Oriah Mountain Dreamer and "The Green Bough" Blog
Some of you will recognize the name Oriah Mountain Dreamer. She wrote an essay/poem called "The Invitation" that was widely circulated on the internet a few years ago. Then it became a book, then there was another book...
As a reminder, "The Invitation" starts thusly:
"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..."
Well, Oriah started blogging just this month. Her first post might be interesting to some in this heart and soul group.
Why "The Green Bough" ?
http://www.oriahsinvitation.blogspot.com/
About a year ago a friend of mine, Jean Eng, had an art show in Toronto. Her promotional postcard showed a painting of a large spectacular bird landing on a tiny potted bonsai, and the words of a Chinese proverb: If I keep a green bough in my heart the singing bird will come. Something about the words hit home, made my chest ache and my breath catch. And I thought, "This is my statement of faith."
Faith is different than hope or belief. Hope is generally future oriented and often specific. When I'm ill in bed I hope I'll feel better tomorrow, and I believe that that is more likely if I take care of myself in ways that seemed to have worked in the past. I have hope we can foster peace, justice and environmental sustainability, and I believe that both individual and collective reflection and action are crucial to achieve these ends. Sometimes we need hope just to get out of bed in the morning, and although beliefs about what we need to do (or not do) change with information and circumstances, it would be hard to take any action without them.
But faith is different. Faith is about the ground we stand on in every present moment, regardless of changing conditions, no matter what hopes or evolving beliefs have our attention today. Faith is the green bough in the heart, the thing in us that chooses life with every breath, even when we have lost hope or feel our beliefs have failed us. Faith is our connection to life, to the sacred, the mystery, the spark of creation. As the proverb reminds us, our business is to keep a green bough at the centre of our being, to know and provide that which cultivates our felt connection to life, the people, places and practices that help us say yes to the gift of this day.
And what might the singing bird be? A guiding song from something larger than us, or from deep within ourselves. The tune that helps each of us become all of who we are. Sheer joy. However we describe it, it is what we ache for, and it comes by grace. We do not make the singing bird come, we simply provide a place where it can land and sing its song. Our business is to keep the faith- to cultivate the green bough.
The primary way I cultivate the green bough of my heart is by writing. It's how I respond to, pray for, struggle with and co-create meaning from what crosses my path. It's how I mull over the mystery and work out how to live with the vastness of what I do not know. Sharing my writing, helps me keep writing, supports me in keeping the bough of my heart green.
So, this is the first of a year long commitment to posting a weekly blog. I will write about what stirs, confuses, guides, excites and challenges me. I may write about books I am reading, movies I have seen, world news, personal encounters or spiritual practices. I write as an act of faith, trusting that those who read may, on occasion, find something here that helps them tend the green boughs of their hearts. I write because I am most alive when I write and I can feel the truth in the words of the American philosopher and civil rights activist Howard Thurman when he wrote:
"Don't ask what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, because the world needs people who have come alive."
As a reminder, "The Invitation" starts thusly:
"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..."
Well, Oriah started blogging just this month. Her first post might be interesting to some in this heart and soul group.
Why "The Green Bough" ?
http://www.oriahsinvitation.blogspot.com/
About a year ago a friend of mine, Jean Eng, had an art show in Toronto. Her promotional postcard showed a painting of a large spectacular bird landing on a tiny potted bonsai, and the words of a Chinese proverb: If I keep a green bough in my heart the singing bird will come. Something about the words hit home, made my chest ache and my breath catch. And I thought, "This is my statement of faith."
Faith is different than hope or belief. Hope is generally future oriented and often specific. When I'm ill in bed I hope I'll feel better tomorrow, and I believe that that is more likely if I take care of myself in ways that seemed to have worked in the past. I have hope we can foster peace, justice and environmental sustainability, and I believe that both individual and collective reflection and action are crucial to achieve these ends. Sometimes we need hope just to get out of bed in the morning, and although beliefs about what we need to do (or not do) change with information and circumstances, it would be hard to take any action without them.
But faith is different. Faith is about the ground we stand on in every present moment, regardless of changing conditions, no matter what hopes or evolving beliefs have our attention today. Faith is the green bough in the heart, the thing in us that chooses life with every breath, even when we have lost hope or feel our beliefs have failed us. Faith is our connection to life, to the sacred, the mystery, the spark of creation. As the proverb reminds us, our business is to keep a green bough at the centre of our being, to know and provide that which cultivates our felt connection to life, the people, places and practices that help us say yes to the gift of this day.
And what might the singing bird be? A guiding song from something larger than us, or from deep within ourselves. The tune that helps each of us become all of who we are. Sheer joy. However we describe it, it is what we ache for, and it comes by grace. We do not make the singing bird come, we simply provide a place where it can land and sing its song. Our business is to keep the faith- to cultivate the green bough.
The primary way I cultivate the green bough of my heart is by writing. It's how I respond to, pray for, struggle with and co-create meaning from what crosses my path. It's how I mull over the mystery and work out how to live with the vastness of what I do not know. Sharing my writing, helps me keep writing, supports me in keeping the bough of my heart green.
So, this is the first of a year long commitment to posting a weekly blog. I will write about what stirs, confuses, guides, excites and challenges me. I may write about books I am reading, movies I have seen, world news, personal encounters or spiritual practices. I write as an act of faith, trusting that those who read may, on occasion, find something here that helps them tend the green boughs of their hearts. I write because I am most alive when I write and I can feel the truth in the words of the American philosopher and civil rights activist Howard Thurman when he wrote:
"Don't ask what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, because the world needs people who have come alive."
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by David MacLeod on
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...and her second post, a follow up:
Losing Hope, Finding Faith
Well, clearly I kept mulling the piece I wrote yesterday re: faith. I awoke this morning with dreams about faith and hope.
Hope says: It (my health, the economy, the world, a relationship. . . .) will get better.
Belief says: It will get better by prayer, action, discipline, surrender, exercise, meditation, taking care, paying attention, getting information, resting, working, trusting God/the Great Mystery, being more patient, more compassionate . . .
Faith says: Life is good- worth living fully with open eyes, mind and heart- even if things don't get "better," even if what I believe will create desired change does not appear to do so.
In the last couple of years, as I sat still, I came to the place of no-hope, of not knowing what to hope for, and of not finding energy available for hoping. I also found many of my beliefs shattered as I did all the things I believe "work" only to find myself increasingly ill. But the great gift of no hope and shattered beliefs is the discovery of faith. I have to admit, there have been moments of desolation when finding that faith remained truly surprised me. And in discovering faith there is great joy and a sense of deep peace.
And all of this reminds me of one of my favourite pieces of poety:
I said to my soul, be still and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be light, and the stillness dancing.
T.S. Eliot from East Coker (No. 2 of 'Four Quartets') -
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