Author Archives: Wendy

Fathered

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We had felt ourselves fatherless
for so long. Bereft of the security
of a wise hand, a holder of place
for us, a steady arm
guiding our wobbly efforts

We had been fatherless, and
so had our fathers, betrayed
when they reached out
for crucial aid

We carried ourselves thus,
tentative, cringing from expected blows,
trying to take up less space,
to go unnoticed
and so avoid expulsion

So astonishing to learn
Our Father has been with us all along
providing bright support around our heads,
plenty of ground to stand on,
plenty of headroom,
extending past to future
all along the presence of our days

As we walk, now royal,
in the exclamation
of our stature as beloved
sons and daughters of our Father,
welcomed home.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 29, 2016

Business

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My little mind, with all its love
held in potential,
awaiting its permission,
awaiting right conditions,
is in the business of deferring good

It has its explanations and excuses,
it has its blame, it has its resignation,
it tells me that my joy depends
on things that happen and what others do

I choose, today, the grand act of surrender
of my mental machinations
to the one Mind —
my partial, hesitating love
to Love, the universal and divine.
If I can stay with Mind, with Love,
that’s all I have to hold,
for Love is in the business
of turning straw to gold.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 27, 2016

Nearing Year’s End

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The scent of orange oil on fingertips,
the complex progression of its taste
when breathed in, is like the moments
a year lays down — when I look back,
I see the way my thoughts
were all of a piece,
though they seemed different as they unrolled

I feel I traveled both farther and less far
in my progress through the year
than I could register
at the time

Now wind beats rain against the house,
staccato counterpoint
to the radio’s music
And the darkness at end of year
sits in puddles in the street
while we step through each unmeasured day
toward an undefined tomorrow.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 26. 2016

Choice

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The atmosphere of my temple
is my choice. If I feel clouded,
if I can’t find the joy amid the sorrow
of my story, if the words I use
to help remember what I am
fall flat, if it seems that things
far beyond my control are at fault,
this is what I must remember

The atmosphere of my temple
is my choice. I can choose now
to let the story lie inert,
a sleeve with no breath in it.
I can choose to let warm infinity
fill me in tones of gold and orange,
I can let my peace rest, soft, around me.
I can turn away from words
to that which doesn’t need them,
I can fill my temple
with what I live to feel.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 25, 2016

Holy Night

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We come to understand
that we are holy,
not in closing ourselves off,
not in excluding anyone,
but in refusal to be anything but kind
and in insistence on keeping our light shining
and bearing witness
to every other light
and not permitting any
to be snuffed out

We come to understand
that this is our protection —
not in hiding but in standing up
to any imposition on our wholeness.
We will not allow ourselves
to be unloving or untrue,
and this will bring all impostors down.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 24, 2016

Dramas

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When we thought we walked on solid ground,
our world was full of dramas —
so many things that could go right or wrong,
and underneath them,
the persistent weight
of hopes that never quite vaulted
to their victories, and the resultant lowering,
over weeks and years,
of the ceiling of our possibilities

As we began to learn that substance
is something else,
that what we thought we walked on
was separating, like melting floes,
but we were still standing,
the dramas, too, took on a different meaning

Things still matter to us deeply
but not so much for turns of plot
as for the places, shining through everything,
where our truth transforms the story,
where we prove that we are free.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 23, 2016

Treasures

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greenlake-jewels

In the moments before waking
I find myself walking through veils
searching for treasures,
collecting them like strands of light,
curling them around my consciousness
to hold on to them
as I transition into day

I choose them for their cuddly warmth
and how they glow like hope,
how they make me feel: this
is what I live for —
all the good in life
for me to learn to bring forth
throughout my hours awake.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 22, 2016

Our Stand

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hawthorn-and-cottonwood

We stand on holy ground.
You can feel it through your feet,
how it isn’t about this place
(opposed to any other place)
but it is about this place,
this here, connected by all points,
the way the feet of everyone
who touches down
are holy, drawing up, as they do,
all the sacredness of earth

As we stand in this place
we will not be moved.
In our holiness
we cannot be enslaved.
A thousand efforts
to catch us up
will just fall,
and we will stand as free
as vapor, as wind,
ever only responsive
to the Love that breathes us.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 21, 2016

Once

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sound-and-mountains

Truth is so potent
you only need to see it once.
After that, all the constructs
that were called right
are seen as powerless,
are seen as shams.

But if you haven’t seen it
you may be fooled.
You may think good
just means compliant
or sanctioned by the current tyrant power.
You may think you’re in
a zero sum game
in which it is a constant fight to live

If we don’t know truth
we need a savior,
someone to show it to us once.
Once we’ve seen it we’ll be free —
That will be enough.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 19, 2016

Simply

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sand-ripples

That which saves us
doesn’t need to overthrow anything —
it simply opens the inner
gates to infinity,
simply replaces the whole landscape
— all its former haunts of fear —
with something far more solid
than we’ve ever walked on,
each footprint now
flooding with light,
each footstep bringing new views

That which seemed to hold us
so firmly trapped,
we simply slip from
into a different frame,
a kinder set of causes
— no longer the indifferent laws
that don’t care how we fall —
Here our cause loves us
and arranges our safe landings
and our exhilarating flights.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 18, 2016

crow-tree