No, I will not dip one toe
into the roil of fear —
I know how it could take me,
throw me off balance,
spin me under, with its fiercening demands
and not deliver me
(the way that it had promised)
to the other side —
It can’t be forded
and I can’t afford it
I will ride instead
along the winds of peace,
the billowing uplift
that holds my soul
in tender balance,
that fills my heart,
gradual as the dawn,
with the clear perception
that all is well.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 3, 2015
Wind gently bobs the seed heads
in the sheen of golden afternoon,
breathing through each strand
the gentle separation —
what has always been
from what has seemed to be
Everything has always grown in this love —
nothing has been condemned,
nothing has been sullied,
The sweet purposes come to fruition
and are gathered safely,
ready to bless through the winter,
ready to bloom in the spring.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 4, 2015
I’m really good at
holding your hand
and keeping up —
skip-step in perfect trust
I like it, too, when you swoop me
high through the air,
our laughter mingling
under the bright sky,
I’m good at
filling up with joy
There have been names
given to me, and to my family,
names establishing our strengths
and our shortcomings,
generations of stories,
many never told, about them
But today I don’t want any name but yours,
don’t want histories, don’t want prognostications —
Today I’ll hold your hand and take your name:
I Am.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 29, 2015
they shall drive thee from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field, and they shall make thee to eat grass as oxen, and they shall wet thee with the dew of heaven, and seven times shall pass over thee, till thou know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will.
Daniel 4:25
I’ll take whatever baptism I can get —
Let me be wet with the dew of heaven,
till I know:
1)
Not my scheming mind,
not my fretting, fearful mind,
not my story seeking,
straw-grasping,
hoping and despairing mind,
but the Mind of stars and seasons,
of microscopic earth connections,
of fragrant sweeping tides and cedar boughs
guides the action of my life
2)
Not my self-concerned, capricious tastes,
not my opinions,
not my brittle sense of what I am
determines me,
but the Soul that sings through every morning
and sustains the song all through the afternoon,
goldening the evening,
coloring the mystical transition into night,
chiming through the stars,
tuning the subtle shifting
in every blessed hour until the dawn
3)
Not my cyclic bursts of will,
my spurts of motivation
(between the slumps of lethargy)
not my halfway efforts
to accomplish something,
but Spirit’s steady, constant inspiration,
that brings life’s fruits to fullness,
each in their perfect time —
this crafts my being
4)
It’s not my sense of life,
its little arc, and my attempts
to fill it with the things I think I want,
but Life’s design that brings me forth —
so joy-filled, so abundant,
spilling forth delight,
limitless and free
5)
Not the set of things I’ve thought I loved,
nor the (also small) set
of what I’ve thought loves me,
but the unrepressed infinitude
of Love comprising everything,
fills me up with its desire to be
6)
Not my former judgments of what’s true,
based on what I thought I understood,
but this great Truth is what I must acknowledge —
which makes a place for every being,
each one with its center, each a centered love
7)
Not my sense of law — of what is right
or what I might decree,
but that full Principle,
which holds the world
in ever-moving harmony,
is the law that governs me
Seven times, and then
my reason will be sound
for I will know
The Most High, the All Good,
makes me what I am.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 21, 2015
A bird in a picture
can no more fall
out of the painted sky
than you can fall
from the grace that attends your being
No matter how high that bird might be
and how young — a fledgling, really —
no matter how hard the painted trees
may show the wind to blow,
that bird will stay aloft,
so have no fear,
for so shall you
I try to explain these things —
I know my own fear
in former times
was hard to overcome —
It was hard for me, as well,
not to think of these words
as some incantation
to keep the bird from falling
Believe me — I know
that words aren’t enough,
that you, too, need to feel
the upward-bearing lift
that holds you, blanket-sure,
on your true course.
And so you can —
you, too, can feel that Love
that is the only law.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 16, 2015
Short swoops of comprehension
give me the exhilaration of flight,
my heart filled with sky and already,
even in the breath-catching pause
after the high,
the prospect of the next rush
is forming, small,
in my mind
I don’t have to remind myself
how to do this —
just have to go out and
do it again.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 8, 2015
In a departure
abrupt or gradual
as leaving a dream,
I grasp onto light lines
I find them in faces,
in flickers of hope,
in the never-completely-hidden
desire to be seen
I see them in the eye-catching
that perceives a sly joke
and sends cascades of laughter
into the shared space
I see you, Oh, I see you
riding strong along your current,
throwing off the crust of
who I might have thought you were
As I, too, flow out from my crust,
swifter than lava,
carrying my new form
out into the light of day.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 2, 2015
Our desire to bless
brings us here —
Though we feel empty,
we are attracted to the need,
This is what we hunger for
and it draws us
to the opportunity
We desire to bless,
and bless we will.
The goodness we bestow
will satisfy us, too —
Wellspring of water from within,
coming up infinite,
Filling us
with life’s compelling light.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 23, 2015
We walk around among each other
saying “sound me, sound me,
send your signal down
the shaft of my deep being,
shine my sacred essence out
so everyone can see it —
if you sound me, I will love you
and I’ll know that I am loved”
But in the end we have to know
no person sounds a man, a woman —
no voice that is itself in doubt
can have the clear tone
that reaches all the way in
This is a work for our creator
which sounds us all so deeply
that we rest, sound, in the
grounded comfort of our essence,
from which we then, too,
can sound each other.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 21, 2015
photo by Edward Mulhern
We have walked in these bodies
unaware of what we are
and what our power is,
and yet, somehow,
we’re not entirely surprised —
We rise into this knowing
like coming home,
recognition welling in our eyes
This is when time fades out
like stars before dawn
and the brightness of each one of us
outshines our former forms,
And the narrow, bumpy trails
we thought of as our lives
recede in the expansive view
of this terrain
The sparks between us
may seem random and erratic,
but as they multiply,
the structure of the web starts to appear,
intricate, enchanting and stupendous,
astonishing and yet profoundly clear —
the life which we are starting to remember,
the endless joy of being here.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 18, 2015
photo by Edward Mulhern