Tag Archives: personal growth

The Forest of Two Worlds

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What is the forest of two worlds, 
you ask.
Let me take you there
Where with one liquid step, you disappear
from all the ways you measure, count and tally
from every disappointment—
all the ways you’re sorry
Tasks you think precede your satisfaction
Annoyances that bait you for reaction

In the forest’s second world
You find yourself entrancingly aware
of everything that sings, 
all that unfolds 
in brightness, 
and your strong deep care
for life that pulses with you,
For each breath you share, 
and what the sharing gives you
and the grateful prayer
that leads you to acknowledge
The perfection of your place
In here and now, in union
And in blessed grace.


©Wendy Mulhern
December 29, 2011



Blessed darkness, sacred light

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Here where the symbols
have worn thin—
Thin enough for holes
and transparent patches
Broken threads dangling by threads
Small connections lost
throughout the fabric

Here where the symbols have worn thin
from overuse, and being used to carry
that which shares no essence
with their purpose
That which seeks to co-opt 
all we value

Here where darkness offers
welcome respite from the blaring signs
I seek to bow my head and close my eyes—
To take the time
for that deep stillness
and the darkness of my waiting silence
to form a frame to see the sacred light.


©Wendy Mulhern
December 23, 2011



Journey

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I have been on an adventure
Coming back, I could call it
A time of input
Or a time of utter uselessness
(No to do’s accomplished)
I had to take time
To let the impulse dissipate
And return to the world of
All that I’ve earned
And all that I owe
And what I pull daily
Through the hours —
That which I have called reality —
So I regain my steadiness
So become grounded.
But listen!
There is a different world
Or there is more to this one
Than I had imagined
Each day full
Of possible mind-corridors
With their secret bright
Bursts of delight
And sweetness.
I can go there
And bring these fruits back
They can adorn my moments
I need never be prosaic again.


©Wendy Mulhern
December 20, 2011



Opening

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It wasn’t an obvious change

Not like signal flags strung up a mast

Each letter’s pattern flapping brightly

Not like an avalanche
Taking down half a mountainside
Not like a rite of passage
Attended by ceremony and celebration
Process and resolve, 
Admonition and attention
Just a small door that was there all along 
Now quietly unlocked.


©Wendy Mulhern
December 18, 2011



Dowsing

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I.
Hands high, palms 
facing outwards, head back
An attitude of seeking
Hoping for a jolt of
some kind of spirit
some kind of truth
(or that which wafts in
on cellos’ orchestrated chords
that tug across you
swaying you inside
lifting your essence in supplication)
You wait.

II.
In the soul’s-mirth dawn
where melody has traced
a path that wandered
till the whole song was covered
and the rising chords suffuse the background
(rose and orange and magenta)
You shake off
the benightedness of night—
its last remaining muddles
dispersing like water drops
now bright with sun
Already so immersed in Spirit
you don’t even need to dive.


©Wendy Mulhern
December 14, 2011



Empowered

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To see you sovereign
is my delight:
to see you stand,
your power fully
at your own command.
You wield it, as you must,
from your abiding love
and so, implicitly, I trust
your truth.  And also your resolve.

And though the waves
of doubt and pain
may crash against your walls
I trust your strength
to persevere
till each aggressor falls.

And you will reach 
your valiant hand once more
To raise up anyone
who’s beaten down
and set them standing
upright on your shore
and walk with them
till they can walk alone.


©Wendy Mulhern
December 8, 2011


The Power of Yes

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It’s not that I said no, I said
In fact, I said, not yes
Which means, let’s talk
Perhaps we can negotiate.

But now, the power of my yeses
Bold and saucy
Clear-eyed, ready
Blasts out all the second guesses

Yes I will say no
No not as a force so much
As just a simple absence
No room in me for that which isn’t yes
No time for wishy-washiness 

The yes of what I love
will blaze on through;
The present positive
defines what’s true.


©Wendy Mulhern
November 30, 2011



Untying Time

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We find ourselves as characters
Unfinished, emerging 
as on time’s great loom
we’re woven,
The colors of our purpose and desires
Slow-forming on its tapestry of story
With wefts that wrap and then dip down
unseen
And poke up further on between the warps
The things we know, then don’t,
Then know again
The breathless trailing edges
of our hopes . . .

But then
We may view time as our dimension
Something we’ve stretched out
upon a frame
Coordinates established by our mind force
to help us understand our vital being
And maybe time, and time’s whole tapestry
We’ll take up one day, like a mighty cloak
to wrap ourselves
But then to fling away
So we may stride in freedom
since we know
That we endure, outside of time, eternal
And the day
No longer bound 
May then be redefined
And time be understood again
As rhythm
A beat to dance, a riff to sing
A harmony
An endless field and we the masters
Untied from time 
Aloft on Spirit’s wing.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 24, 2011

(Background music: Isaac Shepard, “Thoughtful”)

From a Conversation: Three Points

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1.
I realized, he said
I didn’t need to teach her tennis
My job was just to help her
discover her own game.
And so it is, he said,
in all of our endeavors
Integrity within gives us the cue
The harmony of all we are
and our uniqueness through and through
will form the pattern we embody
Impel the grace of everything we do.

2.
Of all the efforts made to teach us —
Goals and rules, and models to compare —
Just one thing will ultimately reach us
Which is to know there’s somebody that cares.

3.
In action lies your mastery
In mastery, you have no need
To justify, defend or vaunt your actions
Your works will speak for you
Through them you will succeed.


©Wendy Mulhern
November 22, 2011