Did you look last night in the mirror of dreams
or did you flinch and turn away?
I know: you may not want to see yourself
as others see you or worse,
without masks or disguises
in a light that reveals every blemish.
You may not be ready to see who is with you
that you don't see on ordinary days:
the spider, the red boar, the whore,
the dead drunk, the priestess with purple eyes.
So you rush past the mirror and shut the door,
wishing for no more dreams. Wish strong enough
and you may turn the mirror to the wall
or crack it from side to side.
Breaking the dream mirror is worse luck
than breaking the other kind. Do this, and you break
your connection to a wiser self. You exile part of your soul
and forfeit your power to know yourself.
You lose your inner compass. You no longer hear
the ancestors who are calling, calling.
You still the voice of conscience.
Soon you are lost in the delusions of the day.
There may be dragons in your dreams
but when you face them you find
that they guard your deepest treasures.
It is the denial of dreams that breeds monsters.
Keep your dream mirror clean and bright,
look in it every night and you'll keep soul in the body,
fly in a starry robe, and discover you can
step through the looking glass into worlds of wonder.
- Robert Moss
Esalen, Big Sur, November 11, 2016
Art: Titian, "Woman with Mirror"
1 comment:
Clara uses the metaphor of the mirror in her writings with great frequency (probably like many other contemplative minds). In her letter to Agnes of Prague she writes: "Place your mind before the mirror of eternity!" And to put the rest of her message shortly: Let yourself be completely transformed into the image of His love.
I am sure it could work beautifully and fully in her own being because she stepped down into her own darkness and faced her inner demons. Though I sometimes tend to think they are not real at all, you keep watching them in dreams and they change and dissolve like clouds in the sky. It is so simple and yet it takes lifetime to clear our vision. And though it is the most rewarding and amazing work we can set to, it sometimes feels like being skinned alive. I suspect the mirror must be polished by our own blood to see eternity :-).
Thank you very much showing the path to the light.
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