The Endless Ache

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
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 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. "



"One of the easiest and most enjoyable ways to become aware of your conditioned way of seeing, to open to new perceptions, is to spend time with people who see things differently than you do. Most of us spend time with people who share our worldview, people who think and see in similar ways. It gives us comfort to have the authority of our experience reinforced by another's experience. Being with those who have had different experiences and so see differently not only opens us to new perceptions but helps us become aware of our habitual blinders...We have to become aware of and set aside our conditioned ways of perceiving in order to hear the rising symphony in the rush of the river, to see the beauty in a bit of ice, to find the story beneath a series of events, to imagine hover-chairs and beds on wheels. As Mary Olive reminds us in her poem "Wild Geese," wherever we are, our inner and outer worlds are constantly offering themselves to our imaginations. We often simply do not see what is right in front of us. We look for and see what we expect, what has been seen there before. The things that are most familiar, the world of our daily lives, the emotions and physical sensations that quickly come and go are hardly noticed or are labeled and judged in some habitual way that moves us past them with little or no real awareness. Our mind quickly labels what it perceives as good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant, useful or useless and we move toward or away from what we see based on these often unconscious and automatic judgments...Finding the stories we want to write, the play of light and shadow we want to photograph, the sounds we want to weave into songs in ways that are alive for ourselves and those to whom we will offer our work requires learning to see, to be aware, to pay attention. . . ."


"But sometimes, unexpectedly, a quiet moment finds us and we drop down into the life we have beneath all the rushing and the trying and the endless daily details, sinking into the fertile soil of the sometimes neglected inner life, where the seeds of remembering what matters are planted. What comes from that place when we give it half a chance flowers in our lives and the world, creating unexpected changes in the direction of our journey and offering unanticipated blessings to us and those around us."

"So I sat down to write at my desk in the dim light of the streetlamp outside my window. Since I was a child I have written to understand myself and the world, to find the stories that show me the meaning I can make of my life... As the words flowed I recognized a voice that has always been there within me; the voice that passionately seeks life's purpose; the voice of the tired heart that longs for real intimacy and deep rest; the voice that asks me to be fully present with it all- the pain and the joy, the beauty and the sorrow, the inner silence and the noise of the world."


--- Oriah Mountain Dreamer