Mirrors...

“The soul doesn’t call in saviors, it calls in mirrors.  And mirrors don’t lie...” unknown

I mean, that is pretty fucking true, unless it is one of those fun house mirrors and then they lie a lot.  I’m sure that isn’t what the author of this quote was saying...they were not contemplating life’s funhouse mirrors as they reflect back a very distorted and fucked up view.  They were thinking of the mirrors most of us use every day, that reflect back the face the world sees.  And perhaps, sometimes, if you look closely enough, you get a glimpse of the person we hide beneath that stellar reflection.

When I first read this quote, I did NOT want it to be true. In fact, I saved it because I was going to write a whole blog refuting it.  Fuck that, and why aren’t souls calling in saviors?  Seems like the world could use a few of those right now.

But the more I tried to mount arguments to defy the quote, the more true it became for me.  And the more that truth upset me.  Why can’t souls call in what they lack, something to augment and provide depth and weight?  I mean why can’t our souls, knowing what we need, call in someone divinely suited in the world to help us evolve with love and peace and joy and all of that?  

I really tried to have this post be all about why that quote is dead wrong, but here I am defending it with my life.

My last relationship, my soul (so I thought) was calling in a savior.  Someone to atone for all the past heartbreaks and errors in judgment.  Someone who was going to show up and redeem us both.  And that is what initially appeared.  Or at least that is what I told myself at the time...

In reality, when I go back in time to that place and person, I can see only the giant fucking mirror of my own dysfunction, manifested in male form.  He was not anyone’s savior, to include himself.  He is still on the fast track to self destruction, speeding down a highway where all exits have been mostly eliminated by now.  He just careens forward at an alarming pace, taking down everything and everyone that happens to cross his path.

At first, I was like how was he a mirror for me?  I don’t do that to other people, at least not intentionally.  Upon further reflection, I don’t do that to people at all.  I may not be the most successful person in relationships but on the whole, my relationships are good and loving because I am mostly good and loving.  So how could he possibly be a mirror???

Well, a mirror reflects back all that stands beside and behind.  I didn’t see, at the time, that all my relationships from that day back, had mostly a man standing next to me, promising me salvation he had no intention of delivering.  He was quite lost himself actually.  There was no saving that was going to occur except mostly with me attempting to save him.  And all that ever did was distract me from working on and saving myself.

The soul calls in mirrors because it needs you to see yourself more clearly so that you can be your own savior, making obsolete the need for someone else to fill that job.  I see that now.  It took me a long time to see it, and an even longer time to accept it, but I do now and it is painful.

The soul wants peace but it is unafraid of calling up hard, desperate, difficult things in order to evolve you into the person the world needs you to be.  I believe we are all blessed with a Divine purpose.  And our lives are what we are given to figure that out.  We all get a little or a lot lost along the way.  Some of us being advanced in the whole soul development and figuring it out earlier.  Others of us, just not being up for the task at all and spend our lives chasing sex, money, booze and drugs, completely derailing us ever finding a Divine purpose because that purpose has been totally supplanted by addiction.

My last relationship was a mirror of all that was wrong with me.  And it didn’t lie.  It just took me quite a long time to see that which was completely obvious to everyone else.  I was still attempting to find validation, salvation and acceptance by the man that I loved.  And the fact that had never worked out once for me, was absolutely lost on me.  I didn’t want to see it, so I didn’t. 

I only found the willingness to see what my soul was telling me in that mirror, in the intervening aftermath on the tide of stupidity, embarrassment and grief.  Then I saw the lies were all mine.  The mirror was there to show me what my soul required.  And finally, when I truly saw the fallacy of my own perpetual insistence to believe a lie that was not supported by facts or reflection, only then was I willing to do something different.

It has been over a year and I am still healing.  Once you see the truth, it morphs into other things.  For me, usually into another man that is never going to live up to what I want or need.  For me, I had to slow my roll long enough to see that I was absolutely the problem.  He a mere symptom. And then I had to do the one thing I absolutely did not want to do.  Sit with my own truth and let it marinate.

I am still marinating but that feels better today in the soupy stock of truth, removed from the marinade of lies and deception (his and mine).

It is also good to know that my soul is never going to call up a savior out there, so I can stop looking.  The "soulution" will always be internal. Just me and my funhouse mirrors, seeking out the one that is not distorted and obscuring.  I know, from experience, I can find the one that reflects back truth, just as soon as I release my commitment to finding truth in a house of lies.

Again, still...