Reflections on Ancestral Identity through Dreams, Stones and Mystical Practice
“Beauty is life when life unveils her holy face. But you are life and you are the veil. Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. But you are eternity and you are the mirror.”
–Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
I was between 10 and 11 years old when my body begun to transform and I started bleeding every month. I yearned to become a teenager and do teenage things like wear makeup, but I was in the 5th grade and lipstick was a distant fantasy. In spite of this, I managed to acquire one of those round cosmetic mirrors that plugged in and had its own fluorescent light. The mirror must have been right next to my bed because when I burst out of dream that fateful night, I don’t remember getting up or anything at all about my dream. What I do remember, what has stayed with me all these years, is the moment I flipped on the light and in that state of half-waking looked at my own reflection. I saw something in that mirror. I saw someone gazing back at me. Her eyes were just like mine but she was ancient and withered like Grandma Roupen, my Armenian great-grandmother who had died some years before. But it wasn’t Mariam Roupenian’s face either; it was someone else’s. Maybe it was mine?
