Mirrors

I have been fascinated, intrigued, baffled and sometimes disillusioned by the whole idea of 'mirrors' in our life (spiritual) journey. Something didn't seem right to me. I could not resonate with it and so could not really embrace that concept as I walked through my life. Somewhere I did not understand it in a way that felt right in my gut.

Today, the penny suddenly dropped....and I finally found my own truth. Not that it might be different from what people down the ages have been talking about. But today what I saw and how I saw it felt good in my gut. Today I can own it in a way I haven't been able to.

I realised today that my outer world is not a 'reflection' of my inner world. A person I meet or interact with is not a 'mirror' that reflects me and my inner world. That is not my reality. It is what happens in the space in between that determines my reality. It is what happens inside of me when I meet that person, or interact with him/her, or see something in the world outside (like issues related to food, territories, beliefs, religion, sex, money, values etc.). The person or event or situation is only pointing a finger to me.....telling me, showing me where to look....to find that place inside which is making me see what everyone around me is seeing, with different eyes....my eyes. That is what determines my reality. So do I see hunger, poverty, fanaticism, abuse, violence, abnormalities, or amoral acts? Or do I see something else? Do I see those as part of a larger picture of the world....a phase that we need to go through to rethink our ways of being and doing? Or do I see those things as 'not being right' and therefore need fixing, changing and standing up for? What do those 'issues' stir up inside me? How do they make me feel? That is where I need to look.

So then can I tell another that "the world is mirroring you or your feelings"? Can someone be a true mirror?

I believe not. The mirror is me. I have to look. I have to know where to look. Within. I have to get in touch with the feelings that the person or situation evokes. Honestly. Only I know and can know exactly how that makes me feel. Is it fear? Is it love? Or is it a deep knowing?

We cannot hide from ourselves for long. We cannot look away from the mirror....our own self....
the mirror that walks with us all through our lives. If only we choose to pause and look....

Here is a poem by David Whyte that I love that speaks about looking into our own mirror....

  
THE HALF TURN OF YOUR FACE
- by David Whyte

The half turn of your face
toward truth
is the one movement
you will not make.

After all,
having seen it
before,

you wouldn’t want
to take that
path again,

and have to greet yourself
as you are
and tell yourself
what it was like
to have come so far
and all in vain.

But most of all
to remember
how it felt again
to see
reflected
in your own mirror,
the lines
of abandonment
and loss.

And have those words spoken
inviting you back,
the ones you used to say,
the ones you loved
when your body was young
and you trusted
everything you wanted.

Hard to look,
but you know it has to happen
and
that it takes
only the half turn of your face
to scare yourself
to the core.

Seeing again
that strange resolve
in your new reflection.