Oriah Mountain Dreamer, Indian Elder.

It doesn’t matter 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 sorrow, if you have been opened up 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 ecstacy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, or to remember the limitations of being human.
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. I want to know if can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of a lake and shout to the silver moon, “I can and will.”
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 from grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done.
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.
It doesn’t interest me to know who you are 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…