The meaning of the mirror goes beyond its practical function and is supposed to reveal, according to ancient beliefs, the magical link between the model and its image. That’s why mirrors were believed to capture the soul of a man that would look into them and – from this belief – people would cover mirrors when someone would die, so that the soul would not become a prisoner of its image. That’s also the reason why demons and supernatural beings don’t have a reflection.
Mirrors in the Western Traditions can represent contradictory things: in the one hand, they are the attribute of vanity, and represent the narcissistic solitude of the vain. On the other hand, they can also represent the knowledge of oneself, the truth of oneself.
In certain mystical tradition, like the Sufi tradition, the world is seen as the reflection of God. Hence the story that once God created the peacock he made the animal look at a mirror. Seeing the truth, the peacock, in awe, started to sweat and its pearls of sweat created the world.
Now you take the floor: what do you associate with The Mirror?
..The stranger and the enemy, you look them in the mirror…
Love and Graditude
Annie
When I was a child, I learned that I could see infinity when two mirrors were in perfect angular alignment…
That insight has always fascinated me, far beyond what the conventional idea of reflection offers.
Be well, sir.
Many traditions ’see’ the world as a reflection of God.
We, the reflection, is how God ’sees’ Himself.
When we try to see God, its like the mirror trying to see itself.Sometimes, in the intense stillness, comes flight. In the terms of physics There is a ‘total internal refraction”, and we are face to face with our own self before anything was manifested .
If the material world is a reflection of God, and a mirror is a reflection of the material world, is God in the mirror or is the image in the mirror twice removed from the Divine?
It is often said that the mirror is a portal into another dimension. Kurt Vonnegut called them “leaks”.
Paul also makes interesting references to mirrors in I Corinthians.
Mirrors achieve occult status because they are simulacra. The images in them look real, but aren’t, having been not only distorted but “flopped”. Perhaps what you are looking it is your doppelganger, an “anti-you”.
Mirror…
It reminds me of the islamic view of paintings. According to some islamic traditions a painted picture of a person encapsules a part of the soul of the individual that is painted. So in the final days that painting will claim a soul of its own… I.e. painted pictures of persons is not good…
But this can only be the case if the painter is bad. For every good painter gives the person that is portraited a “soul” of its own, and the painted portrait comes “to life”…
/Torbjörn Jerlerup
Paulo, thank you for asking us to reflect on this. (couldn’t resist that). The mirror – physical in nature, reminding us of our frailties, and the surprising interpretation of ourselves reflected back in the voices of the observers. When the depth of your intention matches their interpretation, you may have encountered a true friend. When the reflection is true, the connection is clear, and vice versa.
“Mirror or Heart breaks One day, if it does not, then- it will.”
If I look in the miror I only know that I see two :a masculin person in my left eye or part of the face and a feminine one in the right eye and right side of my face.Both are together one:me.Strugling to unifiing a unicat.Miriculous worck that God made!!!
Love
Mirela(the woman in elevator)
I think of a poem I recently wrote and posted on my blog. It came from a sensation of feeling mysteriously seen through words spoken/written and dedicated to me… that reflected back, as a mirror would, a sense of light… it became a phenomenon of echoing, light source seen and reflected, sees itself and the light of the mirror, all phenomenon becomes mutually affirming light, with the lovely added dimension of the male-female polarity which can release a very tender perception/truth indeed. And I think of a mirroring aspect of the Hindu dance of masculine/feminine which create the world being expressed here. (I know this is very free association, hope the thread can be followed…) Here is the poem:
Rose starlight sees herself
in the mirror
and rejoices:
Fragrant breath of moon jasmine glowing,
the feminine joy of being found,
verbs joining nouns in the beginning
tumbling from the flame.
Light wraps around the retina of sight
illuminating all time.
Lorena.
p.s. Please visit the blog to see the photograph (taken last Spring) which accompanies the poem. http://lapizlazulili.blogspot.com/
Tenho uma poesia que reflete bem, no espelho, a verdade sobre si mesmo, que penso, nada mais é, do que encontrar a paz. Espero que gostem. Obrigada pela oportunidade Paulo.
O Paraíso é na Terra
“O mundo é maravilhoso com todas as suas belezas
E com todas as suas feiuras (feiúras)
E com todas as vezes que me vejo no espelho.
Ah! Como é bom saber que lá estarei sempre que dele precisar
É; essa é a melhor Parte do mundo…
E que realmente me faz feliz!
O resto, o que é chato… patético…
Deixo para refletir quando não puder mais
Contar com um espelho”.
http://poesiaemdegustacao.blogspot.com/
When I look in the mirror, I think, like most people, on any ordinary day, I’m not looking at my reflection so much as I’m looking at what I see as myself in my mind’s eye.
It isn’t until someone or something brings my age, my haircolor, or my skin to my attention that I truly study my reflection and see what’s really there.
And I think we all do that. Cursory glances to be sure the hair’s in place or the makeup looks right without a heavy study until we are called specifically to review what we are truly seeing.
And then it startles us, because we’ve gone so long not really seeing what’s there.
A mirror in physical reality reflects what looks into it; for humans, a mirror shows you what you choose to see. The mind is more powerful, I think, than a reflective surface.
Mirror is reflection. Mirror enlightens. Mirror can transform an image that came from outside and direct it and give it back to the one who wach.
Human beens are mirrors of paradise. Our own inside “mirrors” are the interface between paradise and our world.
When was the last time you have cleaned and polish your own mirrors?
Adina
(the “cleaning” lady)
Simply, I associate reality with the mirror. It is merely the reflection of what/who is in front of it – nothing less nothing more…of course provided that the mirror is well-made!!!!!
Dear Sir Coelho,
I have dozens of possible meanings and things that associate to mirror in my head. But somehow, some of them scream out louder in my mind then others, so I’ll menition the loudest.
I believe that all people who become parents instanly find a mirror in their children.
Because children are our reflection. No matter how much we, or our children might dislike it, it’s true, and it’s inevitable.
Trust me, I know, because I’m a victim of this cruel equation as well…
Both physically and mentally.
The only difference is that some of us are better reflections, and some of us are not. It’s like you have a clean, sparkly miror, and a blur, unclean one.
But they are both still reflections.
Next, I have one beautiful association which is related to nature.
Ever wondered how would the sea look like if the sky wasn’t blue?
And isn’t the reflection of the sky in water one of the most beautiful and yet most simple things you’ll ever find in nature?
Mirror help us learn how to make ourselves look good in any situation. It can help us tame our reactions on certain situations.
Mirror can help us learn how to lie better.
Mirror can help us to learn how to fake our facial expressions.
Mirror can cause complexes and phobias.
Mirror can make us hate ourselves.
Mirror can help us learn to love ourselves.
These, and a lot more, are the reasons why mirrors can be much more than a fake picture of someone or something. Mirrors hide a mysterious and magical world, they are a window to a world beyond our senses, and they can only show us a glimpse of it.
When I was dancing with a fledling dance troupe in Boston, Massachusetts, the director and choreographer rehearsed us in front of mirrors in the studio. We faced them to warm up, go across the floor and practice routines. One day he challenged us by having us face the back to perform one of his pieces. The group fell apart, and messed up. We were so used to watching ourselves dance in the mirror that without it in front of us we had a hard time performing the piece. It showed me how vain I was about my dancing and taught me that I was to really feel my way through a piece of work and not rely on my reflection. The audience is the mirror. Other people are our true mirrors. The range of reflection is infinite because each person shows you something different about yourself, but as a collective at one time it can be an extremely powerful force. Neither good, nor bad, just powerful.
Paulo,
In the mirror, we see ourself – our true self, our dreams, what we really wanted in life, what’s the best for us. Not what others think of us or wanted for us.
Love,
Liv
When you hold a mirror up to your own life,
What would you like to see reflected there?
Would you shy away from the moments of pain,
Would you try to block the times when it hurt?
Or would you observe that your joy and your sorrow
Both spring from the same source?
Will you remember that without one,
You would not be able to feel the other?
Will you see that the deeper the lines of sorrow
Have been etched upon your life,
The greater capacity you have for
Experiencing joy?
When you look into
The mirror that you hold up to your life,
Will you, therefore,
Look deep into it,
And rejoice?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Many Bright Blessings to you fellow pilgrim :)
)o(
This brings to mind the Buddhist concept of “mirror-like wisdom” which refers to being able to see things as they really are – without the labels we place on things, the preconceptions, or stories that we tell ourselves that mask reality. Also there is no distinction between “self” and “non-self” so everything is experienced in unity and harmony.
This is known as the wisdom of the buddha Akshobhya.
The mirror if reflecing our soul, we get in contact with our selves thru our feeling. We are looking into the mirror to hunt our selves the our eyes, one of the languages in this world.
Simple and stupid is the way of writing, the world is not coplicated if we understand it. We have done it!
I believe that a mirror can capture one’s soul…
In Cinderella, the Wicked Witch’s soul was captured in the mirror, because she became obsessed with her looks and didn’t see the beauty of her soul, she lost her soul.
A mirror may even be a doorway to a parallel universe. I think Alice might have found Wonderland.
I’m living my mirror in a very bad way, i do avoid it anytime it’s possible. He makes me see myself in an other way than i feel in my immagination.
In Italy, where i’m living a broken mirror is associated to seven years of misfortune!!!! Fortunately i’m not superstitous
with ammiration
Sandra
Mirror
M =Manifestation, Mirror, Manual, More, Make up, Mechanics, Music
I= Image, Imagination, Imagine,
R= Reflection, Rainbow
R= Ray, Rays,
O= Organization, Orientation, Overflow, Omnipresent
R=Road, Road path
A wikipedia definition
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror
“gnitirw rorrim si sihT. era evisnepxe seadI.”
(Read from opposite, this way of writing is called Mirror Writing.)
OK, After reading many definitions by various authors and contributors I think my ideas are not so different than others but I would put it this way–
Mirror is self image, it is the reflection of your own body. The body which is physical could be seen with the help of the Mirror. Many religion and scriptures defines Mirror as the reflection of Soul but I think this is not true.
If a person can see the soul why can not he control his mind?
A person who can control him mind can only see himself/herself as a Soul, no human at present is perfectly capable of controlling of soul and viewing them as in the Mirror.
(I know there will be many eyebrows shown when I write like this)
Soul according to religion or some religion exits and they can be seen from the Mirror.
I believe human are not always alone. They are together with another human in them. We are seen as a single body but we are in two or dual body. One body is seen physically and another body is reflection. This another body which is invisible, not physical and totally pure.
(We cannot accept this fact because there are no scientific evidences and right now I do not have proofs or any experiment conducted to show this but I think this is what happens around our human body.)
Why do our image is visible in the mirror?
Is it because of the mirror itself or is it because of our physical body?
Most of the times- Mirrors are women’s best friend. Very few Men associated themselves with Mirror.
Women are the ones who do Makeups, breakups and show off in the Mirror. To admire oneself, see the mirror and bless yourself that you are the creation of the creator for curator.
Life is amazing and different, life is our perception and thinking but reflection of our thinking does not easily show off in the mirror. Mirror gives us smile. It also gives us pleasure of being intelligent animal in the planet. Mirror tells our story at that time.
Mirror is not only the reflection of our physical body but it also shows the reflection of another body inside us which remains pure, vivid and invisible.
A koan I heard once from a teen at a leadership camp:
“You are not who I think you are.
You are not who YOU think you are.
You are who you THINK I think you are.”
I associate the mirror with a close friend to my heart, who introduced me to your work. This page is the mirror. You, reflected back in all of our responses to you. We see ourselves in each other. Thank you for the invitation.
Dear MR.Paulo,
I think that the mirror is very important for us people in multiple ways.People can see in the mirror what they want to see….a perfect body,a perfect smile,a perfect lady or man…but you see we can’t be perfect…so the mirror is showing us the reality…here begin the battle betwen us and the image…it’s a hard battle…when the mind,body and soul don’t live in harmony…they produce a one big lack of balance…then we fight with our thoughts:who am I?I really feel good in my body?…Dear sir..i think that love is the answer…love can manage the balance…love can make the perfection of our life… a image is equally with a thousand words…the loving soul is the answer to our image..life and all around them…
…the life’s experience transform us
and it’s good …
OUI , SAVITA , hope and love for you Savita ( i know your tree : it’s the same in a life : The beautiful IS in our world )
What you tell and really, and it is what I wanted to say on my post last one for you I thought of you this day there, and it called back to(reminded) me I and my friend the death of a portion of our life, to reach a new life = by thinking of you this day there, it made for me thought of me
And I feel that our references are close (and you know “mission”: the revival!!!!!)
Thought ….love….. hope ( and not afraid : A guardian angel always with you and I feel his energy positive as for me)
ce que tu racontes et vrai , et c’est ce que je voulais dire sur mon dernier post pour toi … j’ai pensée à toi ce jour là , et cela m’a rappelé moi et mon ami …. la mort d’une portion de notre vie , pour accéder à une nouvelle vie = en pensant à toi ce jour là , cela m’a fait pensé à moi
et je sens que nos références sont proche ( et tu sais “mission” : la renaissance !! ! ! ! )
pensées … amour …espoir
( et n’aïe pas peur : un ange gardien toujours auprès de toi …et je sens son énergie positive comme pour moi )
sido
However the world takes on it. I have a very different opinion on it, when one says mirror he means a silver polished glass. I believe eyes are yet another mirror.
I feel eyes are the mirror within us that reflects ones soul character and dignity that’s given by God. If I am in the vicinity of that reflection and i can see straight to the very eyes of mine then only one is pure in heart and see the mirror or one can say oneself ……..
…such is the power of love to transform.
Thank you, Catherine, and Pandora.
Not surprisingly, I’ve been doing a little research myself on mirrors this week. Several books that I already had at home, in my bookshelf, proved to be a wealth of information.
Of course, we’ve all heard that breaking a mirror supposedly initiates seven years of “bad luck,” but one reference that I came across addressed the issue of mirrors that fall “of their own accord” (such as the one in the story I related to you all earlier this week). Such incidents are considered to be an omen of death. I thought that was interesting, because the first thought that crossed my mind when that mirror fell was “Oh, my! Someone has died!”
Once, many, many years ago, when I had been living in Mexico for a year, I had developed a very close friendship with a young man who was from there. We were “just friends,” but you might say that we loved one another very much – we were, in essence, “kindred souls.” When it came time for me to leave Mexico and go home to the States, I began to lament our parting. (This was long before the days of cell phones and internet, so, the only way for us to keep in touch, really, was by a highly unreliable and fretfully slow postal system. I said to him one day, “What will I do if one day you don’t answer. I mean, you could be dead and I would never even know it.”
“No,” he said, “That’s impossible. You don’t really believe that, do you. Of course you would know if I were dead. You would know the moment it happened.”
“How is that?” I asked.
And so he explained: “The moment that a person dies,” he said, “The soul shatters into dozens or even hundreds of fragments and goes out of the body. Traveling at the speed of light, those fragments then go forth into the world and travel to find all the people which this person loved in his life. It may be a door slamming when there is no wind…or it may take the form of a glass that suddenly topples of a cabinet and shatters…it could even be a tree falling in the road in front of you, but it will be something. Something will happen, and in that instant you will know that I am dead. The soul, you see, it takes these forms, but just for an instant before passing on, just long enough to reach out and touch the people that this person loved – to let them know of their passing.”
I never forgot what my friend told me. The afternoon, at the very hour, in fact, that my cousin committed suicide in Texas, a bird flew in the open window of apartment on the twelfth floor of a highrise building in downtown Miami. It just flew in, fluttered around over the table where I was sitting and chatting with a couple of friends, and then flew out. I’ve always believed, like my friend from Mexico suggested, that that bird was the temporary form taken by some fragment of my cousin’s soul – a messenger sent to tell me of his death, before the news came overland.
Whatever the case, I don’t at all doubt that this mirror plummeting off the wall was just such an incident, a “death omen” of sorts, informing me that someone very dear top me had just met his or her death. The thing is, I think the person that died was me, my “old self”, you might say, dying to a new life.
Only moments before that mirror fell, someone said to me “I love you” and I returned expression of the same sentiment. Those are words that, in a romantic context, I haven’t spoken in years and quite well assumed I might never hear, nor speak again. I think, in a way, those words were like a knife to my chest. In that moment, the old me died and was cast away. Now, a new me, a me that believes again, has taken form. It seems to me that the whole world is born anew.
Dear Paulo,
A mirror always was a bridge in the other world, world of magic..But presently it is only the article of consumption as on me…
With LOve…
Cinderella’s evil wicked step-mother of course.. would look in the mirror and ask “mirror, mirror, on the wall – who is the fairest of them all”
the mirror was an oracle of truth
and since Cinderella was the name that kept coming back, the evil, wicked step-mother set out to destroy Cinderella…
The mirror was an oracle of truth.
…was frightening these days! Now it is merciful again.
Besides the obvious use of it, what always comes to mind when I think of a mirror is a “door” to a parallel universe, the bigger they are and the older the frame, the more intresting they are for me.
link broken : http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/Phoenix%28Julia%29.gif
Sorry, please try this one…
Hi Savita
From reading your post I could tentatively suggest the following:
1. That it is not your time yet;
2. Your Guardian Angel is protecting you and acted through your friend; sometimes they do this just to make you realise they are there,
3. Possibly also you are in the right place at the right time, and,
4. Maybe you’d better fix the next one up better!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Phoenix(Julia).gif
Much love and wondrous reflection to you
Pandora
The saying goes that mirror always tells the truth and so is our conscience. The conscience always knows what is right and what is wrong, always try to thwarts us from doing anything wrong. It’s like you dress up and present yourself to the mirror, to the physical mirror of the outside world to gauge whether you look good, bad or ugly. Conscience is the mirror within everybody’s self. It doesn’t make us a better man if we just see through it. It’s only being able to see the reflections that make us good human beings.
Many thanks for raising this topic, Paulo. You have been an inspiration from the time I read ‘Veronica decides to die’ (first time I read your work) and I’d say I’m very happy to be part of this space.
Thanks & Regards,
Nirmalya
I believe that a literal mirror can only reflect a small amount of our true selves, while the people in our lives that we interact with provide many glimpses of who we are. It is quite impossible to be objective when dealing with ourselves and I think nothing as stationary as an actual mirror could ever capture, retain or do us justice about the many reflections we offer as humans. I also have a kind of supernatural feeling about mirrors, since I was small I always thought there was some other world on the other side of the mirror. I would wait to see if my image would move just slightly different from what I was doing, and as an adult I sometimes try to catch a quick glance to see it the Mirror Me is sticking it’s tongue out at the real me!
I believe that a literal mirror can only reflect a small amount of our true selves, while the people in our lives that we interact with provide many glimpses of who we are. It is quite impossible to be objective when dealing with ourselves and I think nothing as stationary as an actual mirror could ever capture, retain or do us justice about the many reflections we offer as humans.
I think, that in this technological age the ‘mirror’ could aptly be replaced by the photographic,or digital image.
The contradictory situation still applies, there are those who admire their image reflected in a photograph or jpeg, the narcissists.
However, photographs (reflections of oneself) may also reveal that which we find difficult to understand and acknowledge? The ‘truth’ of what ‘we’ (mankind) on a personal or collective level have become, be it for good or ill.
In that circumstance I believe there are those who still prefer to see what pleases them, not that which stares back at them in reflection.
Dear Paulo,
Japanese tradition inflects us with 2 master pieces of their handcreafthood:
1. masters of swords: the sharpness of out energy;
2. masters of jewelry: delight of inner-beauty;
3. masters of MIRRORS: THE REFLECTION OF SELF EGO; as zen teachings say: “the best ego is it’s zero”!
However, the mirror had for centuries different meanings: the beauty, the practicality, the self-discovery, …
I heard of corporations handing on their walls more mirrors, just for employee, that once they’ll look and see themselves their self-responsability towards their tasks will raise.
For me, the mirror has different tasks:
- in the morning, while shaving, i love the eye-to-eye ‘conversations’, watching the ‘gratitude and grateful’ feeling from ‘those’ eyes that i’m alive and i’m healthy;
- during day, while having a break, i tend to watch and struggle to discover more ‘incentive insights’ of what i’m doing… maybe a better idea, a better role of my tasks, a better mission of what i do;
-during evening, the mirror became almost a very close confession-body; will look into it and ask ‘him’ if tasks were done, if all things planned are solved, what can i do better, how can i be better.
As you see, these are only some functions the mirror fill in my life, and i’m sure even more can be listed here.
Is there any mystic behindit? maybe!
Is there any narcisicm in it? there’s some! (I recall now the Dorian Grey’s story)
Is there any energy in it? for sure, is out energy.
So…
Best regards dear Paulo and most cordial regards from highlandds,
Bob
We have a mirror where when you place your fingertip on the glass it doesn’t meet.Apparently you should always see no space in a reflection.
Old mirrors what have they reflected?Do mirrors hold old energies?
I like to see natural mirrors in water, puddles, pools, rivers and lakes. The mirror image of clouds on car windows or bonnets, I can see the poetry and a kind of soothing in the natural world of the skies
moving across the glass, or water like wild abstractions ,that seem like blessings from birds- the sun like a beautiful crystal ball a halo in the ripples of weather and an hour.
Beauty!
Sometimes I like to look at it, sometimes I don’t.
My mirror is my beloved one – she is listening like a mirror and really can listen, not as most of the people that give you too fast the associated own opinion to the things you are telling your mirror. She let’s you be yourself and with this kind and respectful habit it is easy to reach the core and in the end the soul – the mirror shows the real one? One of the reasons why I love her.
Very good blog and please go on.
dear paulo,
i associate ‘the mirror’ with a friend.. a true, honest and at times ruthless friend who never lies to you.. and sometims if one looks real closely.. it tells u wats inside of you..nd not just your outer image.. to me it tells me who i am and who i wana become..!