I have contentment
and equilibrium,
and vistas big enough
to overwhelm my sight,
giving vision to my freedom –
certainly that’s plenty
Beyond that, it’s out of my hands.
Beyond that, I can work to see
that the unfolding of my days
is true – see that it matches
the potential that is given,
continue in my daily press
toward heaven.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 7, 2020
The dream of finished work
is dangerous. I start imagining
how it would feel
to wash my dishes in a sink,
to take a bath,
to walk on clean smooth floors
with bare feet, to see the brightness
and the color in the walls
Better to step back and be glad
that on a rare cool summer day
I already can bake,
and light a fire,
and watch the mist
from a dry place inside
Everything will come in time,
and I’m best served
by living in the glory of today,
by giving what is asked of me
and counting that for joy.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 6, 2020
You go each night to do your last task –
closing the well house, checking that
all is well
And the night almost always
entices you to stay longer,
to watch the stars come out,
and the nocturnal wildlife,
to listen to the crickets
and let the day’s stresses dissipate
in the evening coolness
Many comforters may meet you
along that walk –
may they reach you in the places
you need them most.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 4, 2020
I’m thinking that
we’re not getting out of this
the way we got in –
reaching blindly for
who we thought were leaders,
more and more divided
by who we trust to tell the truth
There certainly is a role
for the long road,
the honest bumping
along all the facts on the ground,
there is a role for perseverance
and for knowing something as it really feels
day by day
But there’s also a role for rising,
where consciousness sifts through the tales
and finds a resolution
in the place that hums
with the life that is never divided
nor invaded, nor conquered,
where norms dissolve
but truth and love remain.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 3,.2020
We rise up, as does everything,
with wonder and gratitude
into the fact of being,
the rich Spirit that impels us
to grow, create, connect
We rise up because we must –
it is our milk, our joy,
it is our purpose
This is the substance of which we are made –
it is always with us,
and we are always with it –
splash of brilliance
that overcomes the heat,
flash of radiance
that lights our way.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 2, 2020
(from the virtual biking philosopher’s notebook)
Not that you know more things,
but what you’ve always known
you know more deeply,
know what tumbling concatenations follow
from one truth,
know more things it disallows
by being true
Not that you grow into something you weren’t,
but what you are, you keep becoming,
grander and more like yourself than ever,
just like these firs.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 1, 2020
We live in the eternal now
and nothing else can touch us –
no troubled echoes from the past,
no fears of future outcomes
Here in the eternal now
we are fresh each moment,
and all the resources of now
are present for our use
In the eternal now,
there can be no sore spot,
no place rubbed raw, no pain
from previous exertion
No troubled memories,
no shell-shocked caution,
nothing cordoned off as minefield.
So we can thrive, forever safe
in the eternal now.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 31, 2020
I was too comfortable
as a half person,
willingly framing my merit
in contrast to someone else’s lack,
loving the feeling of being right,
of being in the club
of those who know
Even though, most often,
I found myself left out,
locked on the shadow side
not understanding why,
not seeing how that shadow
was of my own creating,
a function of dividing things in half
Forgive, forgive, forgive me
for the pain I caused my children
(for my own pain. I can effortlessly laugh)
Forgive, forgive –
and I will do the same
in every place I see to,
in every place I can.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 29, 2020
I’m willing
to give up
any previous sense
of me,
willing, instead,
to be mirror,
to let myself be defined
in the light and color I reflect,
let my presence
multiply the infinite,
learn who I am each day
by what it shines.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 28, 2020
The perfect fitting of things
is not mechanical,
though we may observe
the intricate meshings,
though we may think
it’s a fragile webbing –
one strand misplaced
and all could fall away,
one beat missed
and everything could crash
But it can’t, it won’t.
It’s not mechanical.
No one thing depends upon another,
though it seems to.
This is the breath of Life,
everything moving in one Spirit,
each one bound
in deepest love,
directly to its cause.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 27, 2020