Sovereign

Be alert but not afraid:

The wily lies with their insinuations

that try to catch you in the snare

of sorrow, slavery, and tiresome machinations

cannot intrude upon your power

As long as you are clear that you are free

and let no contradiction sit within

then nothing from outside of you can squelch you:

Like sprouts that break the concrete,

you will win

You will stay sovereign

when you know

there’s nothing that can undermine your soul

and since the heart of you is ever whole

no lie of brokenness can take control

Be alert but not afraid

for in the love with which you’re made

you can resist each lie that says

you’re any less than you.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 31, 2012

Special Announcement

My first collection of poems is out and available for purchase online at Amazon and CreateSpace! 

Here are the links:

Infinite Permission on Amazon

Infinite Permission on Createspace

I think you’ll enjoy the collection — the arc of the message through the poems and the startlingly synergistic art from Mellissae Lucia.  We’d love to see this book reach everyone who might find it inspiring.  If you’d be willing to review it on Amazon, that would help us a lot.  Thanks for your support.

And now for tonight’s poem:

Implicate Order

Every hidden thing

will find its way to surface

in the folding and refolding

of the necessary permutations

All the patterns possible in each design

must lay their sequences 

along the dance of time

It isn’t destiny unrolling

in a rigid line

It’s more the complex undulations of a plane

wherein no signal, however small, is lost

Though it may seem confused, distorted, tossed

by all the other waves that intersect

Each thing that is

will have its full effect.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 29, 2012

The love that you are

The love that you are

exists independent of anything —

of circumstances, of conditions

of approval, recognition

or of prowess, erudition

or credentials, or permission

The love that you are

floats inside

in silent singing jubilation —

unexpected gratitude

that flows in constant circles

through your being,

bubbles up

like ancient water springs

quenches all your thirst for being seen

and known as worthy

The love that I am

sees this, thanks you —

you and the love that you are.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 28, 2012

Arrival

How did I get so lucky

as to have these friends?

— These ones that I can sit with

in a late night cafe bar

(jukebox playing loud beside us)

This one who is an angel

This one who is so brave

And I can be here on this rainy night

embraced in brightness 

feeling so at home

How am I so blessed?

— To feel so known and loved

after all these years

To be no longer hiding

No longer silent

in voice or body

No longer separated by those awkward masks

But here and now

to be just me, with them, at last.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 27, 2012

Who rules you?

If God is a tyrant

It doesn’t matter who rules you —

which voices, external or internal

bear down on you

bend you to their yoke

You have no hope for freedom anyway

Only the hope of bargaining

for some marginally less paltry

slice of life

But if there is freedom anywhere

If there is fulfillment

If there is any love, any bright joy

Then something must be holding up the ceiling

of the sky

Some law must make provision

for dynamic lift

If God were a tyrant

There would be no point in life at all

But Life rises

irrepressible

and joy is real, and comes unbidden

Flashes of brilliant day

take us by surprise

proving

God is not a tyrant

and you can have

everything you love.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 25, 2012

Season of Rainbows

It is a season of rainbows

and sun breaks

So unexpected

against the darkness of the day

So easy to miss

in an instant of tunnel vision

And the bright patches

are too small, too short to bask in

Too wet to plan a picnic

or a bike ride

But in the moment

when their resplendent sheen

breaks across my sight

There is a warmth to it

a depth, a lift

that strikes some inner place

hitherto unnoticed

and lights it up.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 24, 2012

Step Two: Overcome Atomization*

Oh comrades!

Look what has been done to us

The “news” reports of crime

the ever-broadcast warnings

so far more frequent 

than the actual events

inculcate, with alarm, their daily message:

“Fear your neighbor

Fear the foreigners — they hate you

Fear the poor — they want your stuff

Fear everything that’s not controlled by Us”

Other voices of “authority” chime in:

“Fear your body

Fear your inner voices

Fear your desires, distrust your heart’s choices

Look to us for your allotted goodness,

the very little you deserve.”

Comrades! Look what these words

have done to us

They’ve taken even this —

The names we had for fellowship —

Made them evil

But we can overcome and stand together

Conquer each internal fear

Engage our courage

with small displays of unity

Build up our trust

for each other, for ourselves

and for our goodness

We shall overcome

because we must.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 23, 2012

*From From Dictatorship to Democracy, by Gene Sharp

My bones

The silent structure of support

makes no bones about its role

Doesn’t speak

Doesn’t have opinions

but stands a steady presence

making room

for currents to course through

Holding up the arcs of strength

Allowing movement

And to feel it in my bones

means to be sure

Not based on whim or mood

or pretense or projection

But on the solid weight of being —

That in me which interacts with gravity —

Its density providing quiet dignity

Competent in service

Standing up

for me.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 21, 2012

Steadying

Spirit, your eye

knows how to appraise me

You know how

to cradle my head in your hands

and tenderly reset

each strand of hair

each ruffled thought

each foolish misconception

You know how to set me steady

Hold me till my inner balance

finds itself

Send me on my course so gently

I can feel the poise to guide myself

Spirit, your gaze

is so clear

When I see with your eyes

I know that what I see is true:

My love is strong, my joy is pure

I choose your sight

to see through

I choose your sight

to see me through.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 20, 2012

Drawing Lessons

My hand wouldn’t do

what my eyes wanted

But, it protested,

it wasn’t its fault

My eyes had been unclear

My mind’s eye had been ready

to recognize

but not to direct

It wanted my hand

to bring forth beauty

on its own

But it needed more vision.

They stand in need of some negotiation

Some sharing of a step-by-step relation

The hand, the mind, the hand

to share their contributions,

The work to take more than a single iteration

Yes, I see a field of patience is required

to reach the image that my heart desired.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 19, 2012

Chrysalis

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

Article of Faith

Maybe faith can move mountains

But only Love can tell

where the mountain needs to go

Only Love can place

each sparrow on its twig

and every bright cascading stream

in its swift channel 

down the mountainside

Faith can grasp

the malleability

of all perception

Stand upon the precipice

of possibility

And can see that anything

can be made to happen

But only love can tap the wisdom

to determine 

what step to take

what hills to move

So let me cultivate my faith

but in the field of love.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 16, 2012

Peace Channel

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

Our Room

It is a room of lights —

vessels of lights

strings of lights

soft lamps

It is a room of color —

reds, mostly; also gold

and greens and oranges,

blues and purples

It is a room of creativity —

Ideas have been born here,

and children

and gifts and poems

and ardent visions

So we return here

to be inspired

to find direction

and regeneration

To feast our eyes

and rest our minds

reset our souls

before we venture forth again.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 14, 2012

Mind’s Eye View

In my mind-picture of you

you were painted

with a bright palette —

yellows and oranges and greens —

exuberant color splashing

from your hands

which stretched out open,

the joy of your creating

crackling between your fingers

great spreads of overlapping hues

rising from you

filling up the canvas

and I knew

This is a true picture of you

Something you’ve always been

Something you will again

learn how to be.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 13, 2012

Stillness

We moved together like waves

And then

I filled with limpid stillness

Though I could feel

the responsive column

through the depth of it

How any perturbation

would touch all of it

Nothing was moving

It was weightless, blessed

And I held it there

Nestled in your arms

for as long as the moment

of inertia

In the balance

of utter security

In the settled peace

of two.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 12, 2012

Overcoming

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

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

Balance

Love, like ocean

has its natural balance

Each patch of water

holds every impulse

of every wave around it

The one that’s rolling toward the shore

The one that’s drawing back across the sand

The one that crashed around the rocks

and is returning

The one that rippled down the sloping land

It moves with every one of them at once

No strife, no strain, no clash of time —

The calm absorbing of each motion passing through,

Steady relaying of each arc of truth

So love accommodates the waves

Waves of feeling, waves of yearning

Waves of hope sent out beyond awareness

Waves of care, outgoing and returning

Love can take no stand, form no opinion

Make no ploy, teach no lesson, put no spin on

Everything’s accounted for, though nothing tallied

Every balance level-true

Each impulse valued

Love needs no decision

as it spaciously makes place

for every true desire

And every grace.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 9, 2012

Current

Music brings us together:

The songs we heard then,

when we hear them now,

Suffuse me with the same softness —

The same streaming of our shared current —

Fill me with the hum of that vibration

in which we feel each tuning

of each other’s thoughts

Togetherness is its own music:

Weaving of counterpoint and harmony

The impress of our love upon eternity

And the inclusive hold it has on us.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 8, 2012

New Truth

Here is the new truth:

Right now, you know

everything you need

to unfold 
in the exquisite presence

of your perfection

You know

as surely as a seed

the subtle gravitations

that form you

at this moment

into what will swell and curl

and brilliantly unfurl

to capture sugar from the sun

You don’t need to learn 

how to do it

Or do it badly for a while

and then get better

It’s not presumptuous

to know that you are perfect now

That your internal guide

unerringly directs you

in the shining grace of being

That every gift you give

has been designed

to bless essentially

And so it will

And all you’re called to be

you will fulfill.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 7, 2012

Cipher

What kind of day can leave me

 at the end

without a single thought?

— A day of traveling —

of packing up and leaving

— car for plane, plane for car,

car for home

A time to wait, then move —

Wait for lines

Wait for land to turn in panorama 

underneath the plane

Wait for our ride, 

wait for traffic . . .

A day in which I thought I glimpsed

the key to everything —

to my whole life

and life for all of us —

the end to all the troubles 

that have haunted us

A moment where it seemed so clear

and yet I had no words

except “of course”

— a thing I’ve seen before

and so can wait

to have come clear again.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 6, 2012

Perfect

To Edward

It’s perfect

the way we travel together

Comfort in time, rhythms aligned

Compatible blend

of ease and adventure

Relishing all that we find

It’s perfect

the way we’re evolving together

Questings so similar

Thought currents parallel

Wonderful mixing

of longing and insight

Confluence of spirit and mind

It’s perfect

the way that we now come together

Our movement as one

like chords in a song

Exquisite expression

of tender connection

as bright as our lights ever shined.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 5, 2012

Precipice

You may be daring

and brilliantly alive

But I still can’t watch you go

prance on a precipice

Yes, I’m a little bit wrong here

Yes, I know caution is tippy

And faith in your balance —

My certain conviction 

of your sure perfection —

Serves many times better

to safeguard your person

than all of my worries 

and cries to be careful

I know it’s the same for me —

Times that I know 

that although you can’t stand it

you know you must let me be free

You care that I care

And I feel that way, too

So we come to a balance 

of what we will do

At times for each other

we’ll dial back the daring

And sometimes we’ll deftly belay

And sometimes we’ll hold 

to the faith in our caring

and keep ourselves out of the way. 

©Wendy Mulhern

October 4, 2012

Gifts

Sand scoots down the beach

like birds flocking

Catspaws race along the tidal pools

Waves froth white across the swath of ocean

Wind rules

In the quiet dunes

the wind is lighter

Soft sand settles on my face and chest

Moves in starts and stops

to shift within its ridges

Swiftly filling all our footprints in

Huge rocks may be ruins

of what was once a headland

Now they stand like personalities

Faces, figures, spires and arching structures

Sentinels watching at the edge of sea

The grandeur sets our thoughts

to deep reflection

of purposes established before time

The service we were called to

long before this life began

The call that makes us most alive

Sure as these rocks

and all the life they shelter

Sure as this wind, 

Sure as this tide

What calls us here has called us here forever

Our gifts abide.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 2, 2012