Tag Archives: personal growth

Sea Change

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Everything has changed
on the inside.
Though forms remain,
the structure
has been vivified.

What once was thought etheric
is seen to be more solid
(substance now defined by what’s alive)
And what we thought were bars
we now can see
are merely filterings and siftings
of the light.

What we once thought defined us
has shape-shifted with our spirit
And we see it sets no limits,
being infinite.

Everything has changed
on the inside.
Our step is free, 
our vistas wide,
Though if we turn around and look again,
we may know
This is how we’ve always been.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 7, 2013


The Shift

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Maybe
the last thing we can know
is that home
is always right here with us —
Always has been
Always will be —
But we can’t know anything
before we’re willing to receive it.

What is this shift?
— Delivery of all promises —
To our journey, some sense of purpose,
Some clarity about our destination,
Some hope that we will find
the resources to lift us
higher than this hypnotizing mire
Higher than the prizes
of cheap objects made in China
Beyond the sense of being best
or being right, or simply being tired . . . 

Till we arrive
And maybe
the last truth we can receive
is that we never left.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 2, 2013


New eyes

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Here our new eyes
recognize
(a coming into focus)
things we never saw and scarcely sensed
How things before deemed unrelated
coalesce

So much here to see, to learn
New systems to divine, discern
New thoughts to send and watch return
So many new conclusions

A thing we’ve tried to sense by feel
which now our wiser eyes reveal
A new take on what’s solid, real
and what is just illusion

Our old eyes took in objects
Our new eyes reckon forces
and links and currents that connect them
to their power sources

So though we view the same terrain
our sight will never be the same
effected by a simple change —
the shift in what we note and name.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 15, 2012


Turbulence

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So I want to tell you about this
This catching of my heel up
in the turbulence
The drag I felt
The downward pull so strong, so fierce
I thought it would engulf me

I want to tell you because then
I saw your face
I thought of how you’ve spoken
of waking to a sense of dread
I thought then
that I maybe understood

And when I took myself in hand
Began the fight
I felt you there
For you have fought for this before
So as I fought
I fought for you as well:

No, I won’t be taken in
I won’t succumb
I won’t allow the dread to win
in me or anyone
I’ll stand for me, I’ll stand for us
and when I overcome
I’ll bring the sweetness back for us to share.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 13, 2012


Chrysalis

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This chrysalis
is a holy state —
Intake ceased
Action halted
Identity held suspended

A time for quiet focus of awareness
The necessity for everything
that’s yet unformed
The coalescence
of ideas and elements
The microscopic gravitation
of that which goes together
Furled wings, curled fingertips
Slow emerging clarity

In time you will step forth
Your power rise to meet the new demands
But while you need this firm container
this darkness, this external shielding
It will stay with you

Watch within
You’ll see the signs
And you’ll know when to follow
every finished impulse
into the day.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 18, 2012


Peace Channel

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Let me move in the peace channel
Defined and defended by thought
Where no worry can dart in
No recurring pitches
about what is wrong
and how someone else
should fix it
No stress about my best chance
and how I might miss it
No harping on mistakes
and dour predictions

Let the peace channel run strong
in the clarity
of my knowing
Nothing mars the calm song
of my being
or the perfect place
for everyone
to move in broad and tranquil ease
as Mind’s bright conceiving
now and all along
of everything that is.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 15, 2012


Overcoming

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This kind of thing
(they say)
happens every day
Just not to you —
A detour of life
that topples
all the urgent priorities —
The consequence of dropping them
is still unknown

New landscapes emerge
and the old goals
however dearly you desired to reach them
Must now be reassessed

But none of this is as it seems
and all the things you called your dreams
though now in shards
can never mar
the rising of your being
You’ll take these shambled obstacles
and burn a path
brighter for what you must blaze through
You’ll leave behind 
some of your plans
but you’ll deliver
You.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 11, 2012


Code

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As it is written
in the core of your being
Clear in the ancient code
there for the reading
All that you are
can truly inform you
why you are here in this life

All that you are
Sure as the solid groove —
that grounded comfort
in which you can know yourself
pure through and through
like the glow of a sunset
Sends its song into your days

No need to think 
that the things you’ve been called—
Novice, empty slate, barely evolved —
have any effect 
on the power that moves you
and offers your gift to the world.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 10, 2012


Growing New

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We made the choice
And where we could have called ourselves
Bundles of opinions
Past experiences, scars
Perspectives narrowed 
through the jarring course of years
Piles of restrictions growing larger daily
Needing soft accommodation for their weight

Instead we have decided on this:
To serve whatever is alive in us
To always focus on what’s growing
Leaving, rigorously, everything that’s dead behind —
opinions, patterns, prejudice —
And learning, every day
to be more supple

Should it then come as a surprise
to see our love so shining?
So new, so eager, so alive —
with grace and bliss entwining.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 22, 2012


Regarding Hunger

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No, really —
Who am I to write about hunger?
— I who have never been more than eight hours
without access to food?
Who am I to write about hunger?
— I who have always had time to search
for my soul’s fulfillment?

I can only say
There is a kind of hunger
that doesn’t go away
from having my belly full
There is a kind 
that grows in strength the more I feed it
And there’s a kind of satisfaction
that flies along at the exact place of its hunger
Soars in comfort
Meeting the edge before it cuts
Carving its curve again and again
like a cresting wave
Drawing a fine calligraphic line
across the page of days
Filling up my heart until it bursts
Warbling praise.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 16, 2012