Presenting Oriah Mountain Dreamer

D’you ever get into that space where you feel a quasi-manic need to say something when you don’t know what that is?

I’m living under a piebald sky of white to black clouds roiling across an achingly deep blue sky, doing their best to hide it and bring the rains back but failing at their purposed task.

I love being here, as in this life right now, passionately so, yet I long to be somewhere else, anywhere else. The storm that defines Earthianity, the clashing of thunderous waves against granite cliffs perpetuates itself and while the waves gain power, eroding the cliffs, they also get darker and full of the detritus of the things they have drowned and of the sands they have troubled, stirred and relocated.  I love the storm but I don’t want the garbage it stirs up. I like the rocking of the waves but I want a clean bed to sleep in.

When I get into such a whirlwind mind space and seek to find a place to set my feet that isn’t moving under me or a place to sit down that won’t collapse and send me plummeting down a bottomless cliff, I pull up this old quote and read it, thoughtfully.

Then I wonder how much of a hypocrite still remains calling itself ‘me.’

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 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.

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 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 everyday. 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 where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from inside when all else fails.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.