| Life Is.... |
Life isn't about keeping score.
It's not about how many friends you have or how accepted you are.
It's not about if you have plans this weekend or if you're alone |
It isn't about who you're dating, who you used to date
how many people you've dated or if you haven't been with anyone at all.
It isn't about who you have kissed and it's not about sex. |
It isn't about who your family is or how much money they have
or what kind of car you drive or where you went to school. |
It's not about how beautiful you are or what clothes you wear
what shoes you have on or what kind of music you listen to.
It's not about if your hair is blond red black or brown
or if your skin is too light or too dark. |
It's not about what grades you get how smart you are,
how smart others think you are or how smart standardized tests say you are. |
It's not about what clubs you're in or how good you are at "your" sport.
It's not about representing your whole being on a piece of paper and seeing who will "accept the
written you" |
| LIFE JUST ISN'T |
| But, life is about who you love and who you hurt. It's about who you make happy or unhappy
purposefully. It's about keeping or betraying trust.
It's about friendship, used as a sanctity or a weapon. About starting rumors an contributing to petty
gossip. It's about what judgements you pass and why and who you pass these judgements on to. |
| It's about who you've ignored with full control and intention. It's about jealousy, fear ignorance and
revenge. It's about carrying inner hate and love, letting it grow, and spreading it... |
| But, MOST OF ALL, it's about using your life to touch or poison other people's hearts in such a way
that could never occurred alone. Only you choose the way those hearts are affected, and those
choices are what life is about! |
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 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 be realistic
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. |
| © Oriah Mountain Dreamer |
The Call |
I have heard it all my life,
A voice calling a name I recognized as my own. |
Sometimes it comes as a soft-bellied whisper.
Sometimes it holds an edge of urgency. |
But always it says: Wake up my love. You are walking asleep.
There's no safety in that! |
Remember what you are and let this knowing
take you home to the Beloved with every breath. |
Hold tenderly who you are and let a deeper knowing
colour the shape of your humanness. |
There is no where to go. What you are looking for is right here.
Open the fist clenched in wanting and see what you already hold in your hand. |
There is no waiting for something to happen,
no point in the future to get to.
All you have ever longed for is here in this moment, right now. |
You are wearing yourself out with all this searching.
Come home and rest. |
How much longer can you live like this?
Your hungry spirit is gaunt, your heart stumbles. All this trying.
Give it up! |
Let yourself be one of the God-mad,
faithful only to the Beauty you are. |
Let the Lover pull you to your feet and hold you close,
dancing even when fear urges you to sit this one out. |
Remember- there is one word you are here to say with your whole being.
When it finds you, give your life to it. Don't be tight-lipped and stingy. |
Spend yourself completely on the saying.
Be one word in this great love poem we are writing together. |
| © Oriah Mountain Dreamer, from the book The Call, Harper Collins, 2003 |
