From the prelude to “The Dance”
 

What if there is no need to change

No need to try and transform yourself

Into someone who is more compassionate, more present, more loving, or wise?

How would this affect all the places in your life where you are endlessly trying to be better?

What if the task is simply to unfold?

To become who you already are in your essential nature:

Gentle, compassionate, and capable of living fully and passionately present?

What if the question is not

“Why am I so infrequently the person I really want to be?”

But “Why do I so frequently want to be the person I really am?”

How would this change what you think you really have to learn?

What if becoming who and what we truly are happens not through striving and trying

But by recognising and receiving the people and places and practices

That are for us the warmth of encouragement we need to unfold?

How would this shape the choices you make about how to spend today?

What if you knew that the impulse to move in a way that creates beauty in the world

Will arise from deep within

And guide you in every time you simply pay attention

And wait.

How would this shape your stillness, your movement,

Your willingness to follow this impulse

To just let go

And dance?

From the Prelude to “The Dance”.2001

Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Harper Colllins. ISBN:0007112998