This is the first ever guest writer entry for InspirACTION, featuring the work of my close friend Angie Morell. Below you’ll find the poem of inspiration called “The Invitation” by Oriah Mountain Dreamer. Under the video reading of this passage you’ll find Angie’s reflection which I’ve got to tell you, gave me goosebumps.
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.
-Oriah Mountain Dreamer
Reflection and Response to The Invitation
I invite you to strip away all that is you. Your outside, your materials. Strip down to your soul. Have you met your soul yet? It’s a beautiful thing… wondrous and amazing and connected to everything that is around you. Take away all that you have worked for in this life, or in past existences. Take away the necessity to feel and… just be. What do you get? What is it worth? Bare and blank, what gives you purpose in this realm?
I don’t care who you are, who you work for, your annual income, who you know or what you do that makes you cool. I don’t care if you lie or if you cheat or how much you can drink… I want to know… what is the ESSENCE of you. These things… things you can touch, things that give you status, things that may ‘drive’ you… are just waves… I want the whole ocean.
Right now I feel the hard chair I’m sitting in. the uncomfortable position I was put in, the cup of coffee on the table is cold and I’m staring at a nearly blank page. What am I? Who am I and why the hell am I here? Why do the petty things in life swarm my thoughts? I sometimes feel that everything I work for in this life is for nothing… and others… it’s for everything. My thoughts are so black and white sometimes, it drives me nuts…
But I digress…
It took me a while to see the true meaning in this poem. At first I just saw a lot of pretty words strung into a pattern that was aesthetically pleasing to my brain… but after maybe the third time reading, I FELT what it was about. All of the things that the author is asking makes up what I see as the soul, the spirit, whatever you want to call it. Disconnecting from ‘the waves’ of life add to connecting to the spirit and ultimately what is truly important. Mind, body and spirit connections are vital, and it seems to me that most of my day throws all of these off balance. Did I get my coffee this morning? How do I look? What does this person think of me? How much money do I have? Do I know more than this person? Can I one-up them? All of this stuff… breaks down the relationship between our minds, bodies and spirits. And it discontinues the bond between our fellow human beings, becoming human DOINGS.
I’ve taken some time to do some soul-searching… this started February 18th 2009 to be exact. I was sent away to rehab for an eating disorder. Everything in my life was influenced by the material things. Possessions, how I looked, what other people thought about me etc… I was a human doing and I wasn’t even doing for MYSELF.. I was doing for others. I’m a giver and sometimes get lost in all of the giving. Throughout the four months I spent there… I tore down all expectations I had for myself, all of my judgments, all of my fears, everything that separates me from my soul. I still have to do this on a daily basis or I get lost. I don’t know if this explains why this poem struck home for me… but it did.
So… i want to know…
What do you ache for?
What do you dream about?
How have you found love? Your dreams?
What keeps you going?
What does it take for you to live?
What is beauty? Where do you find it?
What are you passionate about?
Who are you? What are you? Where are you? How are you? When are you? Why are you?
Thank you for listening.
Much peace and love,
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