ORIAH MOUNTAIN DREAMER`~`

ORIAH MOUNTAIN DREAMER

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
hearts'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 center
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
be realistic
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 is 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 at 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 center 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:

THE DANCE

I have sent you my invitation,
the note inscribed on the palm of
my hand by the fire of living.
Don't jump up and shout,
"Yes, this is what I want!
Let's do it!"
Just stand up quietly and dance with me.
Show me how you follow your deepest desires,
spiralling down into the ache within the ache.
And I will show you how I reach inward and open outward
to feel the kiss of the Mystery,
sweet lips on my own, everyday.
Don't tell me you want to hold the
whole world in your heart.
Show me how you turn away from making
another wrong without
abandoning yourself when you are hurt and
afraid of being unloved.
Tell me a story of who you are,
And see who I am in the stories I am living.
And together we will remember that each of us
always has a choice.
Don't tell me how wonderful things will be. . . .
some day.
Show me you can risk being completely at peace,
truly OK with the way things are right now
in this moment,
and again in the next
and the next and the next. . .
I have heard enough warrior stories of heroic daring.
Tell me how you crumble when you hit the wall,
the place you cannot go beyond by the
strength of your own will.
What carries you to the other side of that wall,
to the fragile beauty of your own humanness?
And after we have shown each other how we
have set and kept the clear, healthy boundaries
that help us live side by side with each other,
let us risk remembering that we never stop
silently loving those we once loved out loud.
Take me to the places on the earth
that teach you how to dance,
the places where you can risk
letting the world break your heart.
And I will take you to the places where the
earth beneath my feet
and the stars overhead
make my heart whole again and again.
Show me how you take care of business
without letting business determine who you are.
When the children are fed
but still the voices within and around us
shout that soul's desires have too high a price
let us remind each other
that it is never about the money.
Show me how you offer to your
people and the world
the stories and the songs you want our
children's children to remember,
and I will show you how I struggle
not to change the world,
but to love it.
Sit beside me in long moments of shared solitude,
knowing both our absolute aloneness
and our undeniable belonging.
Dance with me in the silence
and in the sound of small daily words,
holding neither against me
at the end of the day.
And when the sound of all the declarations of
our sincerest intentions has died away on the wind,
dance with me in the infinite pause
before the next great inhale
of the breath that is breathing
us all into being, not filling the emptiness
from the outside or from within.
Don't say, "Yes!"
Just take my hand
and dance with me.

Oriah Mountain Dreamer