Tag Archives: personal growth

All these things

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All these things
Await the touch of your eyes
Their molecules mirrors
To show you what you are
The soft humility
Which lets you receive
Each stone, each dewdrop
And all the myriad leaves
Which you have said you loved
Cannot be lost to you.
Practice helps
And if you can silence the chatter
It helps.  No worry –
All these things
Still wait for you
No hurry
They have eternity to reciprocate
Your touch.


©Wendy Mulhern
November 17, 2011



Holding

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I passed that point.

Looking back today, I was stunned to see
How I used to hold people
Each one like a book
In which was catalogued
Their character, their strengths and weaknesses
Their relationship to me
A book I could close
And put on a shelf
Where it wouldn’t take up much room.

Now I see each person
As a window to infinity
Opening out to me huge views
In which there’s room
For them to be
And me to see them
And I can’t file them away
They are much too vast
And they make me dance so.


©Wendy Mulhern
November 16, 2011



You Can’t Evict An Idea Whose Time Has Come

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“You can’t evict an idea whose time has come.”
                                      -OWS protestors

You can’t evict
An idea whose time has come
I can’t go back to believing
We should never expect
Goodness for its own sake
Goodness without a price tag.

I can’t go back to believing
The highest virtue is
Not making a fuss
Not causing trouble
Moving along with the flow of traffic
In no one’s way . . .

Moving from my own truth
May be messy
May be terrifying
But is exhilarating enough that, no
I won’t go back into my box.


©Wendy Mulhern
November 15, 2011



Burning

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And every door you go through
You leave behind another thing
Whole worlds forgotten like dreams
Only emotions, trailing in threads,
Remain, remind you something . . . 
And then they’re gone
And you’re still moving
And you’re still here
While everything you thought you were
Dissolves
And in the tingle
You may think you’re fading too
But here you are
Still moving forward
Burning through
A comet on a wide elliptic arc
Your changes – blazing gifts 
Against the dark.


©Wendy Mulhern
November 9, 2011



On Fire

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Throw another log into the furnace
Pump the bellows, let the heat keep rising
For, whether on purpose or by chance
It seems I am committed
Open to alloys
Open to alchemy
Whatever will meld
Whatever may emerge
That which will grow stronger
as it melts and flows together
That which will arise transformed
to something unimagined
Though the steams arise and cloud my sight
Creative sparks in circling outward flight
Will forge a more expansive view
Herald the birth of something new
While anything that’s burning off
consigned to ash, will float away
without my even noticing:
The fire is where I am today.


©Wendy Mulhern
November 3, 2011



in the valley of bones*

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in the history of each half-lived life
so many bones
so many broken things
abandoned promises, buried dreams
sunken hopes with all their limp and dangling tendrils

(this is what I was going to be
this is what I meant to create
this was the early childhood promise
that was blighted by some careless, heavy hand)

fear not
each of these gets to rise
each one gets to join with others
as was intended, as was designed
to form a perfect arc
through which can pulse
the light of life
illumine everything
redeem each fallen chance

son of man, can these bones live?
can the mighty wind of oneness
unite their spirit again?
look
look and see
the rise of even that
one small tendril
is your proof.

*Ezekiel 37


©Wendy Mulhern
October 21, 2011



Learning Trust

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to Love:

You told me how you’re learning
in measured, clear-eyed steps
how to walk the balance beam of trust —
To walk, real, in your love and still stay safe.
And when a trust was breached at night
You took yourself in hand
You said to yourself, “wait, how am I safe?”
and let the answer rise up from within:
“I’m here, and there are locks on all the doors
And we were not in any danger, even then
He was a human, even when intruding
and so was bound by countless human norms
the ones that keep us safe among each other
He didn’t try to do us any harm.
“But furthermore,” you said, “I’m always safe
because I’m Spirit, and Spirit never dies.”
I saw the calming truth of that 
Shine, certain, from your eyes
— one more example of your practice 
of this crucial art
Thank you for the courage of your open heart.


©Wendy Mulhern
October 18, 2011



More

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I am eager
even impatient
Is it appropriate
that one so seasoned
as years would peg me
should want so much
keep wanting more
to find the sip, instead of satiating

rouses thirst from deep within my core?
It doesn’t matter
I will not be staid
I can’t suppress myself
I will not be downplayed
I run each day
to scan for germination
peeking green between the clods
I know it doesn’t work to pull the seeds up
but I urge them, nudge them with my thoughts
I’ll call it revolution
in which we’re all involved
I’ll seek a steady motion
that need not be resolved
I’ll polish my intention
and keep on planting seeds
till the harvest is sufficient
to satisfy these needs.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 16, 2011

(Background music: Isaac Shepard, “Struggles”)



This, My Mission

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Mission is a strong elixir
Gulped with joy, its heady mixture
sends me flying, full of hope
excited by its mighty scope

Deep as my desire, this mission
now ingested, licks within
impelling flames to move me, quicken
my intent to realize its vision

So I burn, and so I ask for water
something calming, nurturing and cool
provision for the now, but also after –
to let the mission hum and purr
but not consume –
Within the chambers of the fire
I seek a quiet room

Take off your shoes
it tells me
Feel the ground
It’s nothing that you have to do alone
You have the chorus of the wind within
which, holy, holds you cool
and keeps you sound.


©Wendy Mulhern
October 9, 2011


Grace for Today

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“Give us this day our daily bread;
Give us grace for today, feed the famished affections;”*
Today this verse
that I have heard
these many years
rang with potent meaning
in my ears
For now I notice
it affirms that I am hungry
that this deep gnawing, this distraction
is a need
that keeps me turning
since I yearn for something
surface day won’t feed
I yearn to move
in the strong current of affection
feel the tide of powerful connection
not to stand alone, to be unmoved
but to be moved in perfect balance
pouring out my care
into the network of our oneness
feeling the reverberation running back
filling in the ocean of my lack.
* From the Lord’s Prayer with Mary Baker Eddy’s spiritual interpretation


©Wendy Mulhern
October 2, 2011