something from last November

Into The Mirror

We put our clocks back a few weeks ago, which means the US and the UK are now 5 hours apart again instead of 4. What a concept: Space, time, and the mind. Where are we really? Our we where our bodies are, or are we where we choose to direct our thoughts?

It's been an interesting year. Since my birthday is on the 1st day of the New Year, I feel an undercurrent of time shifting from January to January. It's been a philosophical year, with more questions than answers.

And it's not always easy to form the questions either! If I have a picture in my head and not just a list of vocabulary words mashed together in a sentence, than I can grasp a new concept, but so often this year I've only managed a quick glimpse now and then before the mist descends, and I'm left groping along with outstretched hands.

There's one phrase that keeps coming back to me: Walk away from the mirror. As a child, did you ever play a game with the 'You-in-the-mirror', pretending that this was a friend or a twin behind the window, but when you try to touch them your hands can't meet, but are kept apart no matter how hard you press against the glass? And the mirror world looks so much more interesting than this one; familiar, but with the potential of holding unseen treasures.

I realized one day that there's only one way to get into the mirror, and that's to walk away FROM the mirror. In your mind's eye keep a video camera trained on the mirror as you do. What does your mind-camera see? It sees you turn, and then it sees your image...WALK INTO THE MIRROR.

Well, what of it? It's a metaphor for something else, and for me what I've learned this year is I have to stop finding my sense of self through people. To really know myself, and to know anyone else for that matter, I have to lift the burden I've place on others of making me a complete person. To have what I need, I have to give up what I want. I have to walk away from the mirror to get into the mirror.

When I put it in words like that, all my clear thinking seems to go to pieces! I know the difference inside of me though. I'm not thrown off balance as easily by what people do, because my center of support is more on my own feet and less on the shoulders of others.

'Quest' seems too lofty a word, but it's certainly been a year of exploration.