Category: Mirrors

More on Osho & Mirror Meditation

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On 2014-12-14

In Mirrors

When we look into the mirror during mirror meditation, what do we see?

Spiritual teacher, Mooji, has an awesome youtube meditation in which he has you visualize yourself standing on a scale removing everything that is not natural to you. In other words, you remove your clothes, your dental fillings, and your nail polish, and once that is through, you remove the memories and thoughts which did not exist for you when you were born. In other words, it is a stripping away of all that is unnatural to our being. When we practice this, we get a sense of just how light our actual being is. Osho, another spiritual teacher, defines meditation as “the art of cleaning your mirror from all the dust that the society, the religion, the educational system has poured on you, to take away everything that has not been born with you, to bring you to your absolute innocence as you were born as a child”.

When Osho was asked why during mirror meditation, one meditator felt like he wasn’t looking at or seeing himself, Osho explained that this is absolutely correct! The reflection we see isn’t us. We are what is perceiving the reflection. He says, “if you think you are mirrored in the mirror, that is a lie…” It just happens to be one we all agree upon, and therefore it seems logical and real. He goes on to say, “Your consciousness cannot be reflected by the mirror,” unless, he says, that mirror is love.

Osho’s teaching on this is so profoundly beautiful. He explains how lovers can sometimes mirror each other through their deep intimacy. The personalities disappear and only love remains. The experience is akin to two mirrors reflecting one another thus reflecting infinity. That’s what two clear mirrors do when they face each other. They create infinity. This is one of the reasons why practicing mirror meditation with someone you love (being one another’s mirror) can be so profound.

When you are practicing mirror meditation alone, do the practice, whatever the focus, and engage with yourself, but always try to keep in the back of your mind that what you see is NOT you. Always bring any mirror meditation session to a close by being still and empty, practicing the recognition that you are the pure consciousness aware of the reflection and not what is being reflected.

Source: God’s Got a Thing About You, Chapter 17 – Osho

Meet Artist & Lighting Designer Jill Mulholland

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On 2014-12-02

In Mirrors

“Color and light are the strongest elicitors of beauty.”

I love how I met artist and lighting designer, Jill Mulholland. I had gone to a Temazcal or Mexican sweatlodge in Albuquerque. The woman running it just happened to be talking about a woman she knew who had done some research on how mirrors were used by “avisadores” to communicate with light signals across long distances. Having been working on Mirror Spiritus for several weeks prior, my little ears perked up. I begged for an introduction.

Jill was very accommodating and willing to meet with me not knowing if I was some kind of crazy person or not. She invited me to her home and without even having to explain what I was up to, she told me all about herself and her work. She had so many interesting things to share about mirrors and light. I was enthralled.

Then she showed me her Light Confetti. I was immediately taken back to a scene from the movie, Pollyanna, when the children discover “rainbow makers” or chandelier crystals at the house of the grumpy old man. Only Jill’s Light Confetti was about 10x more enchanting than any crystal light show I’ve seen. This art was casting a sun-lit constellation of stars all over her room! It was breathtakingly beautiful.

I downloaded a copy of Jill’s dissertation, Light Celebrating Place, West Texas Road Trip, and started reading it. It isn’t as dry as one might expect. Instead, it is a poetic and inspiring work that details her fascination with light, shadow, reflection, glow and color; reading about it fascinates the reader in turn…at least it did me. It’s right up the Mirror Spiritus alley, so to speak.

She writes:

“For me, reflections let me enter that place inside myself where it is quiet and non-verbal.”

She also talks about the depth of information contained in a shadow and that while reflection “bounces off”, glow “passes through”. Without knowing anything about mirror meditation, Jill has somehow managed to describe what it is, how it works, and what can be achieved through its practice!

I have two of these delightful, glistening pieces in my home now. I definitely want more!!! I hope to add some more photos of Light Confetti soon, so stay tuned.

Jill Mulholland received a B.A. in Maya Archaeology from Rutgers College, worked as an archaeologist in Belize, and as a contract archaeologist in California, Montana, Oregon and New Jersey. She learned light as a three-dimensional art form in the theater and received a Masters in Interior Architecture from the University of Oregon. Jill practiced as an architectural lighting designer in San Francisco, Portland, OR, and Princeton. She received a PhD. in Architecture from Texas A&M University, where she taught design studios in the Architecture and Visualization Departments. Her dissertation, Light Celebrating Place, resulted in four works of light art, one of which was temporarily installed in Big Bend National Park. This installation brought her work full circle back to the archaeology of the Mesoamerica and the Southwest.

Jill was the recipient of the Baker Chair, a position of merit that brings distinguished faculty to the University of Oregon in 2011. Later in 2011 she was a visiting professor at the University of Oklahoma. Currently she coordinates an all-volunteer non-profit board for the International Association of Lighting Designers that furthers architectural lighting education. Jill recently moved to Albuquerque to start a light art studio.

 

 

 

Mirrors in Art

By

On 2014-11-13

In Mirrors

There are some seriously beautiful installations out there that feature mirrors. Check out these “mindmelting” amazing mirrors in art. These images are not to be missed!!

http://www.buzzfeed.com/kevintang/mind-melting-artworks-made-with-mirrors#t7qhwl

http://beautifuldecay.com/2013/11/29/dan-graham-four-artists-use-mirrors-artwork/

Daniel Rozen, mirror artist

 http://www.smoothware.com/danny/

Mirror Cubes

http://twistedsifter.com/2013/12/light-bending-cube-of-one-way-mirrors-numen-for-use/

Here also is a fabulous blog post, How Mirrors Changed Art, from Thinking About Art that talks about some of the earliest mirrors and includes links to some interesting videos as well as some additional resources (though some of the links no longer function).

A Brief History of Scrying

By

On 2014-11-11

In Mirrors

Ever wish you could just look into a crystal ball and see into your future? Would it be a blessing or a curse to have such vision?

The art of scrying, the practice of gazing into a reflective surface and becoming focused on a single point to remotely view another person, place or time, has been around as long as the human desire to foretell the future.  The ancient Greeks and Celts practiced scrying as did the “wizards” of Mesopotamian and Mesoamerican cultures, the latter known for using polished obsidian.

In more recent culture, we see scrying in the Wizard of Oz, first when the fortune teller Dorothy meets after she runs away from home uses a crystal ball to focus in on her Auntie Em and again when the wicked witch uses one to follow Dorothy’s movements. We also see it in Snow White, when the evil queen uses the mirror to confirm her identity as the fairest in the land. And of course, it appears in even more recently in the Harry Potter series.

Any smooth and reflective surface will do…a bowl of water, a mirror, glass, or a candle. Nostradamus, in fact, used a bowl of water to see into the future while in a trance state, making it possible for him to to perceive and then interpret images that appeared through ripples, waves, and reflections upon and within the water.

At Mirror Spiritus, we aren’t so much interested in the practice of scrying as an end unto itself. It is neither something we practice nor teach, though it can spontaneously occur during mirror meditation for those with such proclivities. Certainly, when we quiet the mind and become focused on a single object, we open ourselves to deep relaxation and can receive messages from deep within. If you are interested in learning more about it, check out this short course in scrying from Hermetic.com.

 

 

Paul Klee Quote

By

On 2014-11-10

In Mirrors

“Some will not recognize the truthfulness of my mirror. Let them remember that I am not here to reflect the surface… but must penetrate inside. My mirror probes down to the heart.”

Paul Klee

Byron Katie on Mirrors

By

On 2014-11-10

In Mirrors

“Do you want to meet the love of your life? Look in the mirror.”

Byron Katie

Mirror Meditation – Intro Meditation

By

On 2014-11-10

In Mirrors

This is an introductory mirror meditation suitable for all levels. It draws upon the practice of Ho’oponopono, a practice of reconciliation and forgiveness. You will need a mirror. For more mirror meditation videos, please subscribe to the MirrorSpiritus youtube channel.

Rumi & the Mirror

By

On 2014-11-10

In Mirrors

Rumi & the Mirror

Contemplate these beautiful quotes from Sufi poet, Rumi, during your mirror meditations.

~~“You have no idea how hard I’ve looked for a gift to bring You. Nothing seemed right. What’s the point of bringing gold to the gold mine, or water to the ocean. Everything I came up with was like taking spices to the Orient. It’s no good giving my heart and my soul because you already have these. So I’ve brought you a mirror. Look at yourself and remember me.”

~~“The truth was a mirror in the hands of God. It fell, and broke into pieces. Everybody took a piece of it, and they looked at it and thought they had the truth.”

~~“If you are irritated by every rub, how will your mirror be polished?”

~~”We are pain and what cures pain, both. We are the sweet cold water and the jar that pours. I want to hold you close like a lute, so that we can cry out with loving. Would you rather throw stones at a mirror? I am your mirror and here are the stones.”

~~”Between the mirror and the heart is this single difference: the heart conceals secrets, while the mirror does not”

~~”If you could get rid of yourself just once, the secret of secrets would open to you. The face of the unknown,
hidden beyond the universe would appear on the mirror of your perception.”

~~”Let go of your worries and be completely clear-hearted, like the face of a mirror that contains no images. If you want a clear mirror, behold yourself and see the shameless truth, which the mirror reflects. If metal can be polished to a mirror-like finish, what polishing might the mirror of the heart require? Between the mirror and the heart is this single difference: the heart conceals secrets, while the mirror does not.”

~~”Your grief for what you’ve lost lifts a mirror up to where you’re bravely working. Expecting the worst, you look, and instead here’s the joyful face you’ve been wanting to see. Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes. If it were always a fist or always stretched open, you’d be paralyzed. Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding, the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as bird wings.”

~~”When the mirror of the heart becomes pure and clear, impressions of the other world will become manifest. The image and the image-maker will become visible, like the carpet and the carpet-spreader.”

Mirrors in Poetry

By

On 2014-11-10

In Mirrors

Mirrors frequently appear in poetry. Here is a selection of poems featuring the mirror that seem to capture the mysterious and compelling qualities inherent in reflection. Rumi has also used mirror symbolism in his poems.

 

Lady at a Mirror by Rainer Maria Rilke

As in sleeping-drink spices
softly she loosens in the liquid-clear
mirror her fatigued demeanor;
and she puts her smile deep inside.

And she waits while the liquid
rises from it; then she pours her hair
into the mirror, and, lifting one
wondrous shoulder from the evening gown,

she drinks quietly from her image. She drinks
what a lover would drink feeling dazed,
searching it, full of mistrust; and she only

beckons to her maid when at the bottom
of her mirror she finds candles, wardrobes,
and the cloudy dregs of a late hour.

Translated by Edward Snow

 

Telling You All  by Rainer Maria Wilke

Telling you all would take too long.

Besides, we read in the Bible
how the good is harmful
and how misfortune is good.
Let’s invite something new
by unifying our silences;
if, then and there, we advance,
we’ll know it soon enough.
And yet towards evening,
when his memory is persistent,
one belated curiousity
stops him before the mirror.
We don’t know if he is frightened.

But he stays, he is engrossed,
and, facing his reflection,
transports himself somewhere else.

 

The Muses Mirror by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

EARLY one day, the Muse, when eagerly bent on adornment,
Follow’d a swift-running streamlet, the quietest nook by it seeking.

Quickly and noisily flowing, the changeful surface distorted
Ever her moving form; the goddess departed in anger.

Yet the stream call’d mockingly after her, saying: “What, truly!
Wilt thou not view, then, the truth, in my mirror so clearly depicted?”
But she already was far away, on the brink of the ocean,
In her figure rejoicing, and duly arranging her garland.

 

 

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