When I saw this vision, I was participating in a wonderful meditation workshop. One of the meditations included is a powerful one, suggesting we see how a great and inspired sculptor has created a statue of us. This meditation has given me some incredible insights about who I am, as I always seem to have a powerful vision when I experience it. It was the same meditation which inspired The Monolith from October 1996.
When I walked up to the statue and pulled off the cloth, I saw a big
silver mirrored box with a beautiful purple bow on it. In the vision, I was the silver box, a gift to all those around me. What was happening was strange and very funny. As someone would enter the room and look at me, they would see only a distorted reflection of themselves. It was just like a fun house mirror image in the side of the gift box as they approached. They thought they were seeing me, but in fact they were only seeing a fractured view of themselves. None of them saw the truth of me at all. I realized we see everyone in our world this way. I see myself reflected in you. When I see you as beautiful, it is a reflection of the beauty in me. When
I see you as less attractive, it is a reflection of what I dislike in myself. These evolving reflections are the gifts we are to each other because we know ourselves by what we see in everyone else in our world!
The meditation then suggests that a master will walk into the room to start a dialogue with you. I saw a gorgeous woman enter who looked like Elizabeth Taylor, violet eyes and all, when she was in National Velvet. She introduced herself as Mary Magdalene. I was startled because she reflected purely in the mirror on the side of my gift box. There was no distortion at all in the way she saw herself reflected in me. Her beauty was perfectly returned to her.
I told her I would like to show everyone the truth of their being and their beauty as clearly as I was showing her who she was. I asked for her secret. How could I more often show a clear image of the true, loving nature of the being of others?
She was so beautiful, gentle, and kind. She looked at me with her huge, gorgeous eyes and said, "You must consciously choose to see the world through a filter of grace." Then she turned and walked away.
A filter of grace. Many people only experience the world through a filter of fear. The reflections we send back to others are distorted by anxiety. From the moment we are born, we warn, guide, caution, and enclose each other. We want to keep safe from all who would harm us in the world. From our desire to protect each other, we create a fractured view of a world. We begin to see monsters everywhere, out to get us at every moment. The more fear we absorb, the more distorted the world looks. After all, it is done unto us as we believe.
The more we believe in the need to fear and protect, the more we see fearful things. We wall ourselves inside a prison of fear. Because we guard and tense up, focusing on security rather than joy, we see a universe of fear rather than a universe of grace. We settle for survival, forgetting how to feel free. We may feel we're not good enough, smart enough, thin enough, or tall enough. Ultimately, we find ourselves looking out at others, cowering in fear, running away from the fractured image of our own selves.
So what is this alternative, this filter of grace? Mary Magdalene gave me two important instructions. The first is to consciously choose how I see the world. She encouraged me to make a deliberate decision, to leave behind the default view, to see life completely differently. Secondly, she recommended we choose grace. Grace is a gift, freely given, as we choose to look at the world through the loving eyes of Spirit.
