They are not touched
by the smell of smoke
or any aftermath
of any evil thing
There is no chain of hurt
no mindless consequence
blowing down the canyons
into people’s lives,
nothing that can sit upon them
bearing down upon their lungs
Every one of them
regardless of what happened
anytime, anywhere,
can find themselves
clear and holy,
pure and whole,
just as they are imaged
in the Mind that makes them
who they are.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 9, 2015
We abandon the paper cut-outs
and start to work with the real thing:
The dimensions are astonishing —
we could take years just reveling
in these curves, these planes, these hollows
to say nothing of movement
and that amazing contiguity
that remains itself while changing form
minutely and infinitely, the very breathing of it,
let alone the leaps and curls
and then there is the blessed heat,
the contact
and the wind-engendering spins
This has nothing to do
with where we were playing before.
Our hearts race to be here,
we keep waking up, more and more.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 25, 2015
It does no good
to lock your doors
and man your fort
when the enemy
has made itself
your trusted confidant,
sits there behind your ear
accusing,
criticizing everything,
infusing all your thoughts
with the putrid stain of rot
which you may mask with sadness
or with anger,
from which you seek escape
with sleep, with drugs, with pain
Fear not,
for what destroys the enemy
works even here:
The truth of your unstained and perfect love
which flows out from your essence, strong and pure,
will wash away the lie and all its voices
within you and outside,
and you’ll see clear.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 26, 2015
This light
doesn’t need a story —
doesn’t need reasons why it shines,
doesn’t have things that could put it out
The stories about it —
what it requires to keep on shining,
how just a few tweaks could make it much brighter,
how it’s some rare gift for which I’m most lucky
are not true
This light
may shine through stories
but can’t be captured by them.
They can illustrate it
but not snuff it out
And if I follow it
to where it springs from,
I’ll never lose my way again.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 13, 2015
A friend remembers, as a child,
she once tried to give a wooden nickel
to a blind girl.
She doesn’t know why she thought
it would be fun to fool her
The blind girl was indignant,
for of course she knew,
as would we all be,
as do we all
And yet it seems so often
we try to give them to each other —
smiles without light behind them,
words without truth,
touch without
reverberation, overlap of waves,
and the profound fulfillment
of harmonic tones
We’ve been taught to pretend to be fooled
but no one ever really is:
We all sense,
at least a little,
what it is we want,
what we need to give.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 12, 2015
Take me down to the bedrock,
Plant my feet
on something that’s not shifting
as days flow like dreams
and dreams flow like sand
along the sinking dunes of my perception
I can make no more conclusions
from any set of givens
sold in the market
of social norms
And I can find nothing
of enduring value
in the schools or in the stores
But there is something I can stand on,
step by step, there is a way to walk,
Guide my feet,
set them down surely
on eternal Spirit,
my only rock.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 31, 2014
I will flow into my sensing
of what is true,
I will not wait for others to go first.
I will pour like sand,
no grain delaying,
with the full commitment
of all my weight,
aware that gravity is here
and my surrender
moves me with calmness
through the changes,
and the weight of others
will be eased
into the leaning
of my willingness
to go down,
to settle
all the way in.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 26, 2014
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
The true image rises
maybe not because of all my efforts
but perhaps somehow related
to my attention
The true image rises
in the stillness that exists
within each moment,
where the ripples quiet
and the reflection clears
You shine it forth
to my astonishment —
This is just what I would have asked for
if I had known to
This is nothing of my invention,
nothing I could have fashioned —
This is the true image,
This is you.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 13, 2014
Vessel by Jennifer McCurdy
Photo by Julius Friedman
Don’t touch the lie —
It will grab you,
sweep you into its vortex,
get all mixed up with you
like oil contaminating water —
You’ll think it’s the primal objective,
the thing you need to solve,
what should, and must,
take all your time
until it’s conquered
Don’t touch the lie —
It doesn’t own you
and you don’t owe it anything,
and if you simply turn toward truth,
you’ll find yourself as pure
as you have always been,
as free as you had dreamed
but didn’t dare to hope,
as joy-infused as you can sometimes
almost remember
from the time before the lie.
That truth of you is here,
sure as the seasons, sure
as the cosmos. Which is plenty big
to draw your whole attention
and be your whole fulfillment
without the lie
Don’t touch the lie.
for you don’t need it —
Your truth has always been enough:
Your truth defines you wholly
and can be your guide.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 30, 2014