This is a repost of something I wrote as a reflection a few weeks after checking out a Rainbow Gathering when it came to Danby Vermont a bunch of years ago. My friend and I were just leaving the gathering when we . . .
" . . .passed this man who was carrying a black box on a pole. The open-faced box had three mirrors inside it, two on the sides and one in the back facing the opening, and there were little lights lighting up the interior of the box. It looked very magical. My friend and I turned around and caught up with the man. "What do you have there?" I asked him. He said it was a mirror that showed you what you looked like to other people. He invited me to look into it. I found myself staring into the mirror in the little box. The person I saw looking back at me was me but also he wasn't me. He looked a bit older and very tired. But he looked hyper-real at the same time, and a bit sad. Serious and sad. I thanked the man. I asked him how the mirror worked but I couldn't make heads or tails of his explanation. A few days later someone told me it was a parabolic mirror that reflects a three-dimensional image. That's where I'm going to end this blog post. I'm just going to suggest that it wouldn't hurt if we could all get a look at (or steal a glimpse of) ourselves, "as others see us", as long as we are in rest-mode or taking a step back . . . just to serve as an Archimedean Point ( hypothetical vantage point from which an observer can objectively perceive the subject of inquiry, with a view of totality). If we don't have access to a parabolic mirror, maybe we can just imagine it.
I have been following what is happening at Standing Rock in North Dakota, and what I realize is, the indigenous people aren't making a political stand. It isn't in the least political. They are protecting the water and the land because it is sacred, plain and simple. How long before we can take up that cause with that kind of principled comprehension? Let's not take too too long to wake up . . . as a people. This is not political, nor is it over-the-rainbow. It's real. And maybe it starts with us looking hard at ourselves in the face and accepting what we see, and then looking at each other with the same perspicacity, tinged with compassion. And then, let's move. Let's change things."
