Not This Reflection

 The Ego's Reflection

Like Narcissus did so curiously, many centuries ago
I look about for who I am.  I simply do not know.
When I glance into the water I am surprised by what I see;
there I find a shiny reflection staring smugly back at me.

"This must be who I am," I utter as I reach in to pick "me" up
but  alas this watery  image, with my hands, I just can't seem to cup.
It slips through my fingers no matter how tightly I hold on.
It drips, slithers  and  trickles away. What am I doing wrong?

Fear then overcomes me. This precious image I do not want to  lose.
So I seek and grasp  at any  form around me that  I can somehow use
to help me retrieve my perfect self from the surface of this lake;
to gather it up  in its shiny  form within me,  to end a desperate  ache.

But no matter what I grab or try to cling to, like the water, it slips through
the space between my fingers and disappears from earthly view.
I can not understand it as my  confusion and  frustration grows
I cry out questions to the Echo, to Nemesis and to anyone that knows.

"Why is it so challenging to hold onto a dense  object made of matter?
And why does this lovely image I look upon break apart and splatter
whenever I dip my fingers beneath the surface the gawking world sees?"
Then I hear the silent  answer from within me and I fall down upon  my knees.
 
What I look upon so longingly, will never be more than a  mere  reflection
always lacking in the depth of being , in sweet stillness and divine perfection.
I am not just a shadow rippling on the surface of this pool of collected rain
I am the Seer, not the seen.  I am the  creator, not the  goddess of the vain.

White and gold petals soon surround the image  marking its glorious rebirth
and the roots of understanding ground the Self I am more deeply into earth. 
Who I am cannot be reflected back for anyone to name, or know or see
and it is with  this eternal knowing that the Observer is finally set free.
 
Dale-Lyn Feb 2020

I am obsessed with understanding the personality and the nature of who we truly are which I know somehow is not the personality. It is much deeper, much bigger than this idea we have of "me" and "you". At the same time it is formless so it cannot be understood in physical terms...it cannot be picked up, held, clung to no matter how much we try to. The personality is just a reflection on a lake.

I wrote the above five years ago.  I have spent the last five years observing  this personality, this ego, I have been so attached to all my life, believing it was what I was and struggling to protect it. I slowly, slowly (and not yet completely) stopped trying to pick it up, to hold onto it, to identify with it. My view has gone from a very small apeture focus of "this is my life",  to a larger one of "this is Life". It keeps getting wider and this personality keeps getting smaller within it. Hmm. 

 I see this "me"...that is the reality for so many of us... as an illusion ...a mere reflection...not who I am.  Nothing in this physical world makes much sense to me anymore. I do not yet know who I am- in the felt experience of knowing but I know it is not this personality I call "me".

Hmm!

All is well.