Daily Reprieve

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.

How many times have I been asked, “so what do you do?”  And the correct, expected answer is for me to describe my job, what I do for a living.  And my identity is carved from whatever quick and easy label was arroused by my response.  And to be truthful, I prefer a quick response, a professional distance to most people who come up and inquire, “knock, knock, who’s in there?”

But what happens when I ask myself that question, when I look in the mirror, and I am tempted to give the same answer.  So, what do I ache for?

The first thing that comes to mind is that I hunger to know truth with clarity.  I want to be able to rise high above it all, and say, “Wow, so that is what it is all about.”  I want to be able to bring it all together, the micro and macro universes, the internal and external pulse of life.  But, is that more of a method than the actual pursuit?

Rick, what do you ache for?  The truest answer is that I don’t know what I ache for right now.  I have been disconnected from me for so long, I just don’t know.   I want to change that.  I do not want to be spiritually lazy and just “throw up my hands,” as they say in We Agnostics. 

What do you ache for?

There is a poem written by Oriah Mountaindreamer called the Invitation.  Her site is [http://www.oriahmountaindreamer.com/].  My daughter had it up in her room.  I have it up in my kitchen now.  I have decided to take that poem as a challenge to take another kind of personal inventory. I don’t really know where this is going.  I am not sure why I am going here, except for the birthday dilema that my slave founds herself in, approaching an age milestone that causes you to review…everything.  So here I go:

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 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.

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.

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 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.

My tarasha, happy birthday.  Or contemplative conception day.  Or, just know that the heart of your Master is with you, day.