Blog 24: A World Reflected in Every Angle

If you stare long enough into the void then the void will stare back. We’ve been looking at the universe and the world that sits in it long enough for it to gaze back. Having no form of its own it stares at us in our likeness, ourselves and all the earth beneath our feet reflected from every angle. Each gazing reflection is only another manifestation of the universe staring deep into the heart of us.
I’ve seen myself in water and the sky. My face stares down from the bright stars above but each of us sees our self. As manifestations of the universe we can be self conscious but we should be grateful for the company. To stare into the heavens without response would be too cold and lonely an existence. However lonely we are we are taught to seek out ourselves as the guise of the void. You can fall through the reflections. They warp and move us between reflections, those shimmering portals. I love to dive through those gates and doorways only to be thrown upwards into the flipped mirror of my previous world. Getting used to the variations in perspective and orientation took time. Things change, animals change and people change but they don’t know it. To them everything is as it has always been. It is our perception of the world that changes when we wander through a gateway not the world itself. Through our eyes the universe sees itself anew as if looking for the best angle.
Working around the reflections is a skill unknown to the young. I remember the confusion as I stared at my reflection in the water of the river and fell beneath the surface only to be ejected onto the bank of another river on another world. Whenever we need company the universe walks with us in its costume. The other me watches, waiting for something. We wait together and in each reflection in every drop of falling rain we are asked why? The universe is patient but bored. As a reflection fades into peripheral vision it plays games and taunts us for our answers.
The universe is as confused as we are I’m told, more so perhaps. It is the only being of its kind and needs us all as company. We, life, exist to prevent its loneliness evolving into depression. Should it become suicidal there would be nothing for any of us. We must be kind and gracious to our fragile host.
Sometimes it seems bored of us as toys and changes the rules. Caught in the reflection of a raindrop we might lose our perspective on the world and face the confusion of learning the rules of our new orientation. Changing our perspective on the world is a cruel trick to play on the weary or wizened. I have woken in dazes and torn through a world that was not mine when I lay down to sleep. For those with minds addled by age a change of perspective can be deadly. It rarely plays its tricks on the old and sometimes I wonder if it punishes the perpetrators of crimes only it remembers. One day I might be one of those old souls, long friends of the universe. I hope it will be kind to me.