"If I keep a green bough in my heart the singing bird will come."
- Chinese proverb

-To listen to Oriah’s interview with Mary Hynes, host of CBC Radio’s show, Tapestry, click here.

-To listen to excerpts from Oriah’s interviews on New Dimensions radio shows, click here.

-To listen to Oriah’s interview with Penny Calcina, click here.

Questions and Answers: Oriah Mountain Dreamer

In Chapter 1 of The Dance you mention that you wish you'd had the insight from the Grandmother before you'd gone through the whole process of seven chapters. How did your writing, your ideas, and insight change after the Grandmother's visit to you in your dream? How has your life or your sense of your life changed since then?

Well, the Grandmother in the dream told me I was headed in the wrong direction. She said, "The question is not why are you so infrequently the people you really want to be but why do you so infrequently want to be the people you really are." And then she answered the question saying, "Because you have no faith that who you are is enough." And she continued, "But it is. Your true nature as human beings is compassionate, and this essential nature makes you capable of being intimately and fully present. Who you really are is enough." I have doubted, questioned and quibbled with this insight a thousand times since that night but the truth is that I knew when she said it that it was true and I also knew that it would change everything- what I was writing in the book, how I lived my life and what I had to offer to others. If who we are is essentially flawed then the task is to change, to transform our essential nature. But if who we essentially are is enough, our task is to unfold, to become who we are.

Of course, you cannot help but ask- if my essential nature is this wonderful compassion than how come I behave so badly some of the time? The Dance is my exploration of some of the times when my actions are not directed by this essential compassionate nature. It is an examination of how we can remember who and what we really are even when we are frightened. If The Invitation was a declaration of intent, The Dance is about how to live this intent in a human life.

The Invitation has been such a phenomenon, has its success changed your life at all? Did it bring any unwanted consequences?

The success of The Invitation has brought change, and change- even when it is for the better in many ways- takes some adjustment. It is lovely not having to figure out how to hustle up the money for my son's unexpected school trip, or the increase in the phone company's rates. It has given me the opportunity to focus on writing and then, as the books come out, to travel and speak to many people. All this is good and I feel very blessed. The hard part is really what is always hard- staying in touch with my deepest self and maintaining my connection with that which is larger than myself in the midst of a busy life. It's not so much that my life is busier but the form of the busyness has changed and with new situations- like being on the road- I have to have new strategies for making sure I carve out enough silence, enough time alone to do my daily practises and stay deeply connected to who I am. I am learning now to do this in the midst of a changing life.

What do you hope people will get from reading The Dance and how do you hope it will have made an impact?

When I write a book my first prayer is that it do no harm, and I feel that in writing The Dance I came very close to writing a book that could have done harm. Before the Grandmother's insight and direction I was at risk of writing- out of the sincerest good intentions- yet another book that would say to us all, "This is our problem. This is what is wrong with each of us. This is what we need to change in order to live our soul's intentions." I don't think the world needs another book urging us to move faster, try harder, change more. I know I don't.

I hope that reading The Dance will give others a sense of their inherent nature as compassion, will give us all a sense that who and what we really are is truly enough. I also hope it will help us pay attention to how we lose this sense of ourselves and our connection with that which is larger than ourselves so we can consciously cultivate remembering who and what we are. I hope The Dance will be one of the many places where we feel what the Sufi poet Hafiz calls the "encouragement of light" that helps us unfold and be all we truly and essentially are.

What are the origins of your beautiful name?

Oriah was given to me by the Grandmothers in the dream many years ago when I was very ill. It means, amongst other things, She Who Belongs to God. Mountain Dreamer is my medicine name. It was given to me by a Native American shaman with whom I apprenticed. He told me when he gave it to me that it meant, "one who likes to find and push the edge."

I have some ambivalence about using this name in my writing and my speaking and I admit to being as prejudiced as the next person. When someone comes up and introduces themselves as Ophelia Morning Gloria I think, "Flaky!" which is pretty cheeky for a woman who goes around using Oriah Mountain Dreamer. In my daily life I use my family name, generally introducing myself as Oriah House.

In many interviews the first thing the interviewer says is, "Oriah Mountain Dreamer's not your real name is it?" to which I reply, "Well, it's my real name alright. It's just not my birth name."

The truth is that there are many cultures where the birth name is considered a temporary and secondary name used for convenience until more can be seen and known about the person's nature, gifts and role in the world. In spiritual communities- for example, convents- new names are taken to indicate a major life change, or they are given as a guide, something to challenge the person to be all they essentially are. So, Oriah Mountain Dreamer it is.

Do you have any frustrations with the concept or term 'New Age' and its philosophy? How do you see yourself within the 'New Age' framework?

I would use the term "New Age" in two very different ways. The first is a description for the wide range of spiritual inquiry that has taken place outside the traditional mosques, churches and synagogues over the last twenty-five years. As an umbrella term for this search for spirituality outside the mainstream western religious traditions it applies to everything from Buddhist meditation to crystal healing, from Sufiism to angel communications, from shamanism to channeling.

Of course many of these things are not "new" at all but part of ancient traditions. I would put myself and my own seeking within this community of those seeking their own spirituality, although there are aspects of some of these methods I am clearly more comfortable with than others.

The other way I would use this term is to define a more narrow set of beliefs that have come out of all this exploration- a set of beliefs that I would call New Age fundamentalism. They include things like- everything that happens, had to happen and happened because you needed it for your spiritual development; or you create every aspect of your own reality all of the time. These are beliefs I do not share and when they are presented as The Truth I become very uncomfortable. They offer simply answers for complex problems. I do not think we can know with certainty why many things happen in our lives, although I do think we always have a choice about how to respond and we can learn something- cultivate meaning- from all that does happen. I feel the task is to keep our hearts open, to show up for all of life, without knowing with certainty why everything that happens, happens.

And where will your next writing journey take you? Can you let us into any secrets about the next book?

I always knew that this would be a trilogy. Shortly after finishing the manuscript for The Dance I had a dream where I received the title of the next book, The Call. I have had glimpses of where this next one will take me in my writing and my life- since I tend to live these things in order to write them- but they are just glimpses at this point. I do know that it is about our place in the bigger picture, our response to the world's need, and our ability to hear and heed and go home to that which is larger than ourselves.

Excerpts from An Interview with Thorson's, Oriah's publisher in Britain, New Zealand, and South Africa.