While some are struggling
to be alive, others
are struggling to be real
It is the same struggle —
though it may seem poles apart,
it is the same need
And while some may envy others their ease,
and others may not know to envy
the vitality that rises from the quick
when the cut is close to the bone
In the end they will be saved
in the same flood of light.
It may even feel to them
like they saved each other.
This is the nature of the blessing.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 3, 2018
I have not changed
but I have cycled round again
like tree rings, layer on layer of growth,
branching upon branching
I have not changed
but I have pulled the veil away
layer by layer,
coming towards a clearer focus
All this time I thought that I was changing
but that was part of me —
the ever hopeful slant,
the sense of progress
which has come with me
like my hands, my eyebrows
And I will not change
until the final veil’s lifting
shows what I have always been,
changing me all the way back
through my past, and showing how
I have never changed.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 12, 2018
There is no one who is not affected.
There is no one who is not lit up
(though comprehending a light that casts no shadows
may take time)
You can feel it radiate through your fur,
all the way to your skin,
you can feel it in your lungs like flight,
in your throat like fire
coming up from embers that lie deep within,
fueled by ever-quickening desire
It makes no sense, after this,
to go on as if there were a path laid out,
it makes no sense to follow
former modes of measurement
The roar this light ignites
will burn through everything that lied about us,
we will be seen as we will see —
all things new.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 2, 2018
We have moved from the place
of hopeful milling about,
of waiting liquid at the lip
of some great movement
(the general goodwill of our presence
bright enough to make us feel at one)
Almost unthinking, we have plunged
along the run life set for us —
maybe we thought it was a choice,
perhaps we only noticed
by the coursing of our fluids,
by the pounding force
of that which bore us,
that, indeed, we’ve moved along
And that the quiet pool
in which we hoped and waited
(and chafed at our incompetence
to stir it up)
will not be seeing us again
for a long time
Who knows where all the others are
and where their rapids bear them
and if we’ll meet again,
changed and unchanged
at the waiting sea?
©Wendy Mulhern
January 1, 2018
It was, for each of them,
their own moment
but as they turned
they could hear the corroborating roar
as many others
caught up in the singularity
of their own experience
simultaneously turned,
surrendered to the force
of what actually
had been their essence all along
Less a surrender, maybe,
than a standing up,
though both those actions
were clearly present
in their acclamation
of their source and destiny.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 27, 2017
photo by K Norton Photography
I stand
and let the sense of who I am
slide back behind me,
beyond time, beyond
the anchor of my story
It fills in
like a swath of sparkles
on windy water,
lights me from behind
and moves me
(like lifting up, expanding out)
making room for all of us,
making room for peace.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 22, 2017
In our ascent through the passage
there is letting go,
there are changes of shape
that let us pass
where we couldn’t have fit before
There is a stretching and a turning,
each move in its needed place and time
that lets us become something different,
something that’s able to make it through.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 20, 2017
And when I glimpse that I am
perfectly companioned,
perfectly mentored,
provided with my perfect place
When I glimpse the scope of being
that Spirit has ordained for me,
is it surprising
that I should look with puzzlement
on all these objects of the day,
that I should wonder
why their particulars
would even matter?
If I look through, though,
to what I really care about,
I see that each of these —
the objects of my daily life —
must be embraced within
the wondrous promises,
must be lit up, reclaimed, redeemed,
must stand as proof
of everything I’ve glimpsed is true.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 10, 2017
You are not asked
to be more than what you are
but you are asked
to understand yourself
You are not asked
to make yourself be anything
but you are asked
to know your maker
This quiet standing
through what might feel like changes
will deliver you, after a while
to where the you you wished to be
is really who you have been all along
This kind of changing
where you could say
you actually did nothing
is what will save you,
this kind of changing
will win your day.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 3, 2017
When you looked up close at us
we were a misfit bunch —
none of our shapes exactly fit,
our parts adapted from some other use
We limped and lumbered along somehow —
it seemed remarkable, in fact,
that we had come this far,
and then the light shifted
and the vectors of our power aligned
Those parts that didn’t fit
never supported us.
As our lines straightened
and our rays gained strength,
the jalopy of our former sense of self
chugged to a stop,
abandoned in our upward climb.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 28, 2017