“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 dreams, 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, be realistic, or 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. I want to know if you can be faithful, 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 on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, ‘Yes!’
It doesn’t interest me 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 for the children.
It doesn’t interest me who you are 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.”
Oriah Mountain Dreamer is a Canadian author and spiritual teacher who gained worldwide fame through her poem, “The Invitation.” Her work is distinguished by a focus on radical authenticity and the unvarnished acceptance of reality, moving away from superficial approaches to spirituality.
She was born Oriah House in 1954 and lives and works in Toronto, Canada. Her name, “Mountain Dreamer,” was given to her by an elder from the First Nations tradition in Canada. It means “one who dreams for the mountain” and reflects her role as a storyteller and spiritual mediator.
Before she began writing, she worked for many years as a social worker and holistic medicine consultant. This practical experience makes her texts grounded and psychologically sound. The poem “The Invitation” was created in 1994 after a social event that left Oriah exhausted by superficial conversations. She wrote the text as a direct response to the question of what she truly wanted to know about people if social masks and status did not exist.
The text became popular worldwide even before the rise of social media, spreading through emails, personal letters, and public readings. Today, the poem has been translated into dozens of languages and cited in thousands of works on psychology and self-knowledge. Oriah Mountain Dreamer continues to write and lead workshops, with her main focus remaining “practical spirituality”—the ability to live meaningfully in the present moment without disregarding the challenges of human nature.
