It’s a good time
for me to be quiet.
It’s right to notice how bombastic
some of my voices can be —
they like to turn everything
into a lesson, so they can
be the teacher,
so they can feel that exalted
sliver of space between themselves
and those they would instruct.
Humility is required,
and that may mean
keeping my mouth shut
for what may seem
a very, very long time.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 9, 2017
Within myself
I note the quiet purr and hum
of feelings, how they create thoughts
to prop them up, stories to sustain
their longer lives
I notice I can choose what I will feel
by careful observation of the stories
It is enough, it seems, to notice.
Then the feelings look up, startled
and forget what they were on about.
I can take them by their manes
and lead them home to calmness.
We can laugh together, a little,
I can redirect them —
Not every dip deserves descending into,
not every story testifies to truth.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 7, 2017
Yes, you will be healed.
Understand, though,
that healing will be deeper
than fixing what you diagnosed as problem,
it will be more
than setting up your life to jump through
all the perfect hoops you planned for it
There will be a great shifting,
a great melting within,
things will be smoothed
that you didn’t know were ruffled,
things will be roused and routed
that you didn’t know were there,
and in the end you’ll feel the resonance
through bone and sinew,
the sweet sustain that comes from being One.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 6, 2017
True leadership
shows me how to follow
the liquid love that flows
under the surface,
the light that glows through
cracks in our illusions,
the course of which transfigures
everything we thought we were,
everything we thought we knew
We may have said
our life is crucible
for this appearing
but perhaps more accurately
this appearing is our life —
this pure substance
not only powers everything,
but is the everything,
all we ever hoped for,
what we’ll always be.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 5, 2017
Can’t get too excited
about the choice between
the fox and the raccoon
to guard the henhouse
And though we well may be distraught
before the litany of fallen freedoms,
truth be told,
we’ve been chained
for as long as we remember
The shackles of any lie
will hold us prisoner.
Most effective are the ones
we never see
The amazing thing
is what unclasps them all —
miraculous, it seems,
when we consider
number and duration
But it’s not a secret,
it’s what we all have heard,
for surely it’s the truth
that makes us free.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 4, 2017
Tempted to throw myself
into the sea again,
feeling the waters
behind my eyes
wanting to join
the seething ebb and flow —
I remind them that this is not
inevitable,
they would only be lost,
as would I,
by taking such a dive
There is a place for me
here at the helm of thought,
making the subtle distinctions
of perception,
ready with the course corrections
that will keep my ship from foundering
and deliver my proof
of the power of the higher Mind
for the greater good.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 3, 2017
So listen. If you’re going to be
a smart fish, know that,
if you take the bait, you don’t get credit
for all the times you passed it by.
The fisherman only gets wilier,
the lie never gets more true,
and if you want to stay free,
well, it’s up to you.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 2, 2017
Note to my email subscribers: There was a typo in yesterday’s poem. I’ve fixed it on my blogs, but once the email goes out, I have no way to get to the email texts. To see the poems on the blogs, just click on the title at the top, or on the comment button at the bottom. Thanks!
They found themselves a little reluctant
to part with their coinage,
dear bought as it was, fraught with
wrenching choices and sacrifice
and the tippy balance point
of fate and luck. They’d be happy
to give up their losses,
but maybe not their wins,
so they held on, though the corrosion
hurt them
They needed to get a sense of
what they wouldn’t lose
and what they’d gain
by letting go of all that they were grasping,
to feel, instead, the dawn upon their foreheads,
the bright glow that smoothed their brows,
the kindling excitement of laying hold
on that darting liquid light
of true worth.
Then they would know,
then they could let go.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 1, 2017
There isn’t anything you need to do first.
You don’t have to pay a debt,
explain a misstep,
get somebody else to say they’re sorry
You don’t have to go down corridors
of what happened
or why you or someone else
made certain choices,
or what might have happened,
had you chosen different
And you don’t need to fix
a broken system, don’t need to
proclaim its flaws till someone maybe hears,
don’t need to suffer
to prove how wrong it is
The light of you doesn’t require
any of those fuels, nor can any of those things
obscure or snuff it.
You can walk free
in your divinity, your wholeness —
Look up, set your feet, and go.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 28, 2017
Let me go back even now
to that place I discovered
in early morning prayer,
the place that felt like sunrise
beneath a long low cloud bank,
the place where, if I start there,
my hope rises, light and buoyant,
my prospects for the day
stretch out infinite,
my faith is shown to be
not something I must conjure,
but rather my connection,
sure and strong, to all that floods
the early day with light
Let me remember —
when I start there, I don’t need
a regimen of reform:
when I start there,
I have arrived.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 26, 2017