A mother’s comfort
may be befogged
in a mother’s fear,
may seem a tiny light
against oppressive dark
But look how fierce it shines,
defying all the vastness of the void,
look how she holds it without wavering
even when she thinks she has no chance
Look even deeper,
fold yourself into this light –
it won’t give up,
however underpowered she may feel.
She won’t let go
so it will bear her up
and thus outshine the darkest night.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 22, 2020
Certain moments I think
I can see the whole field
of what we call our lives,
can see the grand gears
turning the mechanism,
can see the choices,
so many fall lines
down and branching down
along the watershed
But see the way the vision changed –
none of these choices, finally,
have made us what we are,
no mechanism
has been grinding out our lives
And how we branch, and fall, and tumble,
though it may seem to divide,
will bring us, all together,
to our source.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 20, 2020
The season’s comfort
is no more suppressed
by ignoring it
than rising water
finding its way up
through grass, through stones,
to catch and reflect
the light of the day
to flow down in richness
through courses before unseen
I’ve been ignoring the season
but not its comfort –
making no efforts to celebrate,
carried along just the same.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 19, 2020
These days, I follow the lines of my hope
like sun rays, up through trees,
like tree limbs, along their reach,
their skyward thrust
It becomes clear to me
that none of us pushes up from nothing,
nor do we push up towards nothing –
we are clasped in the vision that we yearn to,
and the perfect searching
of every seed
into the essence of itself
is like our own journey,
day by day,
into our full appearing.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 18, 2020
It didn’t take changing you,
it only took knowing you,
discerning which of the signals
refracted between us
were actually true,
and which were interlayered shadows
between projection and perception,
not needing to provoke or be responded to
It only took
holding a steady vision
of that which has always loved you –
letting that be my lens,
making my focus clear.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 17, 2020
Well, obviously,
love was formed to be inhabited –
it is my place
to step into it, full weight,
full stride,
to inhabit love with the confidence
of one who owns it –
all its wondrous infinite acres –
to take in its delights,
to bring in its full harvest,
to share its bounty endlessly,
hold nothing back.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 16, 2020
When I saw you couldn’t
carry yourself, I thought I had to,
or then I thought you’d have to learn to
But today I saw
how you are upheld,
how you are cradled,
how you are given
arms that can hold the world up,
and you and I,
faithfully held,
can never let each other down.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 15, 2020
I consider going, like a disciple,
carrying nothing, preparing to see,
like water from rock in the wilderness,
all that I need
blooming up in the moment
of my offering,
of my service
I imagine being caught up in connection,
the igniting joy arising from contact,
the bounty at the spark of it,
the clarity of knowing
there is no other day
better than this,
no moment worthy of dismissal
The match strike lights
the former emptiness
and everything is here.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 13, 2020
Little soul, don’t feel too sorry
for the time you slept,
the years in which you missed
doing things you loved
because you thought you could be
good at things, without doing them
Don’t be too sorry
for the things you missed
from ignorance, or from miseducation
You live in infinity,
and time you spent asleep
means nothing. As ever,
you are free to be resplendent
here and now.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 12, 2020
I start to feel the deep dark pools
whose surfaces may shift,
may show or hide
the fathoms underneath
The season’s lights reveal them –
they glint with their reflection,
they multiply the brightness,
illuminating memories
We’ll have no Christmas lights
this year, not even candles –
the lights that shine for me
will be the deep internal ones,
the ones made brighter
as they plumb the darkness,
the ones that walk with us
along our solitary path,
©Wendy Mulhern
December 11, 2020