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Chapter 2 “The Longing”
Posted by: | CommentsChapter 2 “The Longing” from The Invitation
I HAVE FAITH IN LONGING, wherever it finds me…
It is the voice of the parts of myself I have left behind in the deals I have tried to make with life, trying to trade pieces of my dreams for promises of safety…
It is not the being, no even the doing that exhausts. It is the trying: trying to be present, to be awake, to hold the whole world, to be better, more self-aware, more conscious. My hopes for us are real: I want to help create a world where the very idea of toxic waste would raise such a cry of anguish from the people as to make it unthinkable: where we would move, pulled by the heart, to care for the poor, the ill, the dying and despairing without debating where they are deserving, without fear of contamination, seeing ourselves in each person…
I want to quit running from my own tiredness. I want to be willing and able to move only as fast as I am capable of moving while still remaining connected of the impulse to move from deep withing, stopping when I have lost that slender thread of desire and having the courage and faith to wait, in stillness, until I find it again…
“What are you longing for?”
This is what I ache for: intimacy with myself, others, and the world, intimacy that touches the sacred in all that is life. This ache, this longing is the thread that guides me back through the labyrinth of compromises I have made, back to my soul’s desires. And sometimes I am afraid of my desires – afraid of that they will ask of me, what vision of myself or the world they will offer that may demand a sacrifice of my carefully cultivated way of seeing. If we are never consumed by the transforming fire of our desires, we risk falling in love with the sweet ache of longing, the daydream of “what if…” or “some day…”
Chapter 2 “The Longing” from The Invitation
Original content posted at http://austinrealestateandloans.wordpress.com
Chapter 3 | The Fear | The Invitation | Oriah Mountain Dreamer
Posted by: | CommentsChapter 3 | The Fear from The Invitation
All my usual cautions about how fast and how far to open my heart and my life to any man evaporated in the heart of desire that reached for him, both hands open, whispering, “Live.” I held nothing back. I risked it all. I let myself love and be loved, deeply…
I had shown the depth of my hunger. I was revealed to the world as a woman of deep, untidy passions that could override my usual ability to be an astute judge of character and to make carefully thought-out decisions. I was the fool. And I would do it all again. I would not trade one moment of the loving for the assurance of a predictable outcome or protection of my pride. For I learned to discern between heat and the warmth of the real intimacy between power and passion, between intensity and love. I discovered the wholeness of my longing for a mate – the need for a friend, brother, and partner where I had sought only a lover…
But the longing is larger than the fear, the desire more fierce than the pain. My second husband is a good man; we did not have a bad life. It was simply not my life. I had to leave the life I had built and go forward to meet the life for which I longed…
And sometimes, although we may ourselves hold these values , their dominance in our lives in a particular form does not allow us to live our other aspects of what we love and who we are…
“What do you fear?”
The truth is that some days I feel I am ready for freedom and other days I am so tired I don’t want the responsibility it brings into my life…
Sometimes, when I see others follow their desires, I am surprised to find myself not only unsupportive but angry, threatened. If I have convinced myself that lack of money and the needs of those dependent upon me are the reasons why I cannot risk doing work that is more consistent with my soul’s desires, the woman or man who makes such a change and finds ways to meet obligations similar to mine, without the financial resources beyond mine, challenges my certainty that I have no choice. Ironically, I find myself, at moments, clinging to a belief in my own powerlessness, a belief that will let me off the hook of responding to my soul’s desire. Those who chose a different response threaten the seamlessness of my self-deception…
Chapter 3 | The Fear from the The Invitation
Chapter 2 | The Longing | The Invitation | Oriah Mountain Dreamer
Posted by: | CommentsChapter 2 | The Longing from The Invitation
I HAVE FAITH IN LONGING, wherever it finds me…
It is the voice of the parts of myself I have left behind in the deals I have tried to make with life, trying to trade pieces of my dreams for promises of safety…
It is not the being, no even the doing that exhausts. It is the trying: trying to be present, to be awake, to hold the whole world, to be better, more self-aware, more conscious. My hopes for us are real: I want to help create a world where the very idea of toxic waste would raise such a cry of anguish from the people as to make it unthinkable: where we would move, pulled by the heart, to care for the poor, the ill, the dying and despairing without debating where they are deserving, without fear of contamination, seeing ourselves in each person…
I want to quit running from my own tiredness. I want to be willing and able to move only as fast as I am capable of moving while still remaining connected of the impulse to move from deep withing, stopping when I have lost that slender thread of desire and having the courage and faith to wait, in stillness, until I find it again…
“What are you longing for?”
This is what I ache for: intimacy with myself, others, and the world, intimacy that touches the sacred in all that is life. This ache, this longing is the thread that guides me back through the labyrinth of compromises I have made, back to my soul’s desires. And sometimes I am afraid of my desires – afraid of that they will ask of me, what vision of myself or the world they will offer that may demand a sacrifice of my carefully cultivated way of seeing. If we are never consumed by the transforming fire of our desires, we risk falling in love with the sweet ache of longing, the daydream of “what if…” or “some day…”
Chapter 2 | The Longing from The Invitation
Chapter 1 “Accepting the Invitation”
Posted by: | Comments“The Invitation” by Oriah Mountain Dreamer
Chapter 1 “Accepting the Invitation”
I want to live with deep intimacy every day of my life…
- The first warning, then, is also the first promise: if this book succeeds in actually taking you into the territory of “The Invitation,” you will experience, not just read about, the ache, the sorry, the joy, the courage, the peace…
- This, then, leads to the second warning and promise: the consequences of moments of deep intimacy with yourself, another, of the world are completely unpredictable.
- The third warning holds yet another promise: no part of the journey is wasted.
“Are you ready to accept the invitation?”
I can tell you that it is possible to feel pain without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it, to dance with joy and feel the ecstasy completely, to live with the failure, to see beauty, to stand in the center of the fire…
that the courage to go deeper is found by letting you desire grow larger than you fear; that strength is found in your longing to live fully, your willingness to settle for nothing less…
I am compelled by some deep hunger of the soul, driven by a desire that will not leave me alone, to live life to the fullest…
It means tasting each mouthful, feeling each breath, listening to each song, being awake and aware of each moment as it unfolds…
Life lived intimately may not be easier. But it is fuller, richer, and more open to everything: the confusion and the insight, the excitement and the boredom, the shadow and the light…
Did I love well? There are a thousand ways to love other people and the world-with out touch, our words, our silences, our work, our presence. I want to love well. This is my hunger. I want to make love to the world by the way I live in it, by the way I am with myself and others every day. So I seek to increase my ability to be with the truth in each moment, to be with what I know, the sweet and the bitter. I wan to stay aware of the vastness of what I do not know. This what brings me to the journey. I do not want to live any other way….
From Chapter 1 “Accepting the Invitation”
Original content posted at http://austinrealestateandloans.wordpress.com
Chapter 1 | Accepting the Invitation | The Invitation | Oriah Mountain Dreamer
Posted by: | CommentsChapter 1 | Accepting the Invitation from “The Invitation” by Oriah Mountain Dreamer
I want to live with deep intimacy every day of my life…
- The first warning, then, is also the first promise: if this book succeeds in actually taking you into the territory of “The Invitation,” you will experience, not just read about, the ache, the sorry, the joy, the courage, the peace…
- This, then, leads to the second warning and promise: the consequences of moments of deep intimacy with yourself, another, of the world are completely unpredictable.
- The third warning holds yet another promise: no part of the journey is wasted.
“Are you ready to accept the invitation?”
I can tell you that it is possible to feel pain without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it, to dance with joy and feel the ecstasy completely, to live with the failure, to see beauty, to stand in the center of the fire…
that the courage to go deeper is found by letting you desire grow larger than you fear; that strength is found in your longing to live fully, your willingness to settle for nothing less…
I am compelled by some deep hunger of the soul, driven by a desire that will not leave me alone, to live life to the fullest…
It means tasting each mouthful, feeling each breath, listening to each song, being awake and aware of each moment as it unfolds…
Life lived intimately may not be easier. But it is fuller, richer, and more open to everything: the confusion and the insight, the excitement and the boredom, the shadow and the light…
Did I love well? There are a thousand ways to love other people and the world-with out touch, our words, our silences, our work, our presence. I want to love well. This is my hunger. I want to make love to the world by the way I live in it, by the way I am with myself and others every day. So I seek to increase my ability to be with the truth in each moment, to be with what I know, the sweet and the bitter. I want to stay aware of the vastness of what I do not know. This what brings me to the journey. I do not want to live any other way….
Chapter 1 | Accepting the Invitation from “The Invitation” by Oriah Mountain Dreamer
