Dear Friends,
For our staff retreat on Monday, I hurry to the boardroom, gripping two heavy boxes of mirrors that nearly slip from my hands. In the room, I ask everyone to lift the mirrors in front of them and invite them to gaze into their own eyes for 5 minutes. It’s a contemplative practice, a “mirror-gazing” meditation, designed to encourage us to see beyond the surface, to be mirrors ourselves—to receive, reflect and recognize the divine presence within and around us. When we move beyond ourselves—like mirrors that receive and reflect back what is present—we can become more aware of our own essence or divine presence.
I peek at the timer on my watch. Five minutes is a long time. Rasheeda (Community Coordinator) giggles quietly. The silence makes me impatient, and I call the time at four minutes. I ask each to tilt their mirrors so that we can see one another in its reflective surface. Then I invite them to place the mirrors beneath their chins, reflective surface up, with their eyes looking downward. When we walk, it suddenly appears as if we are walking on the ceiling. It’s a game I used to play with my older sisters when I was a little girl. We laugh aloud as we move through the space, stepping over upside down door frames, inching around the wheel-shaped chandelier that now appears to be hovering above the “floor.” We call out to one another. “Careful! Watch out!”
Sometimes, like with a mirror turned upside down, we can see the unexpected, and our eyes reveal more to ourselves than we knew. Our room is the same, but a shift in perspective opens us up to mystery and surprise. We find ourselves in the unknown and unknowable—and the depth surprises us. Delights us.
Marguerite Porete, the famous, French, Christian mystic, wrote “The Mirror of Simple Souls” during the late 13th and early 14th century. Porete describes how the protagonist in the story, Mirieille, recognizes that she, herself, is a mirror—reflecting the divine light with her own soul. Through a mystical union with God, Porete describes a kind of transformation—no longer limited by the perspective of the self—but one connected to love, to peace, and to infinite wisdom. What Porete saw in the mirror, what she helped us see in ourselves, continues in this room, in this place, in this time.
Please, come join us at Cranaleith. Sit in silence. Look for the Divine within yourself and one another. Find peace, hope, and wholeness.
In Mercy,
Dawn L. Hayward