As I read these words below in “The Invitation”, I realized that is where my strength and ability to rise up even in tragedy comes from…my Native American blood in me. Wado to the woman that married my great great grandfather and infused her heritage with his which brought me to this world later on down the line.
Between that and my Irish ancestor Betsy Pylant, who was married to a soldier in the Revolutionary war and raised five boys alone after he died, I am infused with survivor blood. Betsy walked from Virginia to Tennessee with a wagon train when about seventy five years old to join her sons in Tennessee. One day they look up and see her walking down the dirt road and recognize that it is her. Her tombstone reads simply “Betsy Pylant–108 years old”. I look back at the toughness of my ancestors and the determination to live and realize how blessed I am to come from all of them.
I love this below because this is exactly how I feel about all the people in my life that I love and are close to me. I want to know the depths of your heart not the depths of your bank account or what position you hold. I want to know that you stand by me like I stand by you.
The Invitation
By Oriah Mountain Dreamer
(A Native American Elder)
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 in 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 in 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 tip of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, or to remember the limitations of being human.
It doesn’t interest me if the story you’re 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 be trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see beauty even when it is not pretty every day, and if you can source your life from God’s presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of a 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 the 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, 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.
Work The Dream 