Today.

My day began with The Invitation. My cousin posted a hard to read portion of it to my Facebook page but I recognized it immediately as the Oriah poem that I once vowed to live by. So much has happened since I first read those words. So many days have passed since I picked up the book at Barnes and Noble. One small book with a sunflower on the cover. It was on sale and I bought it because it matched my decor of all reasons. Typical Sara move really. I buy into something for the outside and am fundamentally changed by the heart of it all. 


"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 feel like if I treat this wonderful work as a to do list that it defeats the purpose of the words themselves and only serves to confirm my need to check things off a list rather than LIVE. But I feel if I don't treat it as a to do list that I will somehow miss part of it and end up in a mess. And then I know that the mess is part of it. What kind of woman am I at the end of the mess is what is important. Not that we create messes just to clean them so we have something to do. But I want to be the kind of person who can "live with failure...and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, "YES!"


Every day I put a new quote on the marker board on the fridge. A few days ago the quote of the day was, "Do that which you are most afraid." Yesterday was, "Advice is what you ask for when you know the answer but wish you didn't."


The universe is urging me to step toward something and didn't I say myself, "Go. Don't ask why. Ask what." I am not yet ready to reveal my thoughts or plans for fear (yes fear) of feeling obligated to do something I wasn't meant to do because I had a day filled with things that cannot merely be coincidence. 


Especially when five minutes after I vocalized what I was thinking of doing I began to retract and make excuses as to why it is impossible. I said, "I have a life here." And my kindred spirit, like a good friend should, responded by asking me, "what is life?" It is such a good question. 


And as my day began it ends with The Invitation. I wonder whether or not I am truly ready to accept it.

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 shrivelled 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 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 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 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 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.