Conversations For Transformation: Essays Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

Conversations For Transformation

Essays By Laurence Platt

Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

And More




Reflection On A Window

Auberge du Soleil, Rutherford, California, USA

January 26, 2009
Reposted June 1, 2021



This essay, Reflection On A Window, is the companion piece to Indigo Child.

It is also the twelfth in an open group Encounters With A Friend:
  1. Showing Up
  2. Poet Laureate
  3. A Man In The Crowd
  4. Real Men Cry
  5. A Different Set Of Rules
  6. Nametag: A True Story
  7. Half-Life
  8. Waiting On You
  9. Erotica On Schedule
  10. A House On Franklin Street
  11. NeXT
  12. Reflection On A Window
  13. Here And There
  14. How To Enroll The World
  15. Demonstration
  16. Two Of Me II: Confirmation Not Correction
  17. Holiday Spectacular
  18. Hello! How Are Things Going For You?
  19. Regular Guy
  20. A Scholar And A Gentleman
  21. Images Of You
  22. With Nothing Going On
  23. Where No One Has Gone Before
  24. Attachment: Causeway Between Islands
  25. If You're Not Then Don't
  26. Images Of You II
  27. Living Where Life Is
  28. Create Me The Way I Am
  29. How Do You Spell The Sound A Ratchet Makes?
  30. You Don't Ask "Why Me?"  When It's Raining II
  31. The Stink Of Zen
  32. Sitting Quietly In A Room Alone
  33. Footsteps On Metal Stairs
so far, in that order.

It was written at the same time as


I'm riding in a tram with you, just sitting on the bus staring out the window enjoying the passing show, watching it all go by. This is peoplewatching at its finest. I'm aware you're here but we're not engaged right now. There's nothing going on.

And then I see your reflection on a window.

I'm astonished. And I'm astonished that my astonishment comes on me so suddenly ...

It's hard to tell which comes first: the gasp that utters itself using my lips as its vehicle, or my world weary heart melting like a snowflake on a crisp spring morning.

We often say about special human beings that they're creatures of light. It's hardly likely we'll ever actually see  them comprised of light. It's mostly only a metaphor. But we say they're creatures of light nonetheless. In other words, saying they're creatures of light is speaking figuratively and even conceptually. Yet we're clear about what we're referring to. Saying a human being is a creature of light is good enough for jazz.

When I see your reflection on the window, yes it's you  I see reflected on the window, it's your physical countenance, it's your face. And then there's the light coming through your reflection on the window. What I'm given, like some kind of divine gift, like some kind of profound insight  by this natural phenomenon, by this play of light  courtesy the eternal indefatigable laws of physics which are neither metaphorical nor conceptual nor intellectual, is a once in lifetime  vision of you as who and what I know you to really be, a vision of you as who you really are, as how  you really are, as a creature of light, a bright  creature of light, a creature of bright light.

A swath of white light is upon your head, a pure white aura, a clear white halo, from where it blends into the clouds above the tram, a perfect enunciation of the way the entire universe  loves you and blesses you as its ambassador. A tributary of snowy white cloud comes up around over your right shoulder as heaven rests its hand on you. You accept it, unresisting, allowing it to be there.

There's a flicker of a smile on your lips. You're not smiling at  anything. It's the smile of content. It's your smile of appreciation of who you are. You know  who you are. This is your moment. When the entire universe reaches out and baptizes you in the rivers of its love, that (by definition) is your  moment. When it's your moment, you're entitled to be content. You're entitled to smile.

The reflection on the window captures the private moment between you and yourself as you're knowing who you are, as you acknowledge who you are, to yourself, for  yourself. It's the most intimate, the most private moment there can be between a human being and himself, reflected on the window of the tram like the Milky Way galaxy is privately inscribed on the night sky for every human being who's ever walked the face of Planet Earth to see and wonder and be in awe about.

Your eyes are closed, easily relaxed. You radiate peace, calm, even ecstasy, bliss. I glance over at you - I must. Your eyes are open! I angle my gaze so I can see both you and your reflection at the same time. Your eyes are attentive. But in your reflection they're closed, easily relaxed. It's a fascinating anomaly which simply serves to enhance the immediacy of the moment.

If I saw anyone else's eyes closed the easily relaxed way your eyes in your reflection are closed, I'd say they're meditating or praying. Yet when I look closer at your closed eyes, I realize it doesn't mean you're meditating. Neither does it mean you're praying. When your eyes are closed, what it means is your eyes are closed  and that's all it means.

It takes me a moment or two to realize what I'm seeing is both the physical you (eyes open) at the same time as I'm seeing who you really are  (eyes closed easily relaxed). I break off my spring loaded tendency to explain the anomaly I'm seeing. Instead I just sit in my seat here on this tram with you, watching it all, taking it all in, making it all up, moved to tears by it all.



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