Author Archives: Wendy

If everything is made of thought

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If everything is made of thought
Then there are no separate things
No rolly, clunky, cluttery things
No inscrutable, intractable things
Nothing to fall out of place
Nothing to fail to move

If everything is made of thought
Then there is no past, no gaping track
where things tore through the fabric
of our hopes and plans
leaving shreds along the course of time
No regrets and no alarm
No irreparable harm

If everything is made of thought
Then all these things
we think are non-negotiable —
the way things are, the way they have to be —
can really change, in any instant
Blink of an eye, awakening from dream.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 28, 2012


Application Deadlines

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Actually,
You can’t make things be
what they’re not
You can’t make a stream
run faster down its course
rapid or languid as the fall line designates
You can’t make the clouds
configure themselves
into neat, ordered little puffs

And we can’t make our son
hop to, conform, align
when all his atoms stretch
along some still-unmarked direction
as he charts the constellations
of his singular universe

Obligatorily,
there will be hoops to jump through
See how he bends his lanky form
to condescending depths
and somehow manages to find some grace
complying with the needed tasks

Some things fall behind
and yet we can be sure
Everything that’s really part of him
will find a way to flourish,
to endure.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 27, 2012


Jacob’s Ladder

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(Notes from the fifth seasonal five women gathering)

We fold and unfold and refold
Constant surprises of new faces
appearing and then hidden
reemerging later somewhere else
We see each other
We see ourselves
Faces that we recognize from now, 
and, too, from other times
We mirror, and are mirrored
And in the grand revealing of our paths —
our being, spread across a stretch of time —
Great gardens spring to life, to light
their fragrant blossoms sweetening the air

We are a circle
A circle of love and caring
A circle of women
Holding the safe net
we all jump into
Feeling the tug at the sides
as we hold each other up
Feeling our cords strengthen
in the stretch of the give and take
Feeling the ties of our intersections
hugging us close

We are angels
Ascending and descending
Bringing ourselves messages
and the dear assurance
that this land, this place
has been prepared for us
and we will inhabit it
and bring forth our fruits.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 24, 2012


Mending

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Retreated here from all activities
So many proffered offerings
roll by like water
The waves of doing things —
Fun and togetherness —
(photos as proof)
thunder over my head
and are gone
There’s hardly even
space for regret
deep, as I am
under the turbulence
where it is still
and I am still waiting 
for the internal calm.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 23, 2012


Gratitude

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Gratitude is stronger than pain
Like bright sunlight, it flows forth
Outshining the burred edges
of stress, of fear
of tiresome perturbations

Gratitude is stronger than the manager
Who posits reasons I must suffer
Bargains me away in its strong zeal for condemnation
Tells me why I must be being punished

Gratitude releases me
from the harsh sentence
cast by the rasp of complaint
on my day
Gratitude fills me,
Lifts me up, holds me
Sets me with grace on a lovelier way.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 22, 2012


Colors

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I like
the color that shows
between my toes
the warm burnished glow
of wood tone touched with orange light
which also laps its sumptuous tint
across my instep
and licks my toes, at their curling tips

No color stands alone
They all throw their reflections on each other
I see the orange, the green, the red
silent and smooth, caressing every surface
I gaze, transfixed
at what I would have called one tone
But they are many
All mixed
Repeated on my feet, the door, the wall
Each different colored thing
shares the same palette
to harmonize and unify them all.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 20, 2012


Prayer for Now

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In the deepening clarity
of your light
A new conception dawns
upon my sight
My focus shifts —
a sharper definition —
A measure of the pressure lifts
and I feel richer

There is no mindless wave
No storm
to roil me in its sharp relentless flailing
There is no course that I must follow
leading through a time of pain and ailing

The now belongs to you
And so, as well, to me
It is my nature to express it fully
Your law is steady, true
My being — peaceful, pure and holy
And all of my perception
must feel this and conform
My times are yours
and it’s your love
that holds me hale and warm.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 19, 2012


Seeking Peace

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Time to let the clamor cease —
all the chatter, all the different voices
who insist they have a right
to say their piece
Claim to speak for formidable forces

No
They don’t have a solution
They are only looping
words to give illusion of some substance
a sense of presence out of much rushing
But there’s nothing
Nothing true in anything they say

Spirit, tonight
You take over
Burn your clear light
through all my mental clutter
all that complains and mutters of discomfort
all that claims decline and disappointment

Instead, Spirit
You speak for me
You bear witness to the one
that you created me to be
Brimming with your power and your light
Shining forth your calmness through the night.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 18, 2012


Contact Improv

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I took a class today and yesterday in a dance form called contact improvisation. One of our teachers said it always feels for her like a metaphor for life. I felt this to be so:

All that went before
belongs to us
And we can move
in the way of early life
Draping, oozing
Traveling along an impulse
that moves through bodies
as it moves through space
Wave on slow-cresting wave

The movement opens us to mystery
The fluid way to find our way in
Into the place of curling and curling
where we return
to begin

We start to feel
the coil that winds us
find its way to spring
We start to live
the settled surety
of this aliveness
Always knowing we belong.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 17, 2012