‘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.’

Oriah Mountain Dreamer

This is the first of three posts during my break this summer which combines the profound words from the beginning of ‘The Invitation’ by Oriah Mountain Dreamer with pictures from a beautiful calendar which our company gave out many years ago. It features watercolours of lives during the Viking Age. Never having the heart to throw away the calendar I welcome the opportunity to show these images here accompanied by the inspiring words of Oriah, who I recently came across here on WP.  I’ve turned off comments for this post.