Tag Archives: identity

Standing Up

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birch by canal

Every one of us is sovereign
and the simple act
of standing up
will release us from the currents
that drag otherwise

We can stand up
and our feet will dig in
and what swirls around them
will be as nothing,
strengthened, as we will be,
by the grounded power
rising up through us
and the sight of others standing,
no longer dragged along

Each of us can stand up
in our purpose, in our intelligence,
in our understanding
of what we all desire
and what we all deserve
and have, in fact, been given.
We will claim it for us all for ever more.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 20, 2016

Inspiration

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lagoon dawn2

The water becomes wine
as induction into
what was dearly sought
and only known
through dim translucencies

What would it mean henceforth
to see the light without the medium
of lantern panes, without
the coloration and diffusion?

How would it feel for that elixir
to well up from within?
For that soft glow to which
we’ve dedicated all our earthly efforts
to be the very center of our being?
What would that change? Certainly
the things we do with thought, with time

Then let us drink that wine
and raise our hands and eyes,
let the shine
that now reveals itself as us
illumine and align
all our endeavors

Let us walk out
into the common square,
let us look
and recognize each other there.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 2, 2016

Innocence

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dawn at dock

True innocence
has no ignorance —
I learn this as I ride
the storm washed day,
I feel it as I pick my way
through my internal disarray
and feel the rays of light
infusing gradual understanding

This innocence
has not been torched by tragedy
and has not been imprisoned
in walls of fear,
this innocence steps clear
of all the crashing disillusionment,
of all the terror,
irrepressible assertion
that we are good to the core,
that we can steer by this
because we always are.

Therefore I saw your face as though it were the face of God,
and you were pleased with me.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 29, 2016

Freedom Prayer

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Katama shadow selfie

Make me new, each day,
remind me of the bright strength
that waits, quicksilver, for me to ride,
always safe from any efforts
to frame it stiff, subvert it,
remind me of the over-welling love
that floods out all attempts
to make it small

Not what I own,
but what is mine
by virtue of belonging
in all that is,
not what I thought I was,
but what I am,
ever surging with the infinite.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 26, 2016

Standing With You

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early morning west field

You don’t need me to be with your fear,
you need me to go with you to where
you have never been afraid,
where you are so sure
of your place among
the forces that move everything,
where you own the free walking
down the winds along the high hills,
and the swift soaring
between craggy canyon walls
and the profound stillness
of the center point
from which you know how you will move

I hear the raw keening
in your cry of fear,
but through the static
I also hear your clear tone.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 8, 2016

A Tree’s Counsel

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Oak and Wendy

The tree said:
I am not my branches —
my branches are just pathways.
I am the pulsing center of energy
that pushes up and out and down
through branches and roots,
and if none are there, or if
they’re in the wrong place,
I make new ones

You and I, the tree told me,
are not that different.
You are not your limbs,
nor yet the sum
of who you’ve known,
and what you’ve done.
You’re not bound to the patterns
you’ve lived so many different times

You, too, can pull yourself back
to the dynamic source core,
you can concentrate your center
and from there surge out
in the way that makes
the most embracing umbrella
your love can offer.
You, too, can stabilize the atmosphere,
you, too, can establish life.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 7, 2016

Full

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bird flying

This breath will lift you
to the very corners of your being —
nay, for your being is a plane
that extends infinite, far beyond
the page, the canvas

This breath will fill you instantly
although you are infinite —
you will rise at the brim point
of satisfaction, you will fly
in the full power of your wings

For indeed, though your presence
fills the field of all that you can see or know,
you still have locus to express the impulse
of your joy, you still can soar
along the contours of your love.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 13, 2016

Time and Being

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bike trail sun and shadows

Everything you are, you’ve always been —
We see you through the course of time
to help us understand

The fullness of your being
is more than we’re equipped
to take in at a single view

We see the infant, and the youth,
and what we call the arc of your progression
as if each were the only you extant

Whereas, in fact, your being is
the whole of them, and more —
a thing we’d know if we saw more dimensions

We see us through the course of time
and still don’t understand — our view of life is just a scan
across the field of what we’ve always been

And nothing’s lost —
no radiance can fail to show or cease to shine,
and all we are is here for us to be.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 12, 2016

Entrance

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sky,horizon

At this gate, we will not need
to show identification.
We will not need a resumé,
or a checklist of experiences
we have accrued.
We will not need to be well dressed,
rehearsed, or polished.

This is the gate of anywhere,
this is the gate of here and now,
and the one thing we need
is down at the very bottom of our being,
under all those papers,
all that detritus,
all those shed skins,
where it seems it will be really hard
to pull it out

Except here it is,
and we don’t need to answer to anyone.
Just rise up inside
and walk through.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 9, 2016

Pep Talk

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maple hollow

No point in sitting around, waiting around,
hoping to be loved.
Am I not love? Am I not able, therefore,
to love fully and freely,
and bring all that joy
abundantly home?

No point in checking daily, hourly,
for signs of approbation.
The affirmation of my worth
comes from the fount that springs up,
constantly, from my essence. In the allness
and the oneness of infinity,
there is no place but here,
and here and now
is where I am celebrated,
as are we all.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 6, 2016