The Invitation

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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. Because she first shared the prose-poem "The Invitation" (in 1994) with those who had come to participate in ceremony with her, the poem and her subsequent books first appeared under the name Oriah Mountain Dreamer. This led to all kinds of interesting misunderstandings (Eg.-people assumed she was an elderly or deceased Native American man.) Interviewers often begin conversations with, "Now that's not a real name, is it?" Oriah, while deeply honouring the spiritual tradition from which she has received her name, understands that in our modern culture such a name is bound to prompt reactions. She even admits to sometimes sharing the prejudice of thinking that people using names like Mountain Dreamer might be a little flaky! So, she good naturedly explains, when asked, that Oriah Mountain Dreamer is indeed a "real" name, although not her birth name, and reflects on the fact that in our culture what is considered “most real” is that which indicates familial association (inheritance rights, marital status and/or patrilineage) while some other cultures would consider a spiritual name more “real.” 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!” As ‘The Invitation’ progresses she adds that she doesn’t care about her listener’s children, past, or the mask they wear in public. Everything she needs to know comes from within her lover’s soul. The poem concludes with the speaker expressing her interest in knowing if her listener could live within their own mind, without the company of others. Their interior fortitude is a deal-breaker for her. This is my earliest clear memory: I am lying in bed, curled into a tight ball, listening with every cell in my body... More from the opening chapter in The Call

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. 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 where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away. In the first stanza of ‘The Invitation’ the speaker begins as she does approximately half of the stanzas, with the phrase, “It doesn’t interest me.” While the line will become commonplace and lose some of its impact after reading it in different iterations, the first appearance is impactful. It is an interesting way to begin ‘The Invitation’ and provides a pleasing hook for the reader who will want to know more. The book starts off with a prelude of questions followed by a poem called “The Dance.” That, then, becomes the basis of her book. Each chapter begins with a section of the poem and then is expanded and explored by Ms. Mountain Dreamer’s (a name given her at the end of a ceremony in which she participated) own story along with other examples of those she has known. The end of each chapter is a meditation or time of reflective questions on how the chapter relates to your life and what you might want to unravel about that topic. Some of the chapters explore slowing down, relationships, sorrow and anger and others—all the while reinforcing that we are loving enough/compassionate enough in whatever stage we find ourselves, no matter what life tosses our way. She also stresses why slowing down to do the dance of life for those of us who find ourselves over-booked, over-work without time for the important things.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." Oriah is currently focused on writing. She is working on a novel, another non-fiction book- a collection of stories about deepening our inner lives- and writing a weekly blog, “The Green Bough”. In creative work we seek to add our consciousness to what the world offers to us in ways that create new stories, images, and sounds that reveal insights, patterns and truths we may not have seen before. But to do this we have to be able to get our conditioned responses- the belief, for instance, that water should necessarily be depicted in paintings as blue- out of the way so we can see the fullness of the world within and around us. This is harder to do than we might think... More from Opening The Invitation

My pastor pressed this book into my hands, telling me how strongly it had influenced her and how she wanted to do a series of podcasts about it. Clearly this book has an audience whom it inspires and nourishes. 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. 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. This is a story about surrendering from a woman who has found surrender impossible. This is a story about stopping the war, my war, the one I have fought all my life, the one I have not been able to give up despite the fact that I have lost every battle and sin cerely declared myself out of action over and over again. It's a story about stopping the war with what is within and around me because I have simply had enough of fighting... More "The Call"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 the author of several best-selling books: The Invitation (now translated into more than fifteen languages), The Dance, and The Call: Discovering Why You Are Here. Her book, What We Ache For: Creativity and the Unfolding of Your Soul, explores the challenges, rewards, and necessity of doing our creative work. Opening the Invitation is a small book that shares Oriah’s story of writing and sharing her much-loved poem, “The Invitation.” All five of Oriah’s books are published by HarperONE, San Francisco. Using story and sharing meditations Oriah’s writing explores how to follow the thread of our deepest heart's longing into a life where we can choose joy without denying the difficulties we each face. Facing the challenges and finding the joy of living who we are is further explored on her Sounds True CD, Your Heart’s Prayer. Oriah has shared her insights and stories with audiences throughout the world at conferences and retreats and through radio and TV appearances (CBC, TVO, Oprah, NPR, PBS, Wisdom Network.)

imagine, it makes you question all this trying, this dark certainty that everything... More The Invitation 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. Another example in the text is at the end of the fifth line of the first stanza in which Dreamer cuts off the line “if you are to dream” before revealing what the dream is. This makes the revelation, which follows in the next line, all the more impactful.

The Name

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. 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.