Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?

The following summary is from the essay Wojtylan insights into love and friendship by Scott Fitzgibbon (Culture of Life – Culture of Death ed Luke Gormally, London – The Linacre Centre 2002).

“The Wojtylan mirror is a metaphor for consciousness. In Wojtylan thought, the mirror is the repository and reflector of what has been encountered or comprehended. It is not the mind as a whole, not even the ‘conscious’ mind as a whole; it is not the will nor the thinking, analysing, reasoning activity of the mind. Rather, it is the medium upon which those things which we experience or understand are perceived, ‘penetrated’, ‘illuminated’, and reflected back to the inner self.  Consciousness is, Wojtyla says at one point, understanding.” (284)

“The Wojtylan mirror is not only a medium for the reflection only of the self. Not at all – a wide mirror displays the surrounding scene as well.  Nor is it a medium for the reflection only of current contemporaneous phenomena: the Wojtylan mirror not only receives and reflects: it retains and records. (p283-4)

Consciousness has a deeper structure which leads KW to construct more complex metaphors than that of a mirror. In his play The Jeweller's Shop the mirror becomes a lens, absorbing what it reflects. In KW's poem Looking into the Well at Sichar, the mirroring surface of the water covers another surface.

Look now at the silver scales in the water

Where the depths trembles

Like the retina of an eye recording an image.

An important attribute reflected in consciousness is incompleteness (289). When we act we are seeking to complete ourselves. “Self-fulfilment ultimately involves transcendence. Transcendence – “inseparably connected” with self-fulfilment – is a surpassing or “a going-out-beyond or a rising above”, says KW in his essay Person and Community. And ... "Transcendence ultimately converges at a single source, which constantly resounds within the human being … Transcendence is the spirituality of the human being revealing itself”. 

Self-knowledge comes through affiliations with others (solidarities). The current age is one of a crisis in affiliations ...

As a man and a woman stand before each other and allow themselves to be known (to be naked and not ashamed), they are present to each other's consciousness. This can be called 'solidarity of consciousness'. This opens up the possibility of the ' solidarity of transcendence', where consciousness of God is transmitted through the conscious of the other person. In The Jeweller's Shop, when Teresa and Andrew stand before the shop window (which acts as a mirror/lens), Andrew becomes aware that he is seen and recognised  by the author of the solidarity of love (p293); the Jeweller is behind the window. As the two are present to each other in each other’s consciousness, the awareness grows that they are both existing within the consciousness of God; He sees them as they really are, as they allow themselves to be seen by each other.

It is the genius of the Wojtylan metaphor of the mirror/lens … that it reflects and contains and transmits this complex set off relationships (293-294)

The thou stands before my self as a true and complete ‘other self’., which, like my own self, is characterised not only by self-determination, but also and above all by self-possession and self-governance. In this subjective structure, the thou … represents its own transcendence and its own tendency towards self-fulfilment. (293)

Also to be noted John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila's use of the mirror metaphor.


I LOVE THIS!! Masses of implications. I can never stand in front of any surface and not affected by what lies behind it. 

.. one is not free to be free ...

"Remember that we live in an age when each objection becomes a personal offence, so people either adore one another like gods, or they hate one another like devils - but nobody has the courage to love - and of innate love there is now so little like never before. 

From this follows - that we must not see the weak side in those whom we have learnt to value, nor are we allowed to see the good side in whom we must not value. In other words, one is not allowed to act as a Christian towards his fellow men, that is, one is not free to be free.

As a result there is no criticism today: there is only abuse, evasiveness, or adoration, pagan and blind."

'God exists within us not so we can stifle Him in the narrow confines of our human spirit; God is within us to tear us away from ourselves toward His supernatural transcendence'

The Jeweller's Shop

I watched this last night. Looked on the web for reviews and analysis - really not much out there at all. I found that the film drew me in really not regarding the story or the characterisation at all (which is very slight), but because of the central problem. I was aware that I was 'straining' to get to the end because I wanted to know the solution to this problem, or at least to see how it is resolved in the lives of the main characters.
Now, there may be an overarching, philosophical mediation on time and eternity in this piece symbolised by the mysterious jeweller weighing out the wedding rings and so 'the measure of man'; but I was much more focussed upon the problem, which I would very broadly state as follows: how can marriage be wanted or desirable if you have grown up a/ with only the ghost of a father or b/ within the ego-driven bitterness of parents in flight from themselves and the world? 
I found it an utterly fascinating film, with a very surprising emotional punch at the end that I was quite unprepared for.
I can see why it may have been passed over; I am not sure how on earth you would categorise it; European 70s/80s arthouse maybe, but I don't know enough about film to say what or if there is a genre it would fit into. Generally I think that people don't like to talk about things unless they can compare them with other things. I would love to send this film to three film buff cultural critics (like Mark Kermonde) and see their reviews published side by side.  
(I posted a clip of the film on the Art page)


My poetic reflection written after watching this film is as follows:
'love splintered upon the door because it was shut and shattered upon the window because it was closed ...'

'The more sand that has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it'

and the grains contain the fragments of all i was

and the grains enfold the vision of what i will become

only now is the slipping through the tiny space
only now is the heady rush of the cascading descent

soon to come the fullness of the end
soon to come the containment of the whole

then no more escape
then no more the falling falling sand

in the finishing only clarity
in the finishing only sight

Paradox - a poetic device

"We are dealing here with a poetry that presents the concrete experience of human beings living in their time. The essence of such an experience and its poetic transcription is the sacral reality that lies beyond the duration of nature and history. This experience is signalled ... by the intervention of visual elements, by the use of parallelism and paradox. Paradox appears in Jawien's (KW's) earlier texts, but only in 'Considerations on Death' has it been given the main role. The structure of the poem is supported by paradox. The theme of death/resurrection and the schema of death leading to life are two of the most important paradoxes in Christianity. Semantic figures based on antithesis (include): 'maturity, descending into the hidden essence', 'passing is also gathering'; 'the dying world reveals its life anew';'the body of my soul and the soul of my body are united again'. Words with antithetical meanings are linked in a dialectic tension: maturation/regression, word/silence, body/persistence, death/hope."

from The Poetic Phenomenology of a Religious Man: About the Literary Creativity of Karol Wojtyta By KRZYSZTOF DYBCIAK

poetic phenomenology

"Thus Wojtyła's literary writings can be regarded as poetic phenomenology which gives an account of the process and essence of religious experience." Krzysztof Dybciak
Read the whole of this very illuminating afterword about KW's place in literary history (from p281)