Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve

Look how perfectly
(though inadvertently)
the scene has now been set:
The gaudy lights and cynically
commercialized tunes
finally driving all light
out of the celebration,
with Christ’s name now so fast affixed
to vengeful, hateful opposites
and the supported pastimes of the season
so bereft of any sense of hope

We have achieved the ultimate:
a night dark enough
for it to really matter
that truth still breaks clear,
that the inevitable dawn
of that which always draws us close,
tenderly washes us as we approach,
till we’re delivered pure
to where we’ve always been
but didn’t know,
where we are dearly loved
by our eternal Source.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 24, 2014

Fountain

fountain

Each day I live
is as dependent
on my activity
as is a fountain’s form,
whose dancing plumes
are only seen
so long as it keeps flowing

No grand success of yesterday
saves me from today,
no revelation
releases me from this day’s need
for my salvation

I fail, I fail each day
until I seek my source
which, rising up through me
along its natural course
achieves with ease
what I could not, by will or force,
comprising me for now and ever more.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 25, 2014

The First Commandment

dawn

You are not held hostage
to the god of blight,
the god of dread and loneliness,
the one who says you are unworthy

When you are set free
There’s one imperative:
Don’t bow down to any law but good

Your goodness
and the blessedness of everything
is the one thing to hold to —
That will make you feel
cozy in the darkness
and golden in the light,
impervious to all incursions
on your inner fire,
inspired by the steadiness
of Life’s care.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 24, 2014

Anatomy of Desire

Nov 21 sunset

I want to be astonished,
want to feel
something I couldn’t have expected,
want that awakening
into the sense that I’m
not in control, as I thought,
that some force much larger than me
is shown to have held the reins all along
so that all my assessments dissolve

Not that I crave helplessness
or even being overpowered
for its own sake,
Just that I want to be in awe

For awe impels my growth
into something I only faintly sense,
deeper and older than hope,
some destiny
worthy of my whole soul.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 23, 2014

When We Went Through

door

We left our masks at the door —
Masks of norms, masks of respectability,
Each mask stamped from one of several molds
So each of us seemed one of many

We left our cloaks at the door —
Cloaks that hid
our light-charged ascent,
our streaming brilliance,
our quick-electric connecting essence

And we abandoned all our static stories —
Histories that marked our limits,
all the tags, the terms, the titles
all that would excuse, explain
why we were so hemmed in

And all the habits,
all the ways we framed ourselves
(and had been framed)
all the things we named ourselves
(or how we’d been misnamed)
everything we had condemned,
self-condemnation, too —
We left all that behind
when we went through.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 18, 2014

Holding Out

branch shadows on rock

Let me not be fooled
by false happiness,
the narrow sense of sort-of comfort,
the condition-based, conditioned state
wherein, I’m told, I should be satisfied
considering how horrid things could be

Let me not be duped to think
I could be happy
while others suffered,
or could, somehow, deserve
a better life than others

Let me hold out for truth,
wherein the whole huge scam
of merit, fate, sin, reward and punishment
is annulled,
and we all shine forth
in primal innocence,
in native joy.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 15, 2014

Releasing

afternoon brilliance

When I release myself and you
from all opinions about each other,
all conclusions
that cast us static
as if we could exist
in some inert condition,
some set of predilections
that could be measured
independent of
our hearts’ and minds’ engagement

When I release us
I can tell
This is the sparking we were made for,
This is the ever-new, dynamic
unpredetermined
soul-rush flight we can do
when we are not judged,
when we are free.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 31, 2014

Mortality

Richmond beach, grey blue

Well, dying, after all, is no big deal —
People do it all the time
It is the logical conclusion
of the primal lie
that says you can’t have
that which you most want,
that says you have to suffer,
that says you have to settle,
that says you really don’t deserve
to be the essence of yourself,
which, when realized,
brings unremitting joy

It is the lie that holds us in captivity,
Captivity which always
assigns another tyrant.
keeps us struggling in servitude,
as long as we believe it,
with bouts of high stakes cat and mouse
played with despair

The slow or sudden pain of this
brings us towards death
(No living thing endures without its freedom)
We will choose to go there too
until the moment we become convinced
the lie has never owned us
And our own truth bears us witness
that life has boundless rounds of joy to give,
That it’s our true calling
to be our wild selves fully
and then we know
we shall not die, but live.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 20, 2014

Everything

Wood's Hole sunset

If this is really true
it changes everything

If we can always
in every place
meet our need to love,
find the way to harmonize
with anyone or anything that’s present

If today’s amazing flight
was not a miracle
but just the steady working
of a law that’s always been here,
an embrace around our shoulders
gentle as a swing push,
soaring as the moment of release,

Which synchronizes now
with my experience
because I know it’s true,
It changes everything.

What then, can I say about tomorrow?
— Watch and see.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 28, 2014

Overcoming

sequoias

“none might buy or sell, save they that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name”

In this time of
the mark of the beast
we find hope
in the brightening
of simultaneous paths
appearing under our feet
and guiding us in ways
where none of us is marred
by trademarks, brands,
where we can see each other
not as types, but whole,
unique in what propels us
and the arcs of our circles,
unpredicted and surprising
in each moment
of the steady sweet exchange
that fills our souls.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 23, 2014