At your altar, you stare into a silvery bowl filled with water, shining by the light of the Full Moon.  The surface shivers as you breathe upon it, and as the ripples still, the bowl expands to become a large, circular mirror.

Your reflection in the mirror is sharp and clear, allowing you to see every detail of who you are in your day-to-day self.  Out of the corner of your eye, you catch a movement within the mirror, and then, another to the opposite side.  Within moments, the spaces reflected beside you, above you and behind you are filled with a myriad beings of many shapes and sizes  Some are the Shining Ones who inhabit the realms beyond our sight, realms that are truly but a hair’s breadth away from our own, did we but know it.  Others are parts of you that you cannot see under ordinary circumstances, but with the aid of the mirror, and the Moon, they reveal themselves to you. The beings acknowledge you, and you them, and you all continue to gaze into the mirror.

The light of the Moon begins to dim.  Within a brief span, its face is covered as if by a veil, the glow diminished to a dull blood orange.  Oddly, though, you can see as clearly by this light as at the fullness—perhaps more so.  The details of the eclipsed Moon are shown in sharp relief.  That which was washed out by the glare of the Sun is now revealed.

Returning your gaze to yourself, you notice that you are now revealed by a similar light.  You notice the damage that time has done, not merely to the surface self, but the one that lies beneath.  The hurts that caused you to shut down first one part of yourself, then another and another.  See them now revealed as motes of light, as doors that have opened to the strange light of the occluded Moon.  These could well be fearful places, but this night, you are shown these wounds in a different way, one that causes the waters of your compassion to rise within you.  Each one of us contains not only the wounds of the world, but the way of healing them, as well.  And as we learn of the hurt places, we can open our hearts to them, and make them a part of us once more.  More than this, we can act as gentle mirrors to help others find their hidden pain, and learn the path toward wholeness.

Now the veil begins to withdraw.  Moment by moment, the Moonlight grows brighter.  In this growing light, you can see not just the being you are, but the being you are becoming, the Shining One that lives within you.  Nurture this flame, and remember always that you contain the seeds of a better future.