Author Archives: Wendy

Reset

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I’m thinking about
all the sorrows of the world –
the big and little heartbreaks,
chasms of loss, and trauma
walled up and sealed away, hidden
deep within the mazes of forgetting,
leaking out at unexpected times,
fluids of shame, embarrassment,
spumes of rage and helplessness

I’m thinking about
all the sorrows of the world,
all the tears that strive to cleanse,
all the keening, calling for connection …
and thinking what it could mean
if everything can be turned,
like a page, like a dream,
if everyone could be released,
allowed to flow home
to their native wholeness,
more than forgiven – rendered innocent –
ultimately untouched by any story,
fully seen, delighted to be known.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 19, 2021

Resolution

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I will know myself
down to the strong curl within,
I will not turn my head,
I will not make excuses

I will take ownership
of everything I am,
leave nothing to the whim of chance
or to the will of other forces.
I will be honest
ever as deeply as I know,
for only then
can I steer my course aright.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 17, 2021

Present Heaven

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Who am I to say I know
all the forms of love, or even think
that I would recognize them? Much less,
to place myself as expert, curator

Oh no, I’m here to see,
and gather what I can,
and hold the hope of tasting
something old or new of love
everywhere I turn

I will not try to catalog the infinite.
Instead, I will be glad to have been given
the faculty to see love in the ways I can,
which makes this puzzled earth
a present heaven.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 16, 2021

Adventure

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We live in this great adventure
(for certainly our life is more
than plodding doggedly toward death)

Life must ever be adventure
(or why would we persist with it
day after challenge riddled day?)

We live in Life’s adventure
(or we could say that Life’s adventure
is what we are)

Adventure we see unfolding
just like life unfolds,
branching and fusing
and moving all kinds of mountains,
as we live out what we are
and find out
what we will be.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 15, 2021

Speaking in Tongues

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There is a language that we all speak –
it glows between whatever words we use,
it finds a way to dart out
like a child’s skip,
like a smile that sparks between two beings,
a shaft of trust that plumbs the deepest histories

When we listen in that language,
any words will work
and few of them are needed –
life blooms up from stone,
things that were lost
become the trail that leads us home.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 14, 2021

A Potent Force

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All of us belong
to desire, whatever impulse
seems to spark our movement,
whatever construct
we may feel defines us

All of us have
the same Spirit lifting us
into our words and our yearning,
guiding us into our doing

And if we ever think we’re stuck
in some replay of actions and reactions,
lodged within unfruitful ways of thinking,
the same desire
will use the force of factual presence,
simple and unstoppable,
to break through those illusions
and set us free.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 13, 2021

Normal

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I said, we’re where we can imagine
living a normal life …

But what is normal, anyway,
and who decides that,
and who measures it?
Who advertises it,
who uses it to sell stuff,
and how does it relate
to what we’re building here?

The whole point being
to be forging
a different way of looking
at everything  –
purpose, comfort, how we do things –
the whole point being
the incremental learning
of how to live an honest life.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 12, 2021

Ground

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And if I thought I might fall
through the cracks of the day,
tumble between the tasks,
blown by an ill wind of complaint,
if I thought I might be discouraged
by its unrelenting howl,
there is always the ground

There is always the intense
springing of life, through the soil,
through the grass, through my feet.
There is always the recognition
of how great the “we”
of all life, how layered and irrepressible
it is, how it sings in the deer’s taste of grass,
in the flash of a bluebird’s wing,
how it rests in my breath
while the day’s lullabies
prepare a place for me.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 11, 2021

Well Done

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Twilight sets in at 4:30,
and with it, rain, and satisfaction
at having used the day well,
being outside and moving projects forward
as weather allowed, being ready now
to shift into indoor tasks
and inward work,
rich in the light and heat we gathered
in the brighter moments of the day.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 10, 2021

Unexpected Glory

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Things can be more beautiful
than you thought – seams can crack open,
unimagined light can pour through
at any part of your life –
things you’ve tended, especially,
but also what you’ve forgotten,
or what is given you
from the kindness of others
(from what they’ve tended
or maybe what they unexpectedly found)

Life can be more beautiful
than the dogged portion you’ve allowed yourself,
or the comfort that you’ve settled for,
the compromise, the resignation

Anybody’s life can open up
in unexpected glory,
bringing blessing to themselves
and many others

Your life can be
the light you hoped for it –
ask and seek, and seek and ask –
it will come forth.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 9, 2021