The Invitation

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The poem begins with the speaker making two initial statements about what she does and does not want to know about a possible lover. First, she does not care what they do for a living. She does care about their dreams and what their heart aches for secretly. The speaker goes on to add that she wants her life and that of her lover to be filled with the great adventure of being alive. Oriah is currently focused on writing. She is working on a novel, another non-fiction book- a collection of stories about deepening our inner lives- and writing a weekly blog, “The Green Bough” at oriahsinvitation.blogspot.com Seek continuous growth through authentic self-examination, challenges, and reflection. Keep evolving. In The Invitation, visionary writer and teacher Oriah Mountain Dreamer wrote about what we long for. In The Dance, her second book, she explored how to live this longing. Now, in The Call, she shares with us her struggle with and discovery of “why”—why we are here and why we must each undertake the journey from longing to living fully and deeply in the world. Because she first shared the prose-poem " The Invitation" (in 1994) with those who had come to participate in ceremony with her, the poem and her subsequent books first appeared under the name Oriah Mountain Dreamer. This led to all kinds of interesting misunderstandings (Eg.-people assumed she was an elderly or deceased Native American man.) Interviewers often begin conversations with, "Now that's not a real name, is it?" Oriah, while deeply honouring the spiritual tradition from which she has received her name, understands that in our modern culture such a name is bound to prompt reactions. She even admits to sometimes sharing the prejudice of thinking that people using names like Mountain Dreamer might be a little flaky! So, she good naturedly explains, when asked, that Oriah Mountain Dreamer is indeed a "real" name, although not her birth name, and reflects on the fact that in our culture what is considered “most real” is that which indicates familial association (inheritance rights, marital status and/or patrilineage) while some other cultures would consider a spiritual name more “real.”

She continues on to develop another important aspect of the text, how the listener stands up to scrutiny, loss, and disaster. Her lover’s strength mentally and emotionally is crucial. They must not flinch from the “flames” and be willing to stand up to their own, and even her, failures. 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 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, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human. A year after taking the name Oriah, still seeking healing, she went to a shamanic teacher who gave her the medicine name "Mountain Dreamer.” The shaman told her that a medicine name tells someone what gifts they have to offer the world in their lifetime and that Mountain Dreamer meant "one who likes to find and push the edge." The fourth stanza makes a clear statement about how she would like her lover to deal with life, specifically pain. She states that she needs to know if the listener has the strength to “sit with pain” and not move to “fade it” or “fix it.” This could be her pain or their own. It should not be something debilitating. Pain should provide a strength rather than a weakness.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. 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. 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” 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. 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.

Oriah is currently focused on writing. She is working on a novel, another non-fiction book- a collection of stories about deepening our inner lives- and writing a weekly blog, “The Green Bough”. Her bestselling books and teachings blend honesty, compassion, and humor to encourage sacred self-discovery. Having faced her own adversities, Oriah urges infinite kindness toward our own and others’ imperfections. Her insights help readers embrace their full humanity in all its rawness – fears, failures, passions, and purpose. Lessons from the Poem 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. 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.The second stanza contains eight lines in which she brushes off pointless bits of information such as how old “you are.” Age does not define who or how she loves. Instead, one piece of information she would be interested in is a great risk this person took. Or perhaps a time they looked like a fool for something they loved. Her ideal lover pursues the great “adventure of being alive.” 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. The power of this piece of poetry comes from its list-like format. As a reader moves through the lines the previous statements build off one another until one is able to imagine the mental, emotional, and spiritual outline of the speaker’s ideal lover. It was maybe her youth that impacted her need to search for new ideas. It is said that she struggled with a sense of loneliness and not belonging in her childhood. This had a number of impacts on her as she threw herself into reading and writing in her adolescent years and gave her a sense of wanderlust and adventure in her twenties in her search to find a home.

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?

I began the book with great enthusiasm and after chapter one thought I should buy copies for several friends. About midway that heightened enthusiasm subsided and instead of purchasing extra copies assuming everyone else will be equally enthused about it, I think the best recommendation I can give others is simply that if the question posed on the cover strikes a chord within you, then chances are there will be many points within that you'll find worth pondering. Raised in a small community in Northern Ontario, Oriah’s family encouraged her to bring her quest 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.