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Unique, practical, and often surprising, The Invitation is an invaluable guide to living the ecstasy of everyday life, learning to recognize true beauty in ourselves and the world, and finding the sustenance our spirit longs for.
"The Invitation" is a declaration of intent, a map into the longing of the soul, the desire to live passionately, face-to-face with ourselves and skin-to-skin with the world around us, to settle for nothing less than what is real."
-from The Invitation
Shared by word of mouth, quoted on the World Wide Web, recited over the radio, and read aloud at spiritual conferences and other gatherings, "The Invitation" has been passed along by thousands who have discovered and treasured its unique message. Now Oriah Mountain Dreamer expands on her beloved prose poem, presenting a powerful and inspirational challenge to all of us who long for true intimacy and joy.
Speaking from the heart, Oriah Mountain Dreamer invites us to confront the varieties of human experience, from desire and commitment to sorrow and betrayal, and challenges us to open repeatedly to love and life. Unique, practical, and often surprising, The Invitation is an invaluable guide to living the ecstasy of everyday life, learning to recognize true beauty in ourselves and the world, and finding the sustenance our spirit longs for.
Excerpt
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, 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 ...
Jean Houston (author of A Passion for the Possible)
Wise. So very wise is this deep and thoughtful book. It is a wisdom born of one who knows shadows and loss and gathering foundness, joy and genuine ecstasy. The truth-telling courage of Oriah Mountain Dreamer gives us a bracing antidote to the easy answers of the pop gurus. Here is a feast of life with real food to nourish the hungry seeker. John O'Donohue, author of Anam CaraAnam Cara and Eternal Echoes
The Invitation is a remarkable book. It explores and reveals the true landscapes of eternal possibility and promise. This book is written from within real experience; it is always faithful to the thresholds where beauty and pain, hope and darkness, memory and possibility, divine and human are sistered. This book is at once a fierce and tender presence. Its wisdom could become a lifelong companion, engaging and awakening the original and unique rhythm of your mind and soul. Michael Toms (co-founder of New Dimensions Radio and co-author of True Work)
The Invitation is stunning in its simplicity and power, soul food for the mind and heart, a prose poem for a new world. Richard Carlson (author of Don't Sweat The Small Stuff)
The Invitation is a treasure. If you want to live more deeply, honestly, and passionately, you must read this book. Richard Carlson (author of Don't Sweat The Small Stuff)
The Invitation is a treasure. If you want to live more deeply, honestly, and passionately, you must read this book. Wayne W. Dyer (author of Wisdom of The Ages)
Her words pierced my shell and pricked at my soul. An invitation to the ultimate dance. Wayne W. Dyer (author of Wisdom of The Ages)
Her words pierced my shell and pricked at my soul. An invitation to the ultimate dance.
If you liked The Invitation, try these:
by Barbara Kingsolver
Published 2003
Sometimes grave, occasionally hilarious, and ultimately persuasive, Small Wonder is a hopeful examination of the people we seem to be, and what we might yet make of ourselves.
by Anna Quindlen
Published 2000
"We have to teach ourselves now to live, really live...to love the journey, not the destination." Quindlen guides us with an understanding that comes from knowing how to see the view, the richness in living.
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The moment we persuade a child, any child, to cross that threshold into a library, we've changed their lives ...
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