The Invitation

Product Information

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.

Raised in a small community in Northern Ontario, Oriah’s family encouraged her to bring her questions and explorations to the Christian tradition they espoused. At home in the wilderness she was drawn to and at home in the ceremonies and earth-based teachings of the First People’s, eventually teaching and sharing what she learned. Her daily practice includes ceremonial prayer, yoga, meditation and writing. 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. 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.

The Person

That said, the person who recommended it to me did so out of love, not spite. She’s a smart person who’s a force for good in the world, so I can assume only that the problem isn’t so much that the book is bad as that I am so outside the target audience that it was written in a language I can’t understand - kinda like how I can only look on, baffled and impatient, when someone coos over their housecat. The syntax of the piece is very straightforward but made more impactful by instances of enjambment. The technique can be seen between the first and second lines of each stanza as the speaker reveals one thing she does or does not care to know about her lover. 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..."The Invitation" was originally published in slightly different form, in "Dreams of Desire," a collection of poetry by Oriah Mountain Dreamer and actually the title, dreams of desire, is more relevant than the invitation. Simply because as a mortal, unless as an individual, we have dreams of desire therefore a cause, what is the point of existence? 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 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.

The seventh stanza of ‘The Invitation’is the shortest of the twelve at only five lines. The speaker turns to beauty in this section and asks if her listener can see it everywhere. Beauty should be clearly present even when it is not “pretty / every day.” She does not define what the un-pretty things are. This allows beauty to apply to the largest section of every day possible. 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 is first and foremost a story-teller, a lover of words and symbols and the stories that lift our spirits, open our hearts and offer us ways to see patterns and create meaning in our lives. The focus of her life and work has been an on-going inquiry into the Sacred Mystery. Her writing, teaching and personal journey all explore how we can each become the individual we are at the deepest level of being and how we can co-create meaning together in the world. Blending humor, insight and compassion for our human struggles Oriah encourages herself and others to be ruthlessly honest and infinitely kind toward our own strengths and our weaknesses. I don't know that I know any more answers after finishing the book, however, I did very much enjoy the book because I value writing that brings up questions and gives me pause. I may not have found "answers" but I did find many paths of reflection to explore.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 grew up in a very religious household and small community in Ontario, Canada. Her family taught her Christian tradition. However, her family would move around a lot which gave her the experience of different ways of thinking. Her parents were both teachers, which added to her education, and provided her with a wide array of philosophies. In her early life, she would spend time in the wilderness. I referred to it from time to time over the years, either when I sought it for inspiration or simply came across it by accident. And then, recently, I transcribed it as a gift for a friend who I thought would draw a similar level of comfort and inspiration from it during a hard time. In reading it again, I felt the magic spark of the person I used to be ignite and resolved that now, after so many years, it was finally time to find this book. 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.

The speaker states that she is not interested in knowing what “you do for a living.” The “you” she is speaking to is the intended listener and her prospective lover. The first stanza outlines that she cares much more about what this person “ache[s] for” than what their life consists of at the present moment. She sees through the surface level definition an occupation brings and is reading to meet this person’s “heart’s longing.” 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." I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments. Meaning of “The Invitation” She is known today as an inspirational author who seeks to help others find joy in their own passions. The focus of her life is looking into the Sacred Mystery. Her teachings on this topic have moved beyond writing and into audio. She released a CD titled, Sounds True, Your Heart’s Prayer.It shares her own thoughts and beliefs about the struggles everyone faces in life. Mountain Dreamer considers herself to be, at heart, a storyteller who uses words to change one’s beliefs about themselves and the larger world.