In navolging op mijn vorige bericht; deel ik graag met jullie de site van Oriah Mountian Dreamer. Zij heeft onderstaand prachtige gedicht gescheven.
Ook gaat zij ervan uit dat we al goed genoeg zijn, we hoeven niet te veranderen, we hoeven ons alleen maar te herinneren wie we in wezen zijn.
The Invitation by Oriah
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
to be realistic
to 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.
By Oriah © Mountain Dreaming
Nog een stukje van haar site
Questions and Answers: Oriah Mountain Dreamer
In Chapter 1 of The Dance you mention that you wish you'd had the insight from the Grandmother before you'd gone through the whole process of seven chapters. How did your writing, your ideas, and insight change after the Grandmother's visit to you in your dream? How has your life or your sense of your life changed since then?
Well, the Grandmother in the dream told me I was headed in the wrong direction. She said, "The question is not why are you so infrequently the people you really want to be but why do you so infrequently want to be the people you really are." And then she answered the question saying, "Because you have no faith that who you are is enough." And she continued, "But it is. Your true nature as human beings is compassionate, and this essential nature makes you capable of being intimately and fully present. Who you really are is enough." I have doubted, questioned and quibbled with this insight a thousand times since that night but the truth is that I knew when she said it that it was true and I also knew that it would change everything- what I was writing in the book, how I lived my life and what I had to offer to others. If who we are is essentially flawed then the task is to change, to transform our essential nature. But if who we essentially are is enough, our task is to unfold, to become who we are.
Of course, you cannot help but ask- if my essential nature is this wonderful compassion than how come I behave so badly some of the time? The Dance is my exploration of some of the times when my actions are not directed by this essential compassionate nature. It is an examination of how we can remember who and what we really are even when we are frightened. If The Invitation was a declaration of intent, The Dance is about how to live this intent in a human life.
The Invitation has been such a phenomenon, has its success changed your life at all? Did it bring any unwanted consequences?
The success of The Invitation has brought change, and change- even when it is for the better in many ways- takes some adjustment. It is lovely not having to figure out how to hustle up the money for my son's unexpected school trip, or the increase in the phone company's rates. It has given me the opportunity to focus on writing and then, as the books come out, to travel and speak to many people. All this is good and I feel very blessed. The hard part is really what is always hard- staying in touch with my deepest self and maintaining my connection with that which is larger than myself in the midst of a busy life. It's not so much that my life is busier but the form of the busyness has changed and with new situations- like being on the road- I have to have new strategies for making sure I carve out enough silence, enough time alone to do my daily practises and stay deeply connected to who I am. I am learning now to do this in the midst of a changing life.
What do you hope people will get from reading The Dance and how do you hope it will have made an impact?
When I write a book my first prayer is that it do no harm, and I feel that in writing The Dance I came very close to writing a book that could have done harm. Before the Grandmother's insight and direction I was at risk of writing- out of the sincerest good intentions- yet another book that would say to us all, "This is our problem. This is what is wrong with each of us. This is what we need to change in order to live our soul's intentions." I don't think the world needs another book urging us to move faster, try harder, change more. I know I don't.
I hope that reading The Dance will give others a sense of their inherent nature as compassion, will give us all a sense that who and what we really are is truly enough. I also hope it will help us pay attention to how we lose this sense of ourselves and our connection with that which is larger than ourselves so we can consciously cultivate remembering who and what we are. I hope The Dance will be one of the many places where we feel what the Sufi poet Hafiz calls the "encouragement of light" that helps us unfold and be all we truly and essentially are.
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