
Impel the grace of everything we do.

2.
Of all the efforts made to teach us —
Goals and rules, and models to compare —
Just one thing will ultimately reach us
Which is to know there’s somebody that cares.

3.
In action lies your mastery
In mastery, you have no need
To justify, defend or vaunt your actions
Your works will speak for you
Through them you will succeed.


©Wendy Mulhern
November 22, 2011



For Love, on her birthday

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It is not your path—
the moving corridor
where everyone steps on
and stands with baggage
and waits to be delivered
to the next destination

Your path darts in and out
through many worlds
The doors between them
things you notice:
Doors of willingness
where intention can form a room
Doors of silliness
where the dizzy twirl of the soul
may open something new
Doors of metaphor
where a seed may be itself a door
And this is you
With laughter or with trepidation
facing changes —
Going through, going through.


©Wendy Mulhern
November 18, 2011