A month later
the grass has had its heyday
(though it has not been hayed)
The seed heads and the stalks
are dry
They have chosen
various burnished golds
Their work is done,
their celebration continues —
wind-dancing in the sun
amid the green bracken,
they sing softly with
the trees and insects
all through the afternoon.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 17, 2015
I separated myself
from the acceleration,
escaped the vortex
with just a wobble at the lip of it,
then floated free and still —
only in the reflection on it
amazed by where I might have ended up
if I had wandered
just a little closer
I did not join that battle.
But now I am collecting
a more pervasive calm,
a positive peace,
a zone that extends its power
even to where everything
dropped down before,
even where all was lost
because everyone is needed
and no one, ultimately
can be swept away.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 15, 2015
Your path, too,
has always been loved —
Though you have felt alone,
though you have wandered
haunted by so many whispered
cautionary tales
You have been seen,
you have been cheered for —
all your singularities
have been appreciated
Though you were warned otherwise,
you can never walk away from being loved —
That fact is always with you
like every other integral
aspect of yourself:
You can’t be separated
from your truth,
you can’t be severed
from your love.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 14, 2015
When all the foreign voices in your head
are hushed,
you’ll know that you have always known
how solid, how unmovable,
how deep
is your intrinsic worth
This is why you care enough
to defend yourself,
this is why you care enough
to be sad
This is how you know that you’ll prevail —
your essence will prove equal
to everything it needs to bring you through.
You’ll rise to more than you dared hope:
The truth about yourself
will guide you surely
to the great work your heart desires to do.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 12, 2015
It can feel like a high desert —
winds blowing fierce around the buttes,
tough sage leaning in against the rocks
There is a still
where water gathers
and the seep of secret green
colonizes crevices
Lush plants spring up,
frogs sing (where did they come from?)
This is the reward for going deep
beneath the stress and clamor of the day,
This is what you can bring
from your ever-sustaining source
to bless even the desert
with life and fragrance.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 11, 2015
I will see God
in my own flesh,
I will know in my body
that I am healed
I will feel the truth
in that most intimate way
where my body speaks
and my so-called mind
is taken entirely by surprise
and must surrender
to the imperative
presented in the moment
This experience
will not be co-opted —
though I seek to reproduce it,
touching flesh together
to re-enact the spark,
constructing circumstances
to replay the moment,
building fantasies to lead me back
I will at last be led
to the Spirit source
that owns everything
I can feel or know,
that wakes up everything
— heart, soul, flesh —
to exaltation,
to the mystery of Life.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 10, 2015
photo by Edward Mulhern
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
There’s room for you here —
There’s room for that way you walk,
all business and purpose,
room for your boyish confidence
and your sweetness
and how you desire to trust deeply,
There’s room for your enthusiasm
and your eager joining in
The boy in you
who never grows up
will win the day every time
because he is ever willing
to give his whole large heart
for the rush of joy
in having it received.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 8, 2015
In the new equation,
motivation can no longer
be considered in terms of leverage
(incentives, consequences,
how to get someone to do something)
In the new equation
we may think in terms of lift —
lift of our collective wings,
mid-flight discovery
of our shared volition
where we don’t know
before we swoop
precisely where we’re going,
where the perfection
of the emergent direction
is the product
of the perfection of each of us,
and how we’re made to fly together
And none of us will need to be director —
We’ll all be listeners,
we’ll all be followers
of the wisdom that arises from our love.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 7, 2015
Just as my body sighed
with the heat of the hill climb
I was met with lavender
singing with its scent
about early morning watering
and gratitude for its essence
and the day
How could I not join in
as welcome wind brings high clouds
and a hint of change
and everything dances what it feels
and what it knows.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 6, 2015