Tag Archives: permaculture

The way it has to be

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Life is life —
in every place it finds itself,
it has one goal:
to live —
And living is the grace
of making more life,
more branching life-ways,
more ways more life can thrive.

You are life,
and you have always, always
let yourself be borne
along the course
of Life’s enduring flow,
effortless, inexorable
in your resplendent gravitas

No false stories
can divert your motion,
compelled, as you are
by Life’s law:
You will grow,
and you will bring with you
lush gardens,
rich communities,
deep fecundity
of soil and seed —
so much fruit will come
so naturally, from what you bring,
from your saying yes
to what you are.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 10, 2013


Structures

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Let me release myself
from structures that have washed away my depth —
the headlong chutes 
of expectations and assumptions,
and criticism’s unforgiving hardpan.
Let me take time
for Life’s slow flow —
luxuriating stretching of connection —
nourishing exchange of living substance.
Let Life’s structures grow
according to the rules
that Life alone can set
and let me fill my tiny place
in this vast net
that holds us with a closeness
that we’ve always craved,
for here, in Life’s embrace, I will be saved.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 9, 2013


Resistance

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We will slide
with the weight of water
out from the grasp
of all that sought to hold us.
We will collect in pools,
we will run in rivulets,
very quietly at first.

We will hide
in soft hollows
and be taken up by roots.
We will engage in cycles
that can’t be regimented.
We will use the tools
that can’t be taken from us —
gravity and surface tension,
super qualities inherent in our molecules.

Without our presence, all the structures —
every edifice of fear and guilt,
all the avenues of shame and blame,
all the lies that say we need their toxic brew —
will tend towards dust, becoming very dry,
will grow more brittle, and will start to fail.
It won’t be long before they blow away
and cease to plague our world.

We will slide softly
but with growing power.
We will build with what’s alive.
We’ll own our moments
and claim our hours,
and in our reclaimed truth,
we’ll thrive.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 4, 2013


A Dream

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The power started calling.
Its lines were well-developed —
vast networks underground —
and it started calling her.
Its call was stronger, more persistent,
than the voices of caution,
the voices of fear,
that said
this is not human,
you would betray humanity
to take it up.

And she knows she has to do it
so she goes —
follows its direction down suburban streets,
finds the corner place and reaches down
to heft the golden bricks.
The power comes up out of the earth
in swirls of white and gold.
A deep hole forms, and the swirls keep rising.
A woman in a windbreaker
stands beside her, resolute,
her jacket flapping in the rising of the power.
She says, But I need to stand in defense of love!
Don’t I need to stand in defense of love?
The voice says, Love doesn’t need to be defended.
She says, But I need to stand in defense of the earth!
Don’t I need to stand in defense of the earth?
The voice says,
The earth doesn’t need to be defended.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 3, 2013


Ecology

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Nothing is condemned,
Nothing thrown away —
There are so many branches
along life’s paths —
So many cycles
at every speed and scale
and everything is moving,
aligned in some great plan,
rolling out the endless course of life

No one is condemned,
No one cast aside,
for every life uniquely serves its purpose
and all shall be embraced,
for everyone belongs
and all of us
are needed where we are.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 28, 2013


My Final Offer

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There is no part of my desire
that I’m willing to give up.
I insist on all the goodness
that I crave:

The part about the living land
and our deep kinship with it;
The part about our well-honed gifts
and all the richness shared in their fruition;
The part about our home
and all the others who live with us;
The part about the healing of the earth;

All these must be included
in the goodness we acquire,
No part may be excluded from the vision.
I won’t agree to any less
and so it must be given.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 27, 2013


Entering

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Bring nothing with you,
for everything you need
is in your power to see what’s here

And there’s a lightness in knowing
every moment has, within it,
deep wells of richness,
plenty for your present thriving

And there’s no lack
of the substance in yourself
that calls forth that dark glow —
the subterranean shining
that quenches every thirst.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 26, 2013


Riding the beast

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The lengths of highway
flex their strength
like muscular snakes.
We who have thought 
they lived to serve us
start to feel our big mistake,
Start to sense how trapped we’ve been
in the grid of roads,
in the grid of time,
in the grip of (up till now)
unquestioned rules
that say we have to ride the snakes
and serve the hours 
and not complain
when (for our safety)
more and more of liberty
is locked away.

If we are to escape,
we must slide, softly,
off the back of what we have been riding,
Find ourselves together off the grid,
Build the places in between
until they make new paths
for all our energies.
Let the beast grow old and still
through lack of use,
Give our every effort to our truth.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 25, 2013


Incubation

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There is great value
in the unformed place
where the bee dance of particles
buzzes and clusters,
groups and regroups,
and a new understanding
can start to emerge,
something that’s shared,
something that joins
entities that had been separate
in some grand and wild
sliding together space
where all prior sets
of intents and opinions
are widely thrown away

And in the fresh fertility of union,
quick shoots start up,
vigorous and smooth.
New air is touched
in wonder by leaves
that had been, till then,
unimagined,
that now can take their place 
in the lush, emergent forest,
doing the sun work
to bring the great dream into being.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 24, 2013


Ark Building

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We have our instructions:
In the face of great violence,
build an ark.

So much violence in the land,
no one is even talking about it —
afraid, as they may be,
of bringing down the wrath upon their heads,
lulled, as they may be,
by the vehemence of misdirecting tales

Violence to the land,
Violence to the people,
Violence to their structures of support:
Build an ark.

Make it out of circles of our arms,
Make is out of clear communication,
Make it from the habit
of open-hearted caring,
Make it with room for everyone

Make it out of work that serves the earth,
that builds the chains of life supporting life,
Make it from our trueness,
Make it with our hearts,
Make it from the clearness of our vision.

Build the ark.
Let all the creatures in —
No point in a war against the violence —
As we build, our worth will lift us up
Upon the sea that reconfigures all.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 23, 2013