NARCISSUS
Sometimes I like my reflection
Sometimes I don't.
There are endless reflections
On endless pools
Screen, platforms, eyes.
Endless representations
Of the form, thought,
And emotional substance
That is me.
Some are cultivated
Crafted responses surface still
That hide the swirling eddies within.
Some are fragmented
Incomplete reproductions
Projected from wavering distortions.
Some are unexpected
Knowledge, welcome or not
Dredged from the deep.
None of them are me
Though many have shaped me.
They are parts, amplified and filtered
Through a social lens of expectation.
Some through my own fallacies.
In this, the irony
I am not my reflection
Yet, our mirrors test self-awareness
Pieces unseen from
My protagonist point-of-view.
In each mirroring, an expansion of self
Iterations rippling outward
To transfix or transform
Asking —echoing— cyclically:
What do you see?
What does it mean?
Who are you?
Who will be become?
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September 24, 2020: My thoughts ping from one place to another. I have started to use grounding techniques before sessions to embody the present and come to each session from a place of wise mind. I want to embed this into my professional practice. After, I walk, reflecting on the words, on my perspectives. I let my mind become a still pool with which to observe myself, as clearly as possible. I miss my cohort; they all graduated last year except for one or two. I watched them share resources, sorrows, achievements, and support on their forum. I feel alone without the same camaraderie; I believe it is critical to have these reflective surfaces with which to see oneself. On the one hand, the reflection never fully represents the whole. How can it? In the myth of Narcissus the question is asked "..why strive in vain to catch a fleeting image? What you see is nowhere; And what you love —but turn away—you lose! (Ovid, 1986, p. 64). And yet, if I never see myself reflected in other people, I will miss critical information about who I am; about what I do. My perspective is limited to what I can see; I need mirrors to illuminate my blind spots. I need to be able to pull myself from my vanities. How can I cultivate relationships this semester, during a pandemic, to find other still pools with which to see myself?
Ovid. (1986). Metamorphoses (D. Melville, Trans.). Oxford University Press (Original work published ca. 8 AD)