The Witness Who Sees Themselves- Holy Self-Knowledge
Hod of Hod Day 33 of 50 · Splendor within Splendor
The Witness Who Sees Themselves- Holy Self-Knowledge
The thirty-third saying of the Living Christ:
Do not mistake your own face for the face of God. The image of God within you is also in your neighbors, even though their face differs. If you seek the image within and neglect the Glory of the Holy One all around you, you fall into the trap of the Accuser who whispers that only you have access to the true word and light. If you look only at yourself, you turn the world into a mirror, and everywhere you go, you find only your own shadow. You walk in circles, thinking you follow the path, but you are only chasing your own image. Your testimony becomes a witness about yourself rather than what grace may want to show you.
But if you never enter the inner chamber and instead neglect the inward gaze altogether, you cannot see your part in the wondrous grace of the world. You cannot build up your inner strength and testimony if you only point at the well of wisdom, but never drink from it. You cannot witness truly to the wonders you have not experienced within. Everything becomes an unlived mystery.
The soul cannot fully receive what it has not been willing to see in itself.
Contemplative self-knowledge awakens the soul to the radical honesty set before itself and before God. It examines its conscience without harming or justifying itself. It learns to see clearly. The true witness does not whisper lies to their own soul. They stand before the Light without a cloak, allowing the Holy One to see what is hidden. To know yourself truly is to cease the war against the truth.
Knowing your own depths is a form of testimony. If you know yourself truly, you are able to be present with others in a way that those who never looked within cannot do. The examined life does not produce pride. It sees itself clearly allowing the witness to become a window to the divine.
Wander into the wilderness of the soul so you may strip away the illusions that cloud a genuine encounter with the Holy.
Learn to gaze inward without losing sight of the world.
Honestly knowing the heart restores the witness. Learn to look at yourself with the same loving courage you bring to witnessing anything else. Be humble, neither lifting yourself up nor casting yourself down.
Heal your soul through your own clear sight. The witness who truly knows themselves is a lamp to the world, casting the light that brings life to all it touches. The world is changed by your presence, not just by the words you speak.
The witness who sees themselves clearly has nothing to hide or prove.
Viriditas. The greening power. Hildegard knew it. The forest knows it. Creation’s Paths: A Creation Spirituality Primer is for everyone who has ever felt the divine moving through roots and rain and refused to call that feeling anything less than holy.
