We might think of Life as consisting of two facing mirrors and their corresponding mirror-images, but with no originals present.
Speaking mythologically, let us imagine that we are compelled to look intently toward the horizon - toward transcendence. This act represents our desire for an experience of a masculine Great Beyond, the Presence who would shift our focus away from this world of instability and change and ground us in a vast, stable expanse of love. In any case, as we look toward the horizon, we see a mirror reflecting a beautiful woman in the act of walking. This woman is Sophia, Gaia, Mother Earth. However, when we turn around and look away from the mirror in order to find her, we realize that she is nowhere to be found! For she is eternally emptied out into the bliss she experiences as a result of her love affair with the Beyond. Yet her mirror-image still appears, anyway!
Similarly, we often find ourselves drawn away from transcendence in order to discover the sacred within our sensual experience of the world - within the beautiful particulars of life. Here, when we look at the world of Mother Earth, we find only a second mirror, one that faces the first mirror. This mirror is the world of immanence, or this-worldliness. In this mirror, we can see the reflection of a handsome man - the Great Beyond - walking toward us. However, when we turn around and away from the mirror in order to look for him, we find no one! For he is eternally emptied out - lost to himself - in bliss. Such, we understand in a flash, is the great magic and mystery of life - composed as it is of two facing sets of mirror-images, but with no originals ever present!
Photo: Beckworth Peak and golden aspen trees above Lost Lake, near Crested Butte, CO, October 1, 2011
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