There are cultures where there are no mirrors. Although there may be water enough to stay alive there are probably no pools clear enough to reflect an image. The only puddles that escape evaporation are cloudy with stirred up mud.
It may be odd to go your entire life without ever seeing your own laugh lines. There are your relatives, whose noses and brown eyes echo your own. And even the resonance of your voice may show up in your children. But the ability to see yourself clearly may be out of reach.
It might be interesting to bring a mirror to an indigenous people and offer
them a glimpse of their own faces. Probably some innovative team of anthropologists has done just that, and collected footage of the smiles and self awareness. There may even be videos of people who were born blind, who through technology are given sight and the chance to see not only the sloping landscape and starry heavens but their own eyes.
My twins don't
need a mirror. They can see a reasonable facsimile of themselves every waking moment. But most of us need a piece of glass.
There is a passage that I have long held dear.
"The Word is like a mirror in which
we see God, but each in our own way." Emanuel Swedenborg, True Christianity 6
The paragraph does not mention it but I wonder if the same is true of sound. Is the Word a way to hear God's voice, uniquely?
The implication is that other people, my husband included, see things I cannot. His vantage point is such that he is privy
to a perspective I am as blind to as my own crow's feet.
