Tag Archives: transformation

Phase Shift

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We have names for so many things
we won’t need names for later —
they will be released from thought
in a soft shifting, dissolved in parallax
like gaps between the trees

We will walk then
in a new positivity
where love is substance, essence,
and identity

There will be new names
and things we’ll see so clearly
which, up to then, had seemed
mere speculation

It will be easy, then,
to walk in full awareness
and to wield our power
precise and pure and fruitful
as we truly are.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 4, 2018

Old and New

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I can’t walk easy
along the paths I used to walk,
hedged by familiarity,
bordered, more distantly, by fear.
I can’t pursue the old hopes,
flanked by worry, with the protections
of bravado and blurred vision

I have to walk
now as ever
in the clear bright world
that has always been here, too —
a plain without paths,
a presence without arriving,
being caught up in the offering
of myself, like a mirror,
to the light.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 8, 2018

Homeward

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Sometimes the extent of
what doesn’t matter in the least —
doesn’t matter anymore or never did —
seems ready to drown me

So far removed these tracks have gone
from anything that nourishes,
any reason anyone could see
to go and do it for another day

And yet the gleams of what’s precious
shine out somehow, from every moving being —
May that light grow stronger from within
and guide them, guide us —
all along our homeward way.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 22, 2018

Sea Change

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(for Jennifer, from the biking philosophers’ notebook)

If clouds can soften all at once,
so can hearts, so can long-entrenched
opinions, and all our expectations

There is a language
beneath the languages,
there is a way we know
that we don’t know of,
there may be sudden sparks
that arc across the seeming distance,
showing us, at last, that we are one.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 15, 2018

My life now

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I learn the nature of myself
by what floats
and what sinks,
what opens up a grand expansiveness,
what traps me, lost, within its maze

I let each feeling have its say —
some leave me helpless,
some make me strong,
some will remain and some will pass away,
some are empowering,
none are wrong

I won’t direct the process
but I will be sifted,
I will not save myself
but I will still be lifted,
I’ll let the truth distill
the deeper gifts,
that shine the will to live,
that fill my life.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 22, 2018

Roofing

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We get into the rhythm of the work,
pneumatic nail gun and the air compressor,
the scratch of asphalt shingles laid down against each other,
the soothing arc of our repeated motion

It smells like blossoms when we stop and notice,
the air is warm enough, cool enough too —
while many pieces of our lives are scattered,
this work is something we can do

The birds are taking up their evening chorus,
smells of people’s dinners join the breeze,
it feels like it’s a mode we could continue
for another couple years at least —
could be the course we take, the path we climb
unless, until, we’re lifted out of time.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 21, 2018

Errands

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I walk these steps as if they were floes,
shifting under me like something
that sits on liquid —
I am surprised I don’t feel more jostled

Something steadies me. Something like
light projecting my image over this surface,
so I’m never really needing
to catch my balance

Where I am exactly
is not clear to me, nor am I sure
of where I’ve ever been.
But it feels right to be here
and to keep walking.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 19, 2018

Navigating

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We tried to go back to the old hills
but they were gone, tried to navigate
the once familiar paths,
but after walking them awhile
we could tell that we were blind
and couldn’t see the markers

Strangely, we could also tell
that we had never seen them —
we had been content with blindness before —
now we can’t abide it
and we would rather
not take any steps except
when walking in the light,
not say anything
unless we know it’s true.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 16, 2018

Deeper

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Beneath the pale etchings I have called my life,
something momentous moves,
something that fills out
more dimensions than I can count

Something so ultimately satisfying
that all I have attended to before —
all the inept scratchings,
all the lines I tried to set  in place,
and what was scribbled over all my efforts
by other hapless hands —
amount to nothing

I settle myself
into the deeper motion
and am at peace.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 14, 2018

New Vision

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It’s not an ace in the hole,
it’s  not a way to win in this world,
it can’t be used to gain advantage

When you emerge into the radiance
of the great and tender Allness,
you forget those things anyway,
being so caught up
in the unfolding singularity
of each joy-touched moment,
each amazing new awareness

You won’t be able to look back and measure,
but you won’t care, either,
leaving the false for the true.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 6, 2018