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. .I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, . and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout . . . "Yes." .I want to know if you can get up . weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done. .I want to know what sustains you . when all else falls away.

... 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 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.

The world we live in is a co-creation, a manifestation of individual consciousness woven into a collective dream. How we are with each other as individuals, as groups, as nations and tribes, is what shapes that dream.

What if becoming who and what we truly are happens not through striving and trying but by recognizing and receiving the people and places and practices that offer us the warmth of encouragement we need to unfold?

What if the question is not why I am so infrequently the person I really want to be, but why do I so infrequently want to be the person I really am?

There is nowhere to go. What you are looking for is right here. Open the fist clenched in wanting and see what you already hold in your hand