Author Archives: Wendy

Touch Hunger

Posted on by
Reply

Now that I know about my own touch hunger
I see touch hunger everywhere I look
Faces longing to be stroked
Bodies leaning out toward one another
The boy whose agitated energy
moved him in an oscillating “8”
Just like my daughter moved
when she was small and needed to be held

We live in an emaciated state
Not knowing what we crave, how to relate
Our bodies stick-like, prickly, stiff
from starving for our basic daily touch

Caged off by fears, by norms, by talk of sin
We need to open gates, and so begin
to feed each other’s hunger
so we can
fill up our souls, and so be whole again.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 16, 2012



The calculus of need

Posted on by
Reply

In the old assessment
To speak of need is to confess a lack
Admitting need is weakness
And to ask for what you need
entails a sacrifice
of dignity, of power, of position —
a painful act of desperate submission

In another way of seeing
Needing is the interlock of love —
The contact that inspires our hearts
to gratitude
I need you as I need the air I breathe
Not contemplating lack
but just acknowledging
how sweetly and how deeply we’re connected
Not bound, but bonded —
in our unity perfected

Performing once again
the calculus of need
where we consider what to claim
what to concede
To leave the old assessment for the new will be
the algorithm that will set us free.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 15, 2012



Plea for a new economy

Posted on by
Reply

All the well-paved roads
just lead to wasteland —
The greatest mecca now the shopping mall
where everything is so meticulously placed
and if they could
they would commodify the soul
Refract it into little mirrored packages
so it can make the stuff they sell attractive
tell us if we want some soul
we have to buy it
and to buy it, first we have to sell it
Many are the nets of thought to have us so believe
So deceived, we’re bought and sold
and so enslaved

But let us move into the clarity of day
And see that in reality
there is no “they”
And if we see the roads are broad and yet
their promises are hollow
and just because they have bright signs
we’re not compelled to follow
We may envision some more perfect way

A modest road, that winds beside a river
where folks on bicycles and feet could wander
A common square where people daily gather
for music, song and dance, discussion, laughter
Where there’s no price or prison for the soul
And in our giving and receiving 
we are whole.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 14, 2012


Whether or not you already know:

Posted on by
Reply

I love you.
These are powerful words
Not to be said lightly
They have consequences

The man I spoke with yesterday said
People have no idea what love is
They have no point of reference
They say “I love you, I love you,”
But they just want
To be nurtured, to be supported, to be accepted
They will leave when their need changes.

I know what love is
And I love you
I’m not saying it lightly
These words have consequences
And I know what they are

I hold you in my heart
Yes, I nurture you
Yes, I support you
Yes, I accept you
And I welcome your infinity.

I love you, and so
I willingly enter
The space where our boundaries dissolve
And we float, weightless and unformed
So at the impulse from the infinite
We can respond as one.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 11, 2012



Sacred Unfolding

Posted on by
Reply

Around a seed of thought
Substance gathers
The infant leaf
Forms itself 
From nothing
And the essence of everything —
Water from the network of the soil
Last year’s sun released from secret storage
Love that calls them to the service
Of the timeless pattern

It forms itself
Pleated, furled, or crumpled
In its tiny space
Its weightless impulse summons energy
More than it can hold within its sphere
So it expands
Unfolds, unfurls, stretches out
To raise its tender head
And join the dance of spring.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 10, 2012



The Dawn of Spring

Posted on by
2

The trees arose before the dawn of spring
The running of their sap waking them up
Pulsing invisible and potent
Underneath their bark
Inciting buds to swell

And now their scent
Sent delicate through branch and blossom
Has touched the air with some delicious summons
To wake me up
The way the sap aroused the trees
Aliveness pumping through my piqued awareness

Ah Spring!  Such gratitude you raise
As you invoke this nameless joy
That fills my days.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 9, 2012



Holding light, holding tight

Posted on by
Reply

My halo clasp

tender circle ‘round your aura
invokes my care
my longing to protect you
hold you dear
make you know how deeply
you are loved

My tight grasp
invokes my infant instinct
to hold on, hold on tight
to feel your care
to be loved
to trust that you are there
I hold on never wanting to let go
as if I’ll never get enough
I need it so

Your tight grasp
invokes my mother-love
makes me want to hold you up forever
Your light clasp
gives me buoyancy and wings
and sweet permission
to fill myself with light
and let my heart pursue its mission.
Light and tight, each in its proper hour
Each hold has its purpose and its power.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 8, 2012





Breathwork

Posted on by
Reply

My breath came in and in
Like beach waves into tide pools
Flowing over rocks and into cavities
Rush of filling up the waiting places
Then
Like beach waves
It receded
Out and out, draining every crevice
Pulling seaweed back
Exposing mussels
Washing nutrients across
the tiny mouths
Again, and still again
And I remembered
Yes, we live in breathing
As with breath
So must it be
with everything I am
No isolation and no static being
To be alive, I need to flow
in constant interaction
In venture and return, interdependent
My life sustained by everyone I know.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 7, 2012



In this house of prayer

Posted on by
2



In this house of prayer
that is me —
everything I am —
With daily intermittent bursts
I find
the freedom from all other law

No weight of history
no drag of social norms
no march of time
no fear, no fading sense
no falling off of purpose
no decay
can touch the being
I am learning here

Surrendered to the dawn of the divine
my every move impelled
by that which constantly
surprises me
I find its grace, its elegance
so intricate, so fine
unfolds my joy to feel
the Soul-force that comprises me

In this house of prayer
I learn to move in love
to see that this is what I am
and all I live to prove.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 5, 2012


(background music: Isaac Shepard, “Fleeting Moments”)