Minneapolis Institute of Arts
Recently I visited the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and found myself spending time in some of their historic rooms. One of the rooms was an English room from about 1700. Hanging on one wall was a mirror from the same date (pictured at left). When I first saw it from a distance I wondered what people three hundred years ago saw when they looked in the mirror. Since there was no photography then, a mirror produced the most true to life image people could see of themselves. How clear and accurate were the images?
When I stood in front of the mirror I was shocked to see what was looking back at me.
What I was aware of was the energy that seemed to linger from the hundreds or thousands of other faces that have stood in front of that mirror over the past 300 years. It felt like everything that had ever been reflected in that mirror was still present. And there I was, engulfed in a strange time warp.
I keep thinking about the fact that physics tells us that everything is energy. Over the past few months I’ve become increasingly aware of energy, energy I feel in myself, feel in others and the world around me. Energy seems to be at the forefront of my mind quite often. So it makes sense that I was responsive to the energy I encountered. I was just surprised to sense what seemed to be energy from such a long time ago.
We often hear about how we’re all one, the universe being one harmonious whole. That’s one of the main truths religions of all stripes do their best to help us know. We learn how the separation from others we feel is just an illusion. This illusion, however, is very difficult to see past. But in this moment in front of the mirror, that illusion seemed to dissolve into reality.
The qualities of the mirror in that museum gave it a three dimensionality greater than I’d seen in other mirrors. Within the complexity of those dimensions lived all those faces from the past. Their energy surrounded the image of my own face. It felt like the boundaries between the past and the present evaporated. It felt that the past and the present were indeed one. The mirror had become a time machine.
The reason I’m relating this experience is to point out that we each have our own mirror, our own doorway to that spiritual and energetic world that supports our physical existence. And when we’re open to being surprised, that opening will allow the unexpected, the unknowable (yet somehow strangely knowable) to approach.
What was behind that unexpected experience I had? Could science measure it? Could it be proven or disproven? I don’t know the answers to those questions. Frankly, I don’t really care what the answers are. All I know is that standing in front of that mirror on that occasion was an experience that had a profound effect on my perception of time, space and the unity of the cosmos. That’s enough for me.
I’d love to hear of experiences you’ve had where the veil was pulled aside. Times when you sensed the boundaries between the physical and the non-physical dissolve. Times that had a profound effect on you. Tell me below in the comments.
Then head out to a museum and look for the unexpected.
© 2019, Paul Boehnke. All rights reserved.
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