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. 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. She concludes the short stanza by expressing her desire that her lover takes strength from the “presence” of beauty in the world. This sourcing of strength would provide one with a base purity from which their life could stem. Therefore everything they are comes from a deeply held belief in the beauty of everything. One of the most poignant metaphors crafted by Dreamer in the text is the comparison between the listener’s interests and planets. They circle around this person, making up their exterior image. This is a perfect example of the type of information the speaker doesn’t care about. 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.

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. Oriah is, first and foremost, a storyteller and spiritual teacher. Raised in rural Ontario, her transcultural upbringing nourished an early calling to explore life’s deepest mysteries. Oriah studied social work and philosophy but found her passion in sharing stories that uplift our spirits.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. 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 book goes on to devote a chapter to each stanza, the author writing with the kind of unselfconscious self-importance you recall from the last time you were seated next to a bore in Economy Class. This person loves the sound of her own authorial voice, and she makes pronouncement after pronouncement about how to life The Good Life but offers no data beyond her own life experience to support her thesis. She writes like an authority, or perhaps a prophetess, without giving the reader any reason to take her seriously. What are her credentials? She certainly never bothers to tell us.

The Invitation’is a twelve stanza poem that is divided into uneven sets of lines. The range in length from five to twelve with no specific pattern of rhyme. There are very important moments of repetition though that help to unify and direct the text. Every stanza begins with either the phrase “It doesn’t interest me” or “I want to know.” Through these phrases, the speaker is setting out the aspects of a prospective lover she cares the most about. 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. 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 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. 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 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. 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. It is clear from the start that she is not looking for a simple relationship. She is seeking out something deeper and longer-lasting. It is also safe to assume that she would prefer the listener to know her in the same ways she is seeking to know them.

Looking again into the listener’s mind, the speaker tells them that their education does not interest her. Nor do their cultural interests. What does matter is “what sustains” them when there is nothing else left. This desire of the speaker to see deeper into her listener shows that she does not care if they have the same passions she does, as long as they do have passions. Just stand up quietly and dance with me... More from the chapter of The Dance “Dancing with the Mystery”, 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.” The final book in Oriah Mountain Dreamer’s bestselling trilogy opens us to finding and consciously living the meaning and purpose—the unique calling—at the center of our livesI want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments. 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 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 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.’ Oriah showed a willingness to absorb information and was exposed to the earth-based teachings of the First People, and she would go on to share what she learned. She then became a student of Philosophy. Her daily practice of yoga, ceremonial prayer, and meditation have also impacted her writings and her own personal journey.

As for the author’s recipe for happiness, well, it veers from the courageous embrace of life in all of its messiness to the irresponsible pursuit of whatever impulses may be attempting to drive us in the moment. I buy the former, but reject the latter: it’s narcissism posing as actualization. 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 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.

The Name

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 faithlessand therefore trustworthy. 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.