For Tranquility & Contentment

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Running a few errands out and about yesterday in our small rural town of high winds, dust and dirt, arid temps, and persistent drought. I was waiting for my car to be vacuumed, washed, and waxed in the lobby’s waiting area. I soon noticed how many other customers were uninterested in human engagement, not even a quick 30-second courteous or comical exchange. Why? They were all engrossed in their cell phones and a few with ear-buds plugging their ears. Yes, even the elderly there were consumed with their phones. That was a surprise to me.

Heard a song this morning. I hadn’t heard it in a long time. It reminded me of this poem about connection, of authenticity, of vulnerability, of personal growth by acute introspection and extrospection. It goes something like this:

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, be realistic, and 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 at 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 the 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.

— The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It is fine and good sometimes to remind myself of these poetic words and musical lyrics to find tranquility and peace.

Oh, the song I heard this morning?

Live Well – Love Much – Laugh Often – Learn Always

The Professor’s Convatorium © 2023 by Professor Taboo is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 

13 thoughts on “For Tranquility & Contentment”

  1. I think you have discovered why there is so much unobserved termite damage. Professor!

    A woman after my own heart. She runs to the woods to ponder life’s mysteries.😉

    I wrote what I need to remember, what I need to hear again and again: that life is full of beauty and pain; that the world will break your heart and heal it, over and over, if you let it, and that letting it do both is the only way to live fully; that we are not alone but deeply connected to that which create, and sustains all life. — Oriah Mountain Dreamer

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    • Thank you ryinger (Richard?). I try to learn well and digest, perhaps experience what great inspirational writers share with us like Oriah Mountain Dreamer. I also adore Henry David Thoreau, Robert Frost, Madame Marie Curie, Oscar Wilde, Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Mark Twain. 😉

      I’ve collected a few of my favorite inspirational and cheeky-comical quotes from the above writers here, if you’re interested in a quick perusal Sir. (tips his top hat to the gentleman & scholar)

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  2. Locked into our tech. Worrying trend.
    Oh yeah. I knew this song but could not pin it down…Indigo Girls!….Of course formed in the late 1980s, and still going on. This song was included in the Barbie Film, and no doubt another reasons why the misogynists hated it.
    Great choice PT!

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  3. A beautiful poem, PT, very expressive, very wise, very demanding. I had never read it before, never heard of Oriah Moutain Dreamer (I suspect Oriah must be a she, I don’t see a male writing anyyhing like this), I could not have written it any better myself.
    Unfortunately I could not hear the soundtrack very well, could not distinguish half the words. Is there a lyrics version of it somewhere, or at least a written version. You didn’t give the title or musicians, so I have no way to find it.
    Been a long time since we last heard from you. I hope all is as well now as it can be. Your voice has been missed.

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