Day 25: The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer (1994)

I was in grad school when the first sign that my marriage was finite appeared. There was a moment while I was student teaching when my mental compartmentalization fractured. I was with a group of A.V.I.D. students in a common area, and as they bent to review a text, I allowed my personal life to swim up for examination. It must have played out on my face because when I looked up, I met the eyes of a fellow student teacher, Ben. He, aware of my circumstances, smiled in that way, in that specific way that says “This is a smile that meets your sadness.”

In many ways, that time for me was even more difficult than the ultimate dissolution of my marriage. The pain was so new then, such a shock. Nothing made sense, and while the disbelief that it was happening to me carried on through the end, it was more reasonable to be shocked by it back then.

Memories of time are not in order, so I’m not sure if that smile was before or after my therapist shared this poem with me.

I guess it doesn’t really matter.

In particular, these lines bring me back to that blue-carpeted moment in the Commons:

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.

Whether or not I was aware at that time how my experience was linked to these words, I knew when Ben smiled at me that I did, in fact, have the strength to do what needed to be done to feed the children.

Short Stuff:

• Oriah is a Canadian poet and writer of both fiction and nonfiction books.

• Her work centers around spirituality and creativity.

Topics

identity; resilience; joy; nature; spirituality; knowledge

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 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.

--Oriah Mountain Dreamer