Tag Archives: spirituality

What is Love?

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maple opening

Love is the elemental
impulse of everything,
the kernel of desire
that seeds all life
and brings it forth,
the essence of
the negentropic drive
propelling the development
of all life forms
and the grand dance
of all of them together

Love is all-encompassing permission
for things to be
what they are,
constantly, just where they are
in every now.
Love is the joy
that celebrates each being,
the profound attention
to all the fractal unfoldings
of each entity, the delight
in the harmony of all

Love is the listening,
Love is the witnessing,
Love is the blessing

Love is cause,
Love is motive,
Love is why.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 14, 2015

The Valley of Shadows

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shadows

In the shaft of rescuing light, I see
I was not wrong,
need bear no shame,
for letting myself fall into shadow

I’m not expected to prevent
the cold dark spires
from passing over me,
the deepened gloom
from seeping in

It’s been foretold that this would happen
not once but regularly,
for which I am given instruction:
Walk through.

Walk through without fear:
Neither the shadow
nor the saving light
are your creation

But my feet are mine
and the light within
(though it seem tiny in its distance)
will ever seek its own
and pull me through.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 8, 2015

Dawn Chorus

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twin ponds through grass

Maybe there’s no need
to talk much
about the new awakening
Maybe it’s plenty good
to just listen
to the yawning and stretching
and the stunned silences
and the quiet gasps
and involuntary cries
Maybe we don’t need
to tell each other to awake,
for perhaps we all
are the dawn chorus.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 1, 2015

photo by Edward Mulhern

“Sink like a stone, Float like a feather”

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sink like stone

When you’re caught in the web
and nothing makes sense
and all your moves to free yourself
just render you more tangled
You can always go within,
sink like a stone
in the gravity
of all you care about —
fall densely and deeply
into the knowing
of your essence,
the rock from whence you were hewn

When the weight of the world
holds you pinned and immobile,
inertia bearing down upon
your every motivation,
You can always reach out
and float like a feather
in the infinite affection
that holds you so tender,
your every breath
responded to
in the sweet song of being,
crooned now so softly
for you.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 30, 2015

Life Force

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clear water

I think of sinking
to the silent place of upwelling
where the life force springs forth
inside of me

I see the soft, brown depression,
a sign of water past
but nothing there

I pause before attempting
to dig deeper —
It is not in me:

The life force comes from everywhere,
quicker than instant —
It fills me full

Clear, clear water
cold and warbling
refreshing as
presence discovered to be infinite,

Flowing me,
showing itself to be me —
liquid elation,
treble peace.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 25, 2015

Held

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paramount reflection

Let me remember
what holds me,
close as my skin,
close as my breath —
what bears me up,
what launches me
on every leap, each earth-blessed step

Let me lean in
and feel its strength sustaining me,
Let me feel its soft, abiding rest —
I cannot fall from here,
I can’t be helpless —
It guides me through my pathways unsuppressed

Let me not be fooled
by the illusion
that I walk unsupported
through indifferent air,
Let me be free from memories of pain,
let me be free from fear

That law that holds me now
has always been here,
close as my thought,
close as my name,
And it will always be
the arms embracing me,
Its comfort sure, its soulfulness the same.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 23, 2015

My Sheep Hear My Voice

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maple buds

That precious part within,
Held in a small, dark place
encompassing the infinite,
The birthing place of
all we may attain
Will hear, unerringly,
when it is called by name

It will rise up, surprised
to find itself, eager
to live what it is called to,
endlessly relieved,
intensely grateful
to have been called —

To thus be sure
of its existence
and that the promises
given it before the world was born
will be fulfilled.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 8, 2015

Getting Out of the Way

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Why would I even want
any of this
to be about me?

Why would I promote
a limited identity,
weak and needy,
piteously bargaining
for some (no doubt unearned)
acceptance, recognition?

Who would not prefer
to be in service
to the bright upwelling
of delight, affection,
the overflow of wonder
and the clear intelligence
uplifting both of us
when seen in you, in me?

Why would I not give up
that which holds me chained and cramped
for this divine permission to be free?
Hence this work each day
to set my self aside
for that which glows
as you, as me.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 6, 2015

Old Things Are Passed Away

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splayed

We leave our notions
of ourselves, our lives,
splayed and empty
like abandoned puppets
(How is it possible
we thought they were alive?)

We start inhabiting
(with this expansive breathing
and each breath’s surprise)
the place in the dynamic
cause and effect,
impulse and follow-through
where all we fiercely hoped we’d be
is, indeed, ourselves

And the command we wield
of our existence
brings dazzling forms,
eternal, iridescent,
into view.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 4, 2015

The Work at Hand

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Madronas at work

What’s required here
is to not be distracted —
The same old hand waves,
of course, will be employed,
and the frantic flashings
of threatened loss
if things should go a certain way.
You’re right to be on edge, we’re told —
The stakes are high

But none of this is true.

The only thing required
is to maintain the steady focus
of what puts us here, of what
maintains our being

The only thing required
is to be quite sure
of our inheritance —
the substance that outweighs the world.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 24, 2015