The reason why we find ourselves so sensitive to the compliments and slights we give one another is because there is actually no such thing as an individual self. In truth, the self only exists in being mirrored. Accordingly, each of us - whether we want to or not - serves as a mirror for everyone else, and vice versa. Knowing this fact at least subconsciously, we spend our lives searching for the mirrors most capable of revealing to us our best self. Parents, family members, friends, a life partner, a community, or even a professional local sports team find themselves pressed into this kind of mirroring. However, all of these eventually fail us, not because they are bad, but because the ultimate mirror can only be something much more cosmic. Actually, all of these lesser mirrors are more like windows that serve to lead us to the true mirror. We might also think of them as fragments or shards of the larger Mirror. For Buddhists, Gautama Buddha is one such mirror. For Christians, Christ serves this capacity. For many of us, The most beautiful aspects of Nature are the mirror that reflects back to us our true self. Ultimately, however, even this sort of mirroring is incomplete. For the process is meant eventually to flip around and reflect in the opposite direction! In other words, each of us is called to serve as a mirror for the beauty and grandeur of the DIVINE Presence - in both its God and Goddess forms! Amazingly, through the mirror formed by our awe, wonder, love and appreciation, the Divine comes to realize its own beauty and lovability. It is for this calling that we are ultimately placed on this earth!
Photo; Senecio flowers, the Sugarloaf, and Lewis Lake; Snowy Range, WY; August 22, 2014
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