For What It's Worth

I want you to know that...

It doesn’t matter to me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for,
and if you dare of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you would risk looking like a fool for love,
for your dreams, for the adventures of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me, which planets are squaring with 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 from fear of further pain.
I want to know if you can sit with pain - mine and your own -
without moving to hid it, or fade it, or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine and your own;
if you can dance with wildness and ecstasy,
fill the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic,
or 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 causation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine,
and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “yes!”

It doesn’t matter to 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.

- from Oriah Mountain Dreamer, A native American elder