This week I am featuring 5 sacred poems (one every day this week) that deeply influenced me during my early twenties.  And just for the record, I don’t have to go too far back in time to recall my early twenties.  I’m still living my 20th decade.

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I first heard this poem when I was 20.  It was at this time I was introduced to the self-help motivational phenomenon with the likes of Bob Proctor, Jack Canfield, Jim Rohn, and Robert Kiyosaki.  I was at a small training event and the son of the woman facilitating the event read out aloud “The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dream”  (it was the poem read out at his Year 12 Graduation the previous year).

This poem deeply moved me.  It penetrated every single cell of my being + planted the seed of ‘living true is what really matters’.  Five years later, it was during my quarterlife crisis that I rediscovered this poem, along with the book series Oriah Mountain Dreamer published.  Synchronicity is a powerful thing.

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The Invitation by Oriah

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 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.

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.

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 center 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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Oriah Mountain Dreamer is one of the guest teachers at The World’s Biggest Summit.  If you haven’t already, get your ticket!  It’s free!!