Mirror /Self-Reflection or the insight gate to the worlds

“Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. 
But you are the eternity and you are the mirror.” 
― Khalil Gibran, The Prophet

Space by Lee Miller

The idea of travelling from one world to another is found in religions, myths and literature through the centuries, many  artists have believed that worlds are connected and that we can find a way to travel between them and that the key is inside of us

"There is another world,but it is in this one" -William Butler Yeats

"It is not outside, it is inside,wholly within. "Master Erhart

"Wherever you are, is the entry point" Kabir

Grete Stern

Here are some beautiful examples how deep insight can transcend the worlds.In '"Orpheus"(1950) Jean Cocteau's retells the Greek myth "Orpheus and Eurydice"

Jean Cocteau’s 'Orphee'

Orpheus and Eurydice, probably modeled before 1887, executed 1893

Auguste Rodin

Orpheus was a beautiful musician who loved a nymph called Eurydice. They married and were very happy. Eurydice spent hours wandering and playing in the fields and woodlands. One day she trod on a deadly snake and died. She went to the underworld.Orpheus was so unhappy, he would not eat or drink and his friends thought that he must die. He took his lyre and went to visit Hades the god of the underworld, to plead for her life. He played his lyre and charmed Charon the ferry man into crossing the river Styx.Orpheus played his lyre to charm Hades, and eventually Hades relented and told him that Eurydice could follow him out of Hades, but only if he did not look back and see her. Orpheus made his way carefully and slowly back to Charon, but then with only a tiny way to go he looked back. As he did so Eurydice faded, she was pulled back into Hades...gone forever. A very unhappy Orpheus journeyed back over the river to come out of Hades. He had lost his true love forever


                                                                                                             
 In Cocteau's version Orpheus is a poet who has to travel to the underworld. Cocteau uses the visual device of a mirror as a gateway to the underworld.Can we find the underworld like the poet did if we look at ourselves,is the path to the underworld inside? 

 Jean Cocteau’s 'Orphee'

Cocteau had played with the idea of the mirror as a door to another world in his earlier film 'Blood of a Poet' from 1930. A statue tells a young artist that to get out of his studio he has to go through a mirror

  Jean Cocteau’s   'Blood of a Poet' 

Another example is Alice,she goes through the mirror into a fantasy world

Alice Through the Looking Glass' by Kenneth Rougeau

Alice represents even more beautiful idea not only that we can find key inside of us to connect to the worlds or to connect worlds, we also have a power to create a new worlds with our imagination and dreams and then to transcend that inner world with the inner worlds of others and create strong beautiful unique world.