The Invitation

Any quotes or information about the author of the book, “The Invitation,” included in the story below, come from the book itself or the author’s web page, linked here.

2001 was a difficult year for me.

Early in that year I finally built up the courage to end a relationship that had been eroding into darkness, for over five years.

I say it took courage because I had a lot to lose.

She had four young children when we met and over the years I had grown to love them as my own. I knew, in my heart, that because of the vindictive nature of their mother, that once I said the words that would end our relationship, I would never see those children again.

But I had no choice as I felt like I was losing myself, almost like I was being eaten alive.

For months after ending it, I felt lost and would lay awake at night questioning my decision.

Luckily, I had a good friend at work that would spend her lunch break with me talking, or just listening as I spoke about the pain and guilt I felt. She understood what I was going through as she had gone through something similar the year before.

I remember clearly the day she said that she had something for me that had helped her get through the pain and move forward.

She presented me with a book that she said changed her life.

That book, “The Invitation,” has been with me ever since and I have read it countless times.

The first time I read the poem, which the book is about, it moved me deeply. I felt like the author had written those words for me and they stuck to me like glue.

Her words changed me and allowed me to see things clearly. They allowed me to open my heart again and walk without fear again, to take chances and to dance without caring again.

I think that, in no small way, those words traveled with me to China in 2002 when I met my wife and fell in love again.

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The Invitation, a prose poem written almost thirty years ago, by “Oriah Mountain Dreamer” is much more than just a poem.

It is a work of art that has taken on a life of its own; being recited, talked about and passed around, by word of mouth, to touch the souls of people all over the world.

It is an invitation to live a life that is full of passion, integrity and empathy.

Oriah Mountain Dreamer's birth name is Caroline House. After she became ill with severe ME/CFS at thirty years of age, she had a dream where several elderly women - those she calls Grandmothers in the dream - told her to change her given name to Oriah as part of the process of healing.

A graduate of Ryerson University’s social work program (Toronto) and a student of Philosophy at the University of Toronto she has facilitated groups, offered classes and counselled individuals for over thirty-five years. The mother of two grown sons, Oriah lives in Toronto, Canada.

In the first chapter of the book, Oriah Mountain Dreamer, tells us when and why she wrote the poem.

She wrote the poem late one night after returning home from a party. She was unsettled and disappointed with an evening that had been full of the usual social conversation.

She says,

“Restless, I sat down at my desk in the darkness and listened to the sounds around me diminish as the city settled into sleep. There in the quite, with a street lamp casting a pale light into the room, I picked up my pen and wrote what I really wanted to say to the people I had met that evening.

When I was finished, I sat in the half-light and read the words aloud to a sleeping city. I heard my longing to be fully with others. And in the silence that followed, I heard the voice of the world I sometimes think I hear late at night, begging me to remember this longing.”

Below, is that poem that has meant so much too so many people.

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The Invitation, by Oriah Mountain Dreamer.

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.

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