Tag Archives: permaculture

Need

Posted on by
Reply

September grasslands

Look up —
Right here where you are,
exactly what you need
is at hand. Each moment is packed
with more richness
than you could have imagined,
each person equipped
with what will fill you
with the heart-full rush of sustenance

However barren the landscape may look,
however threadbare your prospects,
however empty you may feel your interactions are,
what you need is ever always here

Look again —
The power of your love
will open all the secrets,
and the bounty that is waiting for release
will tumble out for you in grateful eagerness
to be the priceless thing that meets your need.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 3, 2016

Lesson for Today

Posted on by
2

morning by seep

With infinite patience
the land teaches us. The lessons
flow in slowly, altering our attitude,
our posture, changing us
from the inside out, letting us realize
the magnitude of what it demands,
but also the way we can meet the need,
the way to proceed
at the speed of seasons
where everything has time to harmonize,
at the speed of fog rising
and clearing,
of dew forming
and drying,
at the speed of frogs and crickets,
blackbirds and ravens,
grass and fern and fir tree
all breathing together,
at the speed of knowing right now,
of being and doing
what is needed.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 31, 2016

Under the Sun

Posted on by
1

plums

Everything bends to our desires —
trees grow plump fruit
because we ask them to,
leaves yield up
what they know we need

This is true for everything
that walks or flies or swims
in this world —
they are all celebrated

And the plants appreciate
the mobility and immortality
we so easily grant them in return,
spreading their seed.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 18, 2016

Tending Fire

Posted on by
Reply
porcelain

porcelain

Ah, heat! The fire teaches us
it is the release
of all that we have gathered
that warms us, and warms others

In the provision
of what the fire requires,
I recognize my corresponding needs:
enough air and enough proximity
to hold the heat within the burning core

The satisfaction
of the steady flame
responding to my nudging
lends a glow to heart,
hearth, earth, home.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 28, 2016

Vessel by Jennifer McCurdy, photo by Gary Mirando

Artesian

Posted on by
Reply

Winter trees, Discovery Park

When I’m still,
and ask for it,
the inspiration comes up swift,
quick welling from the deepest pools within me,
sudden flowing, as if struck from rock

But truly
relying on catchment —
all the collected liquid
from the upper hills
coalescing down, bubbling out,

Clearly not a thing conjured
with tricks of thought,
clearly testament to my context,
to the terrain in which I rise,
natural as weeds, as springs,
as love,
from every cradling crevice.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 10, 2016

Patience

Posted on by
Reply

plum tree

Go easy with the plans.
Grand plans can crash
through the fragile screens
of our connections, the web
with which we anchor our experience.
They can crash through
the wispy wefts of imagination,
the ones we use to build our vision

There is a place to plan big,
but then we must come quickly down,
for seedlings have different needs
from saplings, which have different
roles from trees,
and fruition requires
many conditions
to come about

You can imagine an orchard and a harvest
in an instant
but how to make it grow
robust through all its stages,
through the years —
more than big plans,
that is what we need.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 9, 2015

Touching Ground

Posted on by
Reply

looking south from north end

Now and again in flashes
I get this image:
My foot touching ground
for the first time,
the knowledge of contact
flowing back into me
up the curve of my calf,
my knee,
I feel its echo down my arm
as if my arm had never
up till now
been really here

And I sense
that this discovery
is what I have always needed
to move with power in the world,
to be whole.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 5, 2015

Every Living Thing

Posted on by
Reply

spring maples

Every living thing desires
to clasp hands with another,
desires to feel the interchange of juices,
to be strengthened
by what they give
and what flows back,
to feel potentials multiply

Every living thing desires communion,
to nourish and be nourished
by the whole,
Every living thing
fulfills the call of Life like this —
We can’t deny it —
We know what we want.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 7, 2015

Weathered

Posted on by
Reply

view from hill

The sun scorches us
The wind dries us
We only notice on the edges
of our work and our wonder

The brambles trip and prick us,
Some insects bite —
We carry all these things
with a nascent understanding
of how we are owned by this land
and how our love emerges
as we are eroded,
how in this weathering
we become capable,
in this honing
we become something different —
More of the earth, less of the city,
closer to both the land and the sky.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 3, 2015

Stealing Away

Posted on by
Reply

mossy trees

We are stealing away,
feeling the need to be quiet
lest our escape, somehow, be arrested

We are not talking about
the wasteland we are walking out of,
not yet. Not till we are safe
on the other side

We have seen many things —
Things that were not hidden, really,
but we just couldn’t see them
without a reference point

Now that those points
have come into focus
we are going, as fast as we can,

Less fleeing than walking rapidly
towards our destination,
to that safe haven
where we can be real.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 21, 2015