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 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 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.
By Oriah Mountain Dreaming,
from the book The Invitation
published by HarperONE, San Francisco
1999
The focus of her life and work has been an on-going inquiry into the Sacred Mystery.
Her writing, teaching and personal journey all explore how we can each become the individual we are at the deepest level of being and how we can co-create meaning together in the world. Blending humour, insight and compassion for our human struggles Oriah encourages herself and others to be ruthlessly honest and infinitely kind toward our own strengths and our weaknesses.
Raised in a small community in Northern Ontario.
Oriah is the author of several best-selling books:
The Invitation (now translated into more than fifteen languages),
The Dance, and The Call: Discovering Why You Are Here.
Her book, What We Ache For: Creativity and the Unfolding of Your Soul, explores the challenges, rewards, and necessity of doing our creative work.
Opening the Invitation is a small book that shares Oriah’s story of writing and sharing her much-loved poem, “The Invitation.”
All five of Oriah’s books are published by HarperONE, San Francisco.
Using story and sharing meditations Oriah’s writing explores how to follow the thread of our deepest heart's longing into a life where we can choose joy without denying the difficulties we each face. Facing the challenges and finding the joy of living who we are is further explored on her Sounds True CD, Your Heart’s Prayer.
Oriah has shared her insights and stories with audiences throughout the world at conferences and retreats and through radio and TV appearances (CBC, TVO, Oprah, NPR, PBS, Wisdom Network.)
Oriah has a long and unusual history with her name.
In 1984, at thirty years of age, after the onset of severe Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, she had a dream where several elderly women- those she calls Grandmothers in the dream- told her to change her given name to Oriah as part of the process of healing.
Nervous about doing something others might see as strange, but desperate to be well, she took the name Oriah and has been called this (by everyone but her mother) since that time.
Twenty years later, while doing a book tour, on three successive nights, in three different cities, she was told by people at the bookstores she was visiting that Oriah means light of God in Hebrew, and that it is an ancient Jewish custom to change a patient’s name when doing a healing, to invite new and healing energies.
A year after taking the name Oriah, still seeking healing, she went to a shamanic teacher who gave her the medicine name "Mountain Dreamer.”
The shaman told her that a medicine name tells someone what gifts they have to offer the world in their lifetime, and that Mountain Dreamer meant "one who likes to find and push the edge."
Because she first shared the prose-poem "The Invitation" (in 1994) with those who had come to participate in ceremony with her, the poem and her subsequent books first appeared under the name Oriah Mountain Dreamer.
This led to all kinds of interesting misunderstandings (Eg.-people assumed she was an elderly or deceased Native American man.)
Interviewers often begin conversations with, "Now that's not a real name, is it?"
Oriah, while deeply honouring the spiritual tradition from which she has received her name, understands that in our modern culture such a name is bound to prompt reactions.
She even admits to sometimes sharing the prejudice of thinking that people using names like Mountain Dreamer might be a little flaky!
So, she good naturedly explains, when asked, that Oriah Mountain Dreamer is indeed a "real" name, although not her birth name, and reflects on the fact that in our culture what is considered “most real” is that which indicates familial association (inheritance rights, marital status and/or patrilineage) while some other cultures would consider a spiritual name more “real.”
Não me interessa
o que você faz para ganhar a vida.
Quero saber o que você deseja
ardentemente,
se ousa sonhar em atender
aquilo pelo qual seu coração anseia.
Não me interessa saber a sua idade.
Quero saber se você se arriscará
a parecer um tolo por amor,
por sonhos,
pela aventura de estar vivo.
Não me interessa
saber que planetas
estão em quadratura com a sua lua.
Quero saber
se tocou o âmago de sua dor,
se as traições da vida o abriram
ou se você se tornou
murcho e fechado
por medo da própria dor!
Quero saber
se pode suportar a dor,
minha ou sua,
sem procurar escondê-la,
reprimi-la ou narcotizá-la.
Quero saber
se você pode aceitar alegria,
minha ou sua;
se pode dançar com abandono
e deixar que o êxtase o domine
até a ponta dos dedos
das mãos ou dos pés,
sem nos dizer para termos cautela,
sermos realistas,
ou nos lembrarmos
das limitações de sermos humanos.
Não me interessa
se a história que me conta é a verdade.
Quero saber
se consegue desapontar outra pessoa
para ser autêntico consigo mesmo,
se pode suportar a acusação de traição
e não trair a sua alma.
Quero saber
se você pode ver beleza
mesmo que ela não seja
tão bonita todos os dias,
e se pode buscar a origem de sua vida
na presença de Deus.
Quero saber
se você pode viver com o fracasso,
seu e meu,
e ainda,
à margem de um lago,
gritar para a lua prateada:
‘Posso!’
Não me interessa
onde você mora
ou quanto dinheiro tem.
Quero saber
se pode levantar-se
após uma noite de sofrimento e desespero,
cansado,
ferido até os ossos,
e fazer o que tem de ser feito pelos filhos.
Não me interessa
saber quem você é
e como veio parar até aqui.
Quero saber
se você ficará comigo
no centro do incêndio
e não se acovardará.
Não me interessa
saber onde,
o quê,
ou com quem você estudou.
Quero saber
o que o sustenta a partir de dentro,
quando tudo o mais desmorona.
Quero saber
se consegue ficar sozinho
consigo mesmo
e se,
realmente,
gosta da sua companhia
mesmo nos momentos
vazios da vida!
Oriah Mountain Dreamer
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