Don’t conform or limit yourself to meet others’ standards. Shed inauthentic identities that compromise your truth. The Invitation’ by Oriah Mountain Dreamer is made up of a speaker’s interests and disinterests when it comes to a possible relationship.

imagine, it makes you question all this trying, this dark certainty that everything... More The Invitation Raised in a small community in Northern Ontario, Oriah’s family encouraged her to bring her questions and explorations to the Christian tradition they espoused. At home in the wilderness she was drawn to and at home in the ceremonies and earth-based teachings of the First People’s, eventually teaching and sharing what she learned. Her daily practice includes ceremonial prayer, yoga, meditation and writing. A graduate of Ryerson University’s social work program (Toronto) and a student of Philosophy at the University of Toronto she has facilitated groups, offered classes and counselled individuals for over thirty-five years. The mother of two grown sons, Oriah lives in Toronto, Canada. She concludes the short stanza by expressing her desire that her lover takes strength from the “presence” of beauty in the world. This sourcing of strength would provide one with a base purity from which their life could stem. Therefore everything they are comes from a deeply held belief in the beauty of everything. 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. 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.The Invitation’is a twelve stanza poem that is divided into uneven sets of lines. The range in length from five to twelve with no specific pattern of rhyme. There are very important moments of repetition though that help to unify and direct the text. Every stanza begins with either the phrase “It doesn’t interest me” or “I want to know.” Through these phrases, the speaker is setting out the aspects of a prospective lover she cares the most about.

Visionary author Oriah Mountain Dreamer brings to life the wisdom of her beloved invitation, which has touched hearts everywhere with its fresh and spirited call to live life more deeply, honestly, and well. 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.’

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments. 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 shriveled 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. The speaker states that she is not interested in knowing what “you do for a living.” The “you” she is speaking to is the intended listener and her prospective lover. The first stanza outlines that she cares much more about what this person “ache[s] for” than what their life consists of at the present moment. She sees through the surface level definition an occupation brings and is reading to meet this person’s “heart’s longing.” She continues on to develop another important aspect of the text, how the listener stands up to scrutiny, loss, and disaster. Her lover’s strength mentally and emotionally is crucial. They must not flinch from the “flames” and be willing to stand up to their own, and even her, failures.

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. 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..."The Invitation" was originally published in slightly different form, in "Dreams of Desire," a collection of poetry by Oriah Mountain Dreamer and actually the title, dreams of desire, is more relevant than the invitation. Simply because as a mortal, unless as an individual, we have dreams of desire therefore a cause, what is the point of existence?

The fifth stanza of ‘The Invitation’is similar to the fourth in that it asks the listener to “sit” with emotion. They should be able to take in “ecstasy” and let it fill them. She is seeking a relationship that is not bound by caution or constant reminders of realism. She is known today as an inspirational author who seeks to help others find joy in their own passions. The focus of her life is looking into the Sacred Mystery. Her teachings on this topic have moved beyond writing and into audio. She released a CD titled, Sounds True, Your Heart’s Prayer.It shares her own thoughts and beliefs about the struggles everyone faces in life. Mountain Dreamer considers herself to be, at heart, a storyteller who uses words to change one’s beliefs about themselves and the larger world. As for the author’s recipe for happiness, well, it veers from the courageous embrace of life in all of its messiness to the irresponsible pursuit of whatever impulses may be attempting to drive us in the moment. I buy the former, but reject the latter: it’s narcissism posing as actualization. Raised in a small community in Northern Ontario, Oriah’s family encouraged her to bring her quest Oriah is first and foremost a story-teller, a lover of words and symbols and the stories that lift our spirits, open our hearts and offer us ways to see patterns and create meaning in our lives. 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 humor, 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.

And then I did only what truly had to be done to feed the children. I made sure they were reasonably clean and dry and well fed. I listened to them and let them know they were loved. I stopped trying to find a place where there would be no tension between my desire to work in the world and my dedication to my children. I started to look for and find a way to simply live with this tension, holding it without struggle or hope of resolution... More The Dance I want to know if you can see beauty even when it's not pretty, every day,and if you can source your own life from its presence. 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. Oriah is first and foremost a story-teller, a lover of words and symbols and the stories that lift our spirits, open our hearts and offer us ways to see patterns and create meaning in our lives. 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 humor, 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.I began the book with great enthusiasm and after chapter one thought I should buy copies for several friends. About midway that heightened enthusiasm subsided and instead of purchasing extra copies assuming everyone else will be equally enthused about it, I think the best recommendation I can give others is simply that if the question posed on the cover strikes a chord within you, then chances are there will be many points within that you'll find worth pondering. The seventh stanza of ‘The Invitation’is the shortest of the twelve at only five lines. The speaker turns to beauty in this section and asks if her listener can see it everywhere. Beauty should be clearly present even when it is not “pretty / every day.” She does not define what the un-pretty things are. This allows beauty to apply to the largest section of every day possible. The fourth stanza makes a clear statement about how she would like her lover to deal with life, specifically pain. She states that she needs to know if the listener has the strength to “sit with pain” and not move to “fade it” or “fix it.” This could be her pain or their own. It should not be something debilitating. Pain should provide a strength rather than a weakness.