Tag Archives: freedom

Metamorphosis

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Nothing stops the peace
of this release:
The shrunken husk,
the burst cocoon,
curls in upon itself
and so recedes
No need to seek its cloister
anymore

The bright wings pumping full of life
stretching out to own a greater sphere
affirm my purpose
and epitomize
why I’m here

So I begin to learn
to move, inhabit this expansive dome
To seek the currents in the air
To find myself at home

And if I need to feel a close embrace
I’ll seek it in a way that lets my wings stay free
Angelic cradling and seeing, face to face
how we embody what we’re meant to be.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 2, 2012
Music in background: “Evening Chat” by Isaac Shepard


Manifesto II: Tipping

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The old story must
fall away like a husk
for it is too dry
to sustain the living—
those who now stride
into their own

Since there is no place for them 
in the old story—
No job, no niche, not even 
one small joy to suck on,
They will turn
and find their sustenance within
and with each other

And those who managed the old story
may try, once again, to recalibrate—
Give them just enough juice
so they will stay
But it’s too late
The load has tipped:
With a grand whoosh
all the piled up lies
will slide into oblivion
And we will put forth
our new green.


©Wendy Mulhern
February 22, 2012







You have to be grounded to fly

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You have to be grounded to fly
As kites well show—
Resistance from their strings
giving the wind the force
to push them high
Which if released would let them fall
slicing tip-wise 
through the layers of air

You have to be grounded to fly
As birds well know—
as they push off against the gravity
that holds the air that cushions them
Through which they carve their flight
with sharply honed intention
and the slipstream of their glide

You have to be grounded to fly
As planets go
through space, 
their molten centers coalescing force
The silent concentration of their cores
connecting them in orbit to their stars

And so it is with us
Within our deeply grounded center
is born the power that sends us forth
on arcs of soaring splendor.


©Wendy Mulhern
February 19, 2012



Soul Retrieval

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No, no,
This is not the promise you were given
Mountains of detritus,
Self-enforced confinement
Stress and tracks of weary years
Across your face

No
This is not your course
The clock-enforced conformity
The envious and jealous stabs within
Reflexive judgement,
Passing down the curse
Of being conquered

However much the rules you’re taught
claim to control
You never could be severed
from your soul

Hold with me now
Together, let’s sing your song
It leads you back along the lines of longing
To where you’ve always sensed that you belong
We’ll all converge there jubilantly thronging
At home as if we never had been gone

Let our eyes now feed each other’s embers
Resurrect our light so we remember
What had seemed so lost from us, so far
Who we’ve ever been
And who we are.


©Wendy Mulhern
February 14, 2012


(background music: Max Richter, “Embers”)

Dancing free

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There are natural ways
for things of different type to separate
The wheat from chaff with weight and agitation
The silver melting free in fervent heat

What then releases our presuppositions
that hold us stiff and stressed and isolated?
What focuses our sense of truth conditions
that home us to the joy for which we’ve waited?

A centrifuge, a tone, an ionizer
The kindled heat between caressing hands
A touch of grace that leaves us kinder, wiser
A place we feel we have the right to stand
The light that sparks and rises from connection
Illuminates our timeless, deep perfection.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 13, 2012


Idols

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Winds of Spirit
Sweep my thought
It’s time to cast out idols
Those who ask for time
Those who ask for blood
Those who ask for tiresome daily ritual
Who say they have the power
to save my sorry life
or, if I fail to worship,
occasion my demise

But they know nothing, and their mouths can’t speak
The life they offer is anemic, weak
And Spirit shows me, right here, what I am
Exposing all their noxious threats as sham

I will not worship
the god of appearances
I will not worship
the god of social norms
I will not worship
the god of shopping bargains
I will not worship
the god of health concerns

Winds of Spirit, sweep my soul
for I am made to worship 
what is true and whole
That frames the space for all that’s free and wild
And holds us each as Life’s untrammeled child.


©Wendy Mulhern
February 6, 2012

(background music: Max Richter, “Haunted Ocean”)

Deliverance Prayer

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Deliverance Prayer (background music “The Blessing” by Isaac Shepard)

Bring my soul up out of Egypt
Walk me step by patient step
out of the patterns that enslave me
Release me from the lockstep
that doesn’t look
that is afraid to seek the kinship of a smile
 
Teach me to spin out on the leaf edge
of the wind
and twirl into the knowing
of the infinite variety —
Intricacies which Life has ever blessed
 
Let me no longer follow
the commands that run them over
that allow us three or four straight norms at best
Unclamp my feet from marching
Free my toes
to find the subtle footholds
midst the wildness of the river
 
Free the rivers, too
and let us all please tumble brightly
down the perfect, wild, unchanneled 
course that we were born for
Let us know each other 
deeply, truly, freely
 
Bring my soul up out of Egypt
That I may worship
My Good.


©Wendy Mulhern
January 3, 2012
 
photo by Edward Mulhern
 

Imposter

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It’s not your voice, I told him
that censures you, that censures me,
that seeks to keep us hemmed in
on a narrow path between our fears
with needs that go unclaimed, unmet
through weary, empty years
separated from each other
so we never feel
the grand connection that could comfort us
and flawlessly reveal
the glorious fireworks of our being
all the color, all the light
continuous igniting 
of the flame that pulses bright
to mark the vastness of the universe
in which we freely roam
which is defined by us
and is our rightful home
Your voice, I told him,
won’t consign our souls to hell
It knows what’s true about you
and it knows it well.


©Wendy Mulhern
January 29, 2012



Learning Freedom

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Today I begin
Step by patient step
To teach myself my freedom:

Freedom from fear—
For you are not the monsters
The news has said you are
Not waiting to attack
Not waiting to censure
You, like me
Are just waiting for a sign
That if you look to me
I will not pounce
I will not ignore you
I will welcome you in.

Freedom from judgement—
For it was never my idea
To mind the way a person smells
Or how they move or how they sing
Or what they like or what they wear
We’re made to breathe
In one breath of acceptance
In grand co-mingling, everything we are
communicated thus through all our senses
Embraced and celebrated
Brought in from afar.

Freedom to move—
In circles swift expanding
Beyond the cage in which I thought I sat
To touch in fearless care and understanding
And feel the waves of love
Encircle us at last.


©Wendy Mulhern
January 25, 2012



Tectonic Shifting

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See how we are connected
A chain of touch and memory
Contact invoked reverberation
Echoing and spreading

Once you touch the truth
It doesn’t matter what you brought
Your litany of limitations
All the mazes of your thought

The tuning of our oneness
Overtakes our notions of ourselves
The volume of the hum out-sounds
The drone of all mundane concerns

The secret of free energy is ours
But not to speak of
For only when it touches you can you be sure
it’s true
And then you’ll leave your whole collection
of self images
For one clear constant hit of who you are.


©Wendy Mulhern
January 23, 2012