I share this reading, which I heard tonight for the first time in several years, as a universal invitation into our deepest selves.  In addition, immersed in training this week about how to partner across differences, I share this with a renewed appreciation in these questions as great measures for willingness and capacity to engage in meaningful partnership processes on any level.  The more we can step into these places, the more we bring, and can share, even if it is not clear which journey we are on!

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.

What is grey, cold, and rainy on the outside, and warm and challenging on the inside?

I’m holed up at a resort in the north, immersed with 13 other women in “Women of Different Tribes: What Divides Us, What Unites Us.” (www.wmfpd.com) It is four days of leadership growth – heart stretching and mind opening – as we explore how to better partner both across difference and within sameness.  While race may be the most pronounced difference in our increasingly tight circle here, we are also exploring many more.

Asking myself the question, “how can I bring my best to this work?” I landed on this answer:

 Angeles Arrien, PhD, in her book The Fourfold Way: Walking the Paths of Warrior, Teacher, Healer, and Visionary describes a four-step process that can be applied equally well to the skills of partnering, to life leadership, and organizational leadership:

Show Up. Choose to be fully present.
Pay attention to what has heart and meaning.
Tell the truth, without blame or judgment.
Be open to outcome, not attached to outcome.

When I remember to honor the wisdom of Angeles’ words, I live in faith, especially when I wrap my heart around the last one: open to outcome, not attached to outcome. Separate from any conversation of religion, this is more a faith in life itself. For me, this is deeper and richer than hope…and far more satisfying. Approached this way, life is rich adventure!

Hope vs. Faith
In hope alone, the little girl inside me wraps her fingers oh so tightly onto one dream.
She paints details, little scenes. These become real inside. I can feel them.
Yet, these are balloons too filled with air. These pop, break, fall to the ground.

Faith is a different muscle. An opening in my heart.
I do not know the details. I cannot paint them in. I can only pay attention.
Notice the clues. Follow the path. There is trust here, in my footfalls feeling trail in sometimes-dusky light, that the path is worth following.
That there will be meaning, there will be life, there will be learning, and in some unknown shape, there will be love.
There is love in faith. This is different than having faith in love. This is the way in which faith is an act of choosing an open heart.

Then love can happen
Everywhere.

Which of Angeles’ steps are you living now?

Which ones might you enter even more fully?