The Invitation

[Carmella]

"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 a fool for love, for your dream, for the advantage of being alive.

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 & closed from 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 ecstacy fill you to the tips or your fingers & toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if your story isn't 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's not beautiful - every day and if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know of you can live with failure, yours and mine & still stand on the edge of a lake and shout to the full moon, "Yes!"

It doesn't interest me to know here you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after a night of grief & dispair, 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 center 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 has fallen away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and truly like the compnay you keep in the empty moments."

From the book "The Invitation" by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

[Izel]

Oh, wow, I love this section! I love great quotes.

I found this excerpt absolutely lovely, emotional, inspiring, and yet with a melancholy...love it.

I seem, though, to be experiencing a block with these two:

"if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul"

and

if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.


Any thoughts? Opinions?