Learning to Heal

I feel the power of Truth; its touch excites
and ripples in the torch my heart ignites
I love how I’m alive, but I want more
I want to exercise Truth’s healing power
This fact I know: I need to live consistent
In this, Truth is imperative, insistent
What Soul impels must follow through as Soul
No other cause or god renders me whole
Just as it’s true that if I really love
my love unbinds me, sends euphoria
concatenating down through each encounter
to make my store of joy into a mountain
I can’t go harboring the phantom fear
if I want perfect healing to come clear.


©Wendy Mulhern
June 9, 2011



Wednesday Meeting

It happened to me tonight at the Wednesday meeting that all the readings went straight into my heart.  Images from the Bible that had sometimes seemed obscure to me were suddenly perfectly clear, sometime illustrations of things I was feeling and struggling to find words for; at other times explanations of things I am just starting to see develop.  The testimonies of others continued this line of illumination.
Readings On Change
Every word she read was lucid, sure
No mystery, no image odd, obscure
The Branch will show us what it means to live
You change them as a vesture, and they’re changed
I felt the Branch a coursing of connection
where everything is nourished from its source
The Spirit fount flows forth immutable
and sends clear brightness down its perfect course
I feel the Spirit source in all my being
and how it surges through and makes me new
Its fearless strength provides a way of seeing
that makes each impulse clear, each action true
When forms have failed, they’re lightly put aside
replaced by what the Spirit will provide.


©Wendy Mulhern
June 8, 2011



Another Frozen Thought Falls into the Sea of Love

The structure melts, and every atom, freed,
can dance forth in the swirl of ocean currents
release the particles and join the wave
each impulse starts a chain, and spurs it
far across the water, till at last absorbed;
we see the ocean quiet and inscrutable
though underneath, the currents curl and soar
and waves, concealed, continue on immutable
no information lost, though folded in
to every other impulse, every movement;
the sea so capably accommodates it
and holds all being lovingly contained.
That’s how we move as one, and how we know
each stream of life encompassed in the flow.


©Wendy Mulhern
June 7, 2011





Space and Time

You have the right
to take up all the space you take
and you have the right
to take all the time you need
and you have the right
to be —
to be whatever you are.
There’s room for all of you here
and there’s room for the time it takes
for you to feel at home
and there’s room for you to breathe
and space for your incubation
and time for you to grow.
You are welcome
to everything your soul needs
to be fulfilled.


©Wendy Mulhern
June 6, 2011



Sexy

Sexy eyes
are eyes that see me
recognizing what I really am
Sexy eyes
are eyes that smoke
with that singular vulnerability
of being turned on
They hold me
they promise to take me places
they move with me —
quick concatenations of comprehension
between us
pulling me in.
A sexy body
is one you live in
all the way out to the surface of it
and beyond
A sexy body feels the invitation
and responds.


©Wendy Mulhern
June 4, 2011



End-of-bike-ride note to myself while ascending the hill towards home


They stand there, your accomplishments
You’ve stacked them up from time to time
against the dark opacity of the null set
A house of cards to prop up your self-esteem
or propped up by it, a fragile lean-to
Your master’s degree, the languages you (used to) speak
your second dan in Tae Kwon Do, your job, your home
your status as a wife and mother
Don’t you know
All these things are just wisps
of what you are, seeping
into  this dreamscape
They well may fade
don’t be afraid
Their source remains infinite
Who you are has powered those
and can power many more
can make you ride royal
across the dream
and into awakening.


©Wendy Mulhern
June 3, 2011



Seeds

In the dry time you may hear
the high conversational click of seeds
shoulder to shoulder
camaraderie of waiting
quiet comment of ticking down rain sticks
rolling in rattles, patient in stasis
When the water comes and soaks them through
washes off their inhibitors, you may hear
their oscillating excitement
Brownian tremors, the movement within
uncontainable high of expansion
lift of life.


©Wendy Mulhern
June 1, 2011



Takeoff

At first our words were small
I wasn’t sure they had the room
to hold the meaning that began to rise
behind my mouth and eyes –
the warming impulse of a truth
that I might share
At first my words were closed
but then they opened out
The invitation of a question
led to my expression
and the light came flowing in
filling out the thoughts
Then she picked up an ember
spoke with growing warmth
her face lit up
her smile grew real, and soon
we both were smiling broadly
and someone else was drawn into the glow
And where before our nods and looks
had been polite but short
not clipped but still not free
we now took off – three of us – soaring
a rushing sense of substance
potential, infinity
rising under our wings
bearing us up.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 1, 2011



After the Dance

I feel somewhat shy about sharing this poem.  Though I have tried to get as many people as possible to look at my blog – alerting them to poems I have written about them – this one I will be quiet about.  The feeling too strong, perhaps; the danger of being caught gushing.  But I think it actually captures my true experience.
After the dance
The lift of life along my finger’s edge
sends forth a joy that flows up through my arms
with every surface sensitized, each movement led
by something holy, every footstep charmed
I come away at night in rapt communion
still preciously suspended in a web of love
still ringing, still held quiet in the chord of union
but reaching, soft, for what I’m thinking of:
to seek these friends beyond the open door
of dance, the place where now I see them shine
To learn the syntax of each life, and find
particularities of grace unknown before.
And so I humbly send forth my intention
to take these friendships to a new dimension.


©Wendy Mulhern
May 30, 2011



The Hundredth Post

This is the hundredth post on my blog.  Not the hundredth poem, as I’ve sometimes posted two at once.  I decided to start by quoting the hundredth psalm from the Bible:
Ps. 100
Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. 
Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing. 
Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; 
we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. 
Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: 
be thankful unto him, and bless his name. 
For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; 
and his truth endureth to all generations. 
Recently I have found great joy from the feeling that, rather than being comprised of a material body, my being is an impulse that moves along in waves of oneness with the harmony of the universe.  The more I look at the world, the more this seems to me to be so for everything I observe.  That is the subject of the following sonnet:
What we are made of
The world is framed in elemental waves
the vibrant patterns every movement follows
the undulations rolling through the forms
of squirrels, snakes, whole flocks of birds, one swallow;
The gracious give of tree limbs in the wind
the water’s lullaby against the shore
the ebb and flow of cricket song, the hum of bees
reverberating ring of crystals deep in caves.
We find these very waves define our arcs:
the impulse as we launch into our stride
is carried, wave on wave, as we continue –
harmonic pattern on which we then ride . . . 
How could we frame ourselves particulate
feeling these waves that all our moves articulate?


©Wendy Mulhern
May 29, 2011