A Look in the Mirror

Greetings all,

I hope this week finds you well.  This week I've noticed a lot of old habits creeping back in.  I've been doing relatively well with keeping to a schedule until this past week.  Although rather than berate myself perhaps it is simply a chance to look deeper into the mirror to see what is there.

A year ago I was attending the second meeting of the shamanic 2 year program I am enrolled in.  We paired up with partners and each of us had to journey for the other to see what to do to get ready for the next session.  I remember my partner was nervous before they told me my assignment because their guide had said I wouldn't like it.  Then she told me what it was, and I said, "They're right I don't like it one bit."  I still did the assignment which was to look at myself in the mirror for fifteen minutes right into my eyes.  No distractions, no music, just breathe and gaze.  Try it sometime, if you've never done it you may find it challenging to do for fifteen minutes.

Now I find myself finding reflections of myself everywhere.  (A wee bit narcissistic, for all I know I could be the reflection).  I was at a meditation this week hosted by a friend and we were opposites in dress.  I wore a white shirt and black shorts, they wore a black shirt and white shorts.  I've been seeing this white and black or yin and yang if you prefer everywhere lately.  The world it seems is one great mirror and that holds promise and peril.

Duality is the chessboard on which the game of life seems to be played.  People identify with one pole or the other.  "I am this, not that."  Some people identify by what they are against.  You see this a lot at election time when people say they vote for the lesser of the 2 evils.  They might not like their candidate, but at least it isn't candidate X.  (Political affiliations have been removed to reduce trolling, remember kiddos don't feed the trolls).  The world can seem that way, polarized and volatile.  As children we are socialized with that very basic structure something is either right or wrong.  Even in later life when we intellectually know there is more to a situation than the hero/villain lens we still use it.  We're conditioned to use it by our media culture.  It stops us from thinking too much.

A lot of change is stymied because of the duality mindset.  One thing people in power don't want is for others to be thinking rationally about issues.  If they do then those issues can't be used to divide and control them.  When we can't see ourselves in others we conversely end up seeing more of ourselves projected out in the world, particularly the parts we don't like about ourselves.  There is that peril I was talking about. The world will mirror back to us what we are again and again.  If we don't accept it and address it those reflections can become sharper like the shards of a broken mirror.

Some of you will be thinking well that just lets people off the hook for their behavior.  It doesn't really.  I don't reward unsociable or cruel behavior.  I also can't not see myself in that light.  I have seen the face of evil, and it is my own.  One train of thought that helps though is if you accept the idea of parallel universes.  In some cosmological theories for every choice that is made the universe splits off into parallel universes exploring every option.  So in some universes I am a psychotic killer who eats babies.   (I knew I should have turned left at universe 15664).  If you aren't sold on the idea of parallel universes what about reincarnation?  If you think you never played the villain you haven't been a student of history.   I played that role and being an overachiever I perfected it.  I mean I was downright malevolent, I would have fit in with any Disney villain.

So what does it all mean?  A lot of consciousness work focuses on coming into neutrality about things. From there a truly free choice can be made.  The surface of the mirror is where the power is.  It bridges the reflections.  Where is the mirror in your world, your consciousness?  Where does that reflection pop up for you?  Who brings the old patterns to the surface to stare back at you?  What about the promise I spoke of, well if everything is reflecting you back, then it puts you in charge.   If you accept your reflections and work within yourself then what is reflected back also changes.  An old magical theory states if you change yourself you change the world.  So what will you see when you chant Mirror mirror on the wall?   Will you choose promise or peril?

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle