The Invitation
It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.
It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain. I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.
It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see beauty, even when it’s not pretty, every day, and if you can source your own life from its presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes!”
It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.
It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.
It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.
From ‘The Invitation’ by Oriah Mountain Dreamer
ISBN 0-7225-4045-0
1 Response • Leave a response
June 3, 2008 5:53 am
kate says:
Dear Ruth,
Thank you for the loan of the book entitled the ‘Invitation’ by Oriah Mountain Dreamer. It has been stimulating and comforting. Here is a response to: ‘It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.’
The writer of the poem entitles the explanatory chapter as ‘Fire’. She talks about Fire burning away dross and how at times we can awaken to find ourselves encircled with fire. She challenges us not to shrink back from the flames but allow them to transform us. Oriah speaks from the personal experience of being with a close friend in crisis who developed a brain anuism and having to make immediate decisions.
I am encouraged to own the Fire in my life as worthwhile – better to be rid of the burdens, ‘dross’, than to use up needless energy carrying them. The gift to me is the strengthening of my resolve to keep staying with my friends, children and clients who are struggling: to keep learning to be attuned them in relationship with me, and me with them. One of my daughters made a decision the other week which made me angry and fearful for her. It was important that she kept her distance from me, and me from her, until we were able to accept our difference and to take responsibility for our own reactions. My relationships have become more robust, taking the knocks, surviving and knowing the bond of love superceeds personal emotion. I keep learning each day to find the place to stand with others in their Fire, whether that is close to them or more at a distance.