Hi Alessa
No need to apologize the idea behind stories was to let people see what they will in them so me saying I ‘missed the mark’ kind of undermined that. Of course I didn’t notice till I clicked post, I assume because the ‘universe’ thinks that funny. I wish they brought back the window to edit. Still all good.

I think, from my own experience and observations, that its near imposable not to project our fears and hopes into virtual world conversations where the only tool we have is language. As you note if such is the case, trust is important if not the key.

I hated book reports even though, or maybe because, I really struggled saying what I wanted to say. Primary because I can’t spell to save my life, which meant I limited myself to the words I would use, and even then, would lose all the points for grammar and spelling so I would always only just pass. Of course I took that a meaning I was stupid because that’s what we do when where young and don’t know better.

Today we have all these wonderful tool but even then one has to be careful. Ai will tell you what you want to hear. I use it to check my grammar and flow and then argue with it when it starts changing what I’m trying to saying and you can learn quite a bit doing that.

You wont be surprised to learn that I have filled notebooks with quotes from books I read, then spend years linking ideas from different sources. Now I can revisit those thoughts, test the connections, and really explore them. But I still need to be careful using these tools.

Thank you, Alessa. I appreciate your honesty and the clarity.

I agree, sometimes people are simply different, and understanding each other can be incredibly difficult.

It seems my story and metaphor of mirrors may have missed the mark, especially since our conclusions are much the same. That’s okay, this method of expressing things is something I’m experimenting with, and I’m grateful for your feedback.

The idea I was exploring is that in every interaction, we are both a reflection and a mirror. It’s part of why understanding is so elusive. We don’t just see the other, we also shape what we see, and are shaped in return. This I feel is even more true in the virtual world we attempt to connect through. The task, as Rumi points to, is to recognize this dynamic and then gently let go of the mirror.

As you more clearly said: avoid judging, avoid labeling, and learn to find the beauty of knowing oneself.

Sometimes the mirror distorts. Sometimes it clarifies, thanks for your clarification. As you point to the invitation is to step beyond reflection altogether, and meet each other not as images, but as presence.

“And in the stillness where no mirror remains, I learn to meet the world not as a reflection, but as a breath passing through, unseen, yet wholly here.“

I’m trying something different or maybe its not. It draws from Sufi and Zen traditions and my exploration on the nature of mirrors and the ways we reflect each other and ourselves in the same moment

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A young monk approached the master and said,
“Master, my friend scatters like the wind. I cannot keep him still. How can I hold him close?”
The master handed the monk an empty wooden box.
“Catch the wind in this,” he said.
The monk frowned. “That is impossible. The wind cannot be trapped.”
The master smiled.
“Then why do you try to hold what was born to move?”
The monk lowered his eyes. “But if I do not hold him, will he not leave me?”
The master opened the box and turned it upside down.
“Look,” he said, “the wind has already been here. It touched your face, filled your lungs, and passed on. Did it ever belong to you?”
The monk was silent.
The master placed the empty box in his hands.
“Carry this with care,” he said.
“It is lighter than the wind, yet heavier than your need.”

Later, in the quiet of the garden, I sat with the box in my lap. In stillness, I rested where roots go deep, and the earth hummed softly with my name. Unseen by others, I bloomed in the soil of a deeper spring. The gaze of others may pass me by, but my leaves are my own offering.

I began to notice how, in every relationship, two mirrors face each other. Perhaps one belongs to the soul longing to be seen, the other to the heart that wishes to shape. Yet in reflection, which mirror is which? Do we even notice when each polishes the other to match its own image?

This is the silent tension beneath so much human suffering: the desire to be known, and the impulse to control what the other sees, creating an endless corridor of reflections, images of images, stretching into infinity.

So it is with us. The one who feels unseen begins to adjust themselves, hoping to catch the other’s eye. The one who shapes another secretly longs for affirmation in return. Each becomes both the unseen and the shaper, trapped in a hall of mirrors where no image is real.

How can we truly see another when we do not see ourselves?

The Sufi would say: “You polish the mirror of another, yet your own is covered in dust.”

The Zen master would strike the mirror and ask: “Where is your face now?”

Both teachings point to the same truth: the more we seek ourselves in another’s reflection,
the further we drift from our own center.

And so, I turned inward.
The unseen must learn to bloom without witnesses. The shaper must learn to behold without grasping. When each tends to their own mirror, the hall of illusions collapses. Two souls meet, not as images, but as essences, not in a corridor of reflections, but in the open sky of being.

Rumi whispers: “Out beyond ideas of right and wrong, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”

And the Zen master adds, with a smile: “Bring nothing with you, not even your face.”

I sit quietly and imagine two mirrors facing each other, seeing the endless reflections.
Then one mirror is turned inward and polished gently, not for others, but for clarity.

What is my nature when no one is watching?

The mirror falls away, and with it all reflections. There is no hall, no corridor, only the vast, open field.

I have looked for myself in a mirror polished by others’ breath, a surface bright, yet blind, where smoke slipped through the cracks of reflection. I reached for form…. and found only shimmer.

Now I walk where mirrors cannot follow, beneath a sky too wide for frames. The fog still curls around my feet, but I breathe the open air.

I am not smoke, nor shadow… I am the wind, moving through the world, unbound, unseen, quietly present, witness.

Hi Alessa
A question I often ask what myself, what if…

A final reflection as I return to sit beneath the tree.

The Path Between

The morning mist still clung to the valley when Layla set out, her steps quiet on the dew-covered path. She had begun walking without a destination, only a feeling a pull toward something unnamed.

Near the bend where the cedar trees grew thick, she saw an older man sitting on a stone. His cloak was worn, his posture still. He did not look up as she approached, nor did he speak.

Layla paused. Something in his silence reminded her of herself… not the self she showed, but the one she had once carried quietly, before Zahir had taught her to listen.

She sat a short distance away, not too close. She did not speak. She did not offer a question or a metaphor. She simply waited.
The wind moved through the trees. A bird called once and was answered. The man remained still.
Layla closed her eyes and breathed. Not every silence needs filling, she thought. Not every pain needs naming.

Layla sat beside the stranger, the silence stretching like a thread between them. She did not reach for it. She let it be.

The sun had begun its slow descent behind the hills, casting long shadows across the path. Layla remained seated beside the stranger, her breath steady, her heart quiet.

After a long silence, the man turned slightly and looked at her. His eyes were kind, deep with time. And then, he smiled.
It was not a wide smile, nor one that asked for anything. It was the kind of smile that carries recognition, not of a face, but of a moment shared.

He stood slowly, as if the silence had given him something he hadn’t known he needed. He did not speak, nor did he reach for anything. He simply placed his hand over his heart, bowed his head slightly, and turned to walk away.

Layla watched him go, her own heart still. She had brought no bundle, no token, to give him. Only herself. Only the quiet.
And yet, she knew both had received something.

Just before the bend, where the cedar trees grew thick, he paused. Without turning, he raised one hand in silent farewell. Then he was gone.

Layla sat alone once more, but the silence had changed. It was no longer the silence of waiting. It was the silence of something completed.

She closed her eyes and listened not for footsteps, not for voices, but for the stillness that follows a gift given and received freely.
And in that stillness, she smiled.

The Old Man’s Heart (inspired by the movie ‘The life of Chuck’)

As a young man, he had once been given a seed of fire by a gardener whose eyes held both sorrow and joy. “Plant this in your heart,” the gardener had said. “It will burn away the thorns and grow into a tree whose fruit is peace.”

And so he had. He had once thought the fire would only burn away what was false. But over time, he learned it also revealed what was beautiful.

There were days though, like today, when the ache of the world pressed heavy on his chest. Days when he saw too clearly the pain people carried, the harm they gave and received without knowing why. On such days, he did not try to fix anything. He simply sat, letting the ache be what it was.

Only today, he did not sit alone.

The woman beside him had offered no words, only presence. And in that presence, he felt the ache held, not erased, not explained, but witnessed.

It reminded him of a moment long ago, walking down a city street. A busker had played a rhythm that matched a businessman’s steps, and the man had stopped, set down his briefcase, and danced. The music changed to meet him, and for a breathless moment, he did not know if the man was dancing to the music or if the music was dancing to him.

Here also a young woman had joined him, and the world had become rhythm and movement and grace. And he could swear he heard the world sigh in gratitude.

It was one of the most beautiful things he had witnessed so he was not surprised when he found tears had started to fall. Something in him had recognized a truth: that life, at its most honest, is a dance between souls. Sometimes we lead. Sometimes we follow. Sometimes we simply move together.

That was what he felt now. The ache remained, but it was no longer solitary. It was shared. And in that sharing, it became something else, not pain, not joy, but the quiet rhythm of love.

Hi Everyone

The last few days I’ve been sitting under the tree wondering if I have planted the seed of fire or bottled it up. Or perhaps I have planted it but not tended it well? Digging it up looking for just the right garden, the right crack of light to fit through.

Words from the Lord’s Prayer: “Forgive us… as we forgive” and the ask that we love our neighbor as ourselves… arise. Words that feel less like a request and more like a mirror. A mirror I’m not sure I want to look into, knowing how I struggle to love myself. What if the soil of the self is dry, cracked, and hard?

I know the truth of the interconnection of the web of life: that what we do to earth, what we do to others, we do to ourselves. And yet, I also know how difficult it is to forgive myself, to offer grace inward.

That tension led me to the story ‘The Seed and the Soil’, the soil of self-love, and the rain of kindness. It’s not a solution, but perhaps a way to walk with the question.

The Seed and the Soil
In the quiet valley nestled between two hills, Teacher Zahir tended a small patch of earth behind his hut. It was not part of the two gardens he was known for. This soil was dry, cracked, and stubborn. Yet each morning, he knelt beside it, pressing a single seed into the ground and whispering something no one could hear.

One morning, Layla, the young seeker, returned to Zahir. She bowed and asked,
“Teacher Zahir, why do you plant in soil that does not grow?”

Zahir smiled gently. “Because the seed is forgiveness.”

Layla frowned. “But the soil is barren.”

Zahir nodded. “Yes. It is the soil of the self, untended, hardened by years of judgment and silence.”

Layla sat beside him. “And you believe the seed will grow?”

Zahir looked to the sky. “Not by force. But even dry soil softens when the rain comes.”

Layla whispered, “And what is the rain?”

Zahir closed his eyes. “Kindness. Patience. The quiet act of loving what we are, even when we do not understand it.”

Layla touched the soil. It was still dry, but not as hard as before.

Layla’s Reflection: The Soil Within
I sat beside Teacher Zahir today, watching him press a seed into dry earth. I asked why he bothered, why plant where nothing grows?

He said the seed was forgiveness, and the soil was the self.

I didn’t know what to say. I’ve tried to forgive. Others, yes, but myself? That soil feels too hard, too tired. I’ve buried things there I don’t want to name.

But Zahir didn’t speak of force. He spoke of rain, of kindness, patience, and the quiet act of loving what we are, even when we don’t understand it.

I touched the soil. It was still dry. But maybe not as hard as before.

I wondered: If I have not forgiven myself, have I ever truly forgiven others?

And deeper still: What I’ve done to myself I’ve done to others…

Maybe the rain has already begun.