Last week while watching TV (oops, should I be admitting this here? :) a phrase caught my attention: “Hold your heart open.” And I wondered, can I really do that? Can I hold my heart open in all situations that challenge me? I have to report that so far, not so good… And I thought, can “we” really hold our hearts open when we have felt betrayed by others, our bodies, or let down by life when it twists and turns in directions we don’t want to take. I don’t think any of us escapes these experiences. But holding the heart open *to* them seems to be the challenge.
Admittedly this has been hard for me to do, to remain open in the face of life’s hurts and challenges. It is not easy for me to love openheartedly (ooo another potentially dangerous admission…). I haven’t had much experience in that department, so usually I attempt to guard the heart from the inevitable hurts and sorrows that life brings; from the perceived disapprovals and dismissals in the silence of non-response; from the awkwardness that comes when you realize you’re not on the same page with someone that you’ve grown close to. “Awakening” has not resolved this. There’s still a guarded heart here. I seem to have forgotten that Love flows from the Heart of Being no matter what the circumstances, or obstacles of our lives. I have forgotten to remember that we are absolutely loved beyond measure no matter what our challenges. It seems that’s why we are here – to remember. The heart’s longing is to awaken to that Love – the Love that flows naturally from the Heart of Being – from Presence.
This Sunday the shell of the heart cracked open again, ever so slightly. It was touched by an unexpected moment when I pulled a book down off the shelf that I had read 10 years ago. It starts with a poem called “The Invitation.” I vaguely remembered the opening lines of the poem and so flipped to read it in its entirety. My heart began to open in the reading of it. The languaging didn’t matter. I just allowed my heart to be touched once again.
And so I want to share the poem for all of us who are challenged to stay open to life as it is, and life as it isn’t…
The Invitation
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 (passion), 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’s 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 on 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 a night of grief and despair,
weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done…
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.
From: The Invitation
By: Oriah Mountain Dreamer
~
I continue to ask myself, can I consciously hold my heart open? Can I stand in the fire with whatever life hands me? Can I allow and embrace it all?
I don’t know.
But I am willing to be cracked open again and again
until Love is all there is left,
until my heart dances in the fire…
Do I really have a choice…
It seems that *is* the deeper call…
* she explains in the book that by "faithless" she means "those who can bear the responsibility of breaking an agreement with someone, when the alternative is to betray themselves; to tell the truth even when the truth is hard."
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