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 hearts 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’re 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’s 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 on 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

The Invitation

 

 

Then Almitra spoke again and said, And what of Marriage, Master?

And he answered saying:

You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.

You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.

Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God. But let there be spaces in your togetherness,

And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

 

Love one another, but make not a bond of love:

Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.

Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.

Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,

Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

 

Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.

For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.

And stand together yet not too near together:

For the pillars of the temple stand apart,

And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.

 

From Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet