— by Elena Morizio
–Reading Time – 18 min Approx
I have a habit of meditating.
Mostly when I need light, when I look for inner existential responses that can make sense of external events, when it is necessary to listen to the emotions in conflict and then merge them in a balance. I meditate when I need clarity of thought.
Even that day, not so far from the beginning of Spring when lockdown started here in Italy, I meditated.
On my vision there was the Coronavirus. I was looking at it, moving my head left and right, and it did the same. Like it was my consciousness. Its body, its sphere acted as a mirror. I could see myself reflected on it. Soon after I read on a scientific magazine about how the Virus behaves when it encounters our body: it uses a disguise using parts of our cells to pretend to be a component of our organism. Like a reflecting mirror…
Continuing to focus on the vision, I remember that its protuberances were made of words that became voices: “I need to breathe.” “I don’t have time to breathe.” “I don’t know where I’m going anymore.” “I don’t know how and where to place myself in the world.” “Every day is a race against time.” “I need to stop.” “I can’t take this life anymore, which I haven’t even chosen.”
I understood that there were our voices, the voices of the world.
A human being and a world at the end of their line.
What happens inside also happens outside. And what happens outside also happens inside.
The destruction of Nature we are witnessing tells us about our forgetfulness. We forgot about our interconnection with Nature, its vital importance for our survival. We don’t know her anymore, as we don’t know ourselves anymore. And what men do not know, he destroys it.
It is thanks to Nature that for millennia there has been no distinction in man between body and spirit, thinking and feeling, logic and instinct, individuality, and union with others and with everything.
Our vital force, the authenticity that moves us, are linked by a fil rouge to the primordial Nature, which we have decided to consider enemy. But our existence is in vain without her. When we deny a part of us, we project it in the outside world, accusing the latter (a family member, a schoolmate, employer, spouse, your city …) of our frustration and incompleteness. But Nature is much more intelligent than we are, and the bond we have with her goes beyond our rational will. It is a bond as old as the world. Nature and our consciousness go hand in hand.
This is where the Boomerang effect starts: we deny and project outside our shadow and nature sends our shadow back to us. It forces us to face it! In other words we denied Nature and all the instincts and dark sides of us connected to her, consequently nature give them back to us in the form of Coronavirus. Forcing us to silence, to listen to our breath, to the irrevocable task of dealing with ourselves.
The object, the person, the event, the place on which we project our mud will act as a mirror by returning it in turn. That’s why the other is so important.
The other and the environment as our projection.
And nature is not the only architect, precisely because of the bond I mentioned earlier. There is a collaboration, an interconnection between us and her. We needed to breathe and she needed to show us the way to do it.
Coronavirus meant isolation.
Time to ask ourselves questions, reflecting on our happiness and sorrows, on where we are going to, on which path to take.
What’s the truth? What really matters?
My name is Elena Morizio, I am an Italian artist and I work with the Mirror, realizing works of Art engraving it. Ancient symbol whose origin is lost in the mists of time.
An object desired and feared at the same time, the Mirror is a never ending story.
Every human intelligence (scientific, philosophical, artistic, etc.), in every place and in every epoch of its own history of Civilization, has sought, pursued itself in the mirror’s reflection: primordial manifestation of a need for self-awareness.
The Mirror chose me to let the world know it as a window on our fears, on what we consider frailties, on our unspoken emotions, our grudges as well as our unjustly repressed instincts and dreams.
In other words our monsters, our dragon.
The dragon: the evil and antagonist of the hero in our memory and in our childhood fairy tales, but nothing but the one that guards our treasures, talents and powers that wait to be freed, reconquered, welcomed and celebrated. The dragon that often come to find us in nightmares night.
If we continue to deprive that shadow of the chance of expressing itself and placing us in harmony with our light side, the apparent and conscious side, it will hinder our self-realization and will not allow us to be authentic and in love with ourselves, with the neighbor and with the environment.
It’s up to us.
The lockdown begun and I was in my room. After that vision I looked at my works of art.
I thought: the other is your mirror, without him you are nothing.
I wanted to realize something artistically that could have told about my feelings. But on that occasion, it wasn’t enough. There was no completeness. I was looking at the pandemic in a philosophical, psychological, and artistic point of view. And I wanted to make a journey.
Like Ulysses who, through his own journey made up of events, people, and places, has found lights and shadows of himself reflected in the other.
That’s why I wanted to express myself and my emotions through the Art and the mirror but doing it together with all Humanity, in an infinite, tender hug. No barriers, no judgement. Just Art as universal language. I already knew that in the drawing of each person I would find answers, I would found memories, I would found parts of myself.
Your emotions are my emotions beyond any illusory cultural border.
“You are my Mirror.”
I started asking to my closest friends to realize a drawing on a mirror they had home expressing their feelings about the Coronavirus. And then, through social networks, I found other people, strangers outside the Italian boundaries.
I was not looking for professional artists, but I wanted to involve people not used to using the creative act as a means of communication and expression of their own inner universe.
Some of them were afraid of the idea, afraid of not be able to realize something. But I told them that we all have creativity within us, we just forgot about it. We have to fuel it to give us a chance to give shape to our feelings.
They trusted me.
They accepted the date with themselves in the mirror.
They touched me deeply realizing amazing and meaningful drawings.
This new form of Art goes beyond all the others artistic techniques:
Your painting on canvas will show fragments of yourself, uncomfortable or not. But your painting on mirror will give you the chance to see those fragments in a deeper way. You, your reflection are part of the process as well as part of the final work. No lies. No masks. Just you and your truth.
I invite you to make an experience:
Stay. Sit down in front of a mirror and stay. Few minutes, one hour, doesn’t matter. The right time for you and don’t run away. I know it is difficult, but, look at your eyes. Listen. How you feel? Is there something that you would like to say to yourself?
Take a pen, a marker, painting, whatever. And express it. Signs, symbols, words, everything you are imagining and feeling. And flow.
When you will have finish, look at yourself again. What your eyes, through the lines of your drawing, are saying? Has something changed? Are you feeling better, lighter?
This is so therapeutic. This is a gift you’re making to yourself.
“The Mirror is your Master” Leonardo Da Vinci said.
“The Art on Mirror is the Art of the Future” Lorenzo Ostuni, pioneer in this technique and my Mentor, said.
I tell you the story of one of the first drawings I received.
Silvia drew the Coronavirus as a smiling being. She explained to me not to be afraid of it but that it is actually a messenger, a help to rediscover our values. In making the drawing she was happy, very happy.
I asked her why.
She replied that she had relived the joy of her 8 years: she was a good child who wanted to bring joy to everyone, but she was not understood and then she had taken on a different attitude, comfortable to others, adapting, nourishing, and satisfying their expectations. She had been as they wanted.
“How you feel now about that?” I asked.
“I feel anger. It is going through me” she answered.
Let it flow. Let it go.
That drawing and the sharing of its hidden content allowed her to bring out the anger still linked to having given up on herself for the love of others.
She is working on it, forgiving herself, in small steps, crossing and letting go of the shadows of the past, a little at a time, like that morning in front of the mirror with a marker in hand.
Regarding the project, actually I just miss few drawings from some Countries and then I will have officially collected works from each State of the World. No one excluded.
In few weeks the Idea became Project: Reflections for Change. In few months, the Project became global. This global Project will be a Book and a channel to spread a new powerful artistic tool for humanity through which to express itself.
A worldwide historical art witness of the Pandemic of the twenty-first century.
Many no-profit organizations are joining from each Continent, with their students, adults, and children.
One of them, Anthelion School of Art founded by Shashi Prabha Sharma & Dipayan Banerjee in Kolkata, India. What a great opportunity to collaborate with them.
They said that “Art is not only for the artists but also for individuals. We want to make Art a Part of life.” This is the reason why during the project I looked for common people who forgot to be an Art guardian within themselves.
We are all energy. We are all connected. And thanks to this project I have had proof. Each person, each organization arrived to me is guided by my own vibrations, ideas, visions.
What I feel and what I want to spread out it is something that can be useful for the others an
d talk about the importance to help and inspire each other artistically contributing to the awareness of ourselves as being made up of body and spirit. Beauty and sensitivity. Talent and memory. Frailty and strength.
People have to turn on their creativity and celebrate it! Especially the youngest. I feel so lucky that children from the most remote and poor areas of the world are having the chance to participate and learn this new deep form of Art.
In a society of appearance, which instead of feeding the internal fire of human being, it consumes it, it is our Mission to educate man to the artistic expression of his inner voice.
This way, he will be free.
Thank you, in the name of Art and Humanity.
If you want to participate, take a photo of your drawing on mirror, a second photo of the drawing with you (just if you feel it) and write some words about what you realized, your concept, your feelings. Then send everything to: reflectionsforchange@gmail.com
Instagram Official Page: reflections_for_change
— by Elena Morizio
