Author Archives: Wendy

A New Start

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In that nightmare world
where we all are graded,
our actions weighed, our choices judged,
where all of us know painfully
we haven’t measured up
to something,
could have done better,
could do still, if only . . .

In that nightmare world, we think
we might feel better
if we’ve done better
than someone —
we think there’s comfort
in knowing that, at least,
we’re not the worst

But we are waking from that world
and look: no one has been any less
than perfect and essential,
no one has been any more than others,
and no one, even us,
has made a trail of sorry choices,
no one has earned misery or loathing

Whole cityscapes of regret
crumble away,
fall and dissolve,
leaving the shining truth
for us to live in.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 25, 2017

Healing the Past

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I start my journey back
across the chasm,
all those times of disappointment,
all those hurts, all those dry years,
the places where I felt
I’d need explanations, apologies —
to tell someone the wrongs
that had been done me

I take these steps
and virgin forest
springs up around me,
familiar as something
that’s always been here,
rich with layers and layers
of interacting life.
Where is the desert,
where the wilderness?
How deep my blindness must have been
not to have seen this!
How full the healing truth must be
to bring me home!

©Wendy Mulhern
February 24, 2017

Praying for the Enemy

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Anybody can be called back.
The unbreakable cord
that holds us to ourselves,
to who we really are,
to what we really want,
never lets go

And in this fullness of time,
it begins to make itself known.
The tug may first be felt
in quiet moments, between
the posturing, between the self justification,
between the self delusion

Once it starts asserting itself
there is actually no force
that can stand up to it.
Not willful blindness, not ugliness
of spirit, not power-drunk reflexes
of greedy grabbing

I affirm this cord in each of us.
I affirm it growing strong
and pulling all of us back
to our core love, from which vantage point
there is no more ability
to harm another.
I pray for all of us,
including the ones who need it most.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 23, 2017

Pray for Standing Rock

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If everyone learns how to pray,
just because there’s no other recourse,
just because the only way to rise up
is to sink down into the rooted core of truth

If everyone learns how to pray
just because all other power
has been stripped from us,
that may be the way that we prevail

Prayer will rise like tides, like floods
and change everything —
our sense of self, community,
and landscape,
prayer will render other powers
irrelevant
as it sweeps through us. You’ll see.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 22, 2017

The Dance

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Hand to hand
and gaze to gaze
we look to find our truest ways

We try on clothes,
we try on moves,
we try to find a self that grooves,
we want to lift and float and fly,
break through the stiff and staid and dry

We want the space to give consent,
we want to be uniquely met,
not image to image
but soul to soul —
so shall we see each other whole.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 21, 2017

Unfoldment

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And in the steady walk of days
you might suddenly be able
to move more swiftly,
quickly slipping into
some embodiment of your self
you never had been sure
how you could get to

Life seems so routine, then suddenly.
Grasp this now, for who knows when?
If it’s not here yet, keep on walking.
Time doesn’t own you, so . . .

The engine of your heart’s desire
is always humming in the background,
purrs or lurches you along whether or not
you’re holding it in mind.
Time doesn’t own you, but it watches —
Your unfoldment is a good show.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 20, 2017

Objection

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Pardon me if I’m not fired up
by words of contempt,
however justified its dealers
may feel it is

Makes me want to walk barefoot
in water-sheened sand
and feel my footsteps melt,
and let the words that come to me
in my perplexed objection
be smoothed out as well

There’s no room for love in contempt
and there’s no room for contempt in love
and in the revolution
we’ll need traction,
not the gear grinding slippage
of mutual accusation

But there’s no traction either
for these words of mine —
makes me want to give them up,
and myself as well,
to the leadings of a higher Mind.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 19, 2017

Happy

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Today I woke up happy —
maybe it was the fresh wind
through the night,
or the spring-heralding sound
of many birds,
maybe it was the dreams
that had me tossing
but in the end resolved to power, freedom

Maybe it was the prayer
that stayed with me, deeper than thought
but surfacing, in song and memory,
at my several wakings,
sweeping in the clarity
of how I am held
safe and beloved
in the arms of morning.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 18, 2017

Motivation

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How we each got to this place
is actually irrelevant,
as are the stories we have spun
to justify our current situation

What motivated us
is deeper than any of these things,
deeper even than what we thought we wanted,
and even what we knew we needed

What motivates us
has power to overcome
all the particulars
of time and place,
all the ins and outs
of history and reasons

What motivates us
will keep on burning
while all the papers fall away
and in the end,
beyond all of our roles,
in fearless clarity
it will shine.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 16, 2017

Weather

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The weather in mind
is the only weather,
so I am finding, as the rain
pauses after a steady night,
as I consider what atmosphere
will greet the old man
as he emerges
after a night of interrupting
our sleep (and his) many times
with bed changings and redirection

Surface cheer won’t hide
a grumbling interior, nor can
the lack of words, heard or spoken,
prevent the sunshine
of a deep welcome

This is my lesson for today,
which I will take out
into the overcast,
which I will shine into
any dreary places,
which shining
will make my day.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 15, 2017