Hiding in Plain Sight

Over the holidays, I went through bunches of old magazines and clipped images for a collage I created over the New Year's weekend.  This collage is focused on the seasons of the year.  One of the images I found in an old Smithsonian magazine is an image of a lion hiding in grasses that are the colors of the lion itself.  I placed it in the west or autumn portion of my collage.  Since I found this photo, I have been reflecting on questions to explore this theme, like:

What kinds of things am I aware of that are 'hiding in plain sight'?

How might the harvest of this new year be represented by the lion and what does the hidden quality of the lion speak to?

Being a Leo, what parts of me are not being seen, yet are fully present whether seen or unseen?

Once you ask yourself these questions, it is as though someone besides yourself is listening and then, pointers to the possibilities to explore them further begin to appear everywhere.  Images, poetry, inner images, feelings, and thoughts...  One image I found most intriguing was a photo sent to me in a daily email along with a poem.  The image is that of a female lion's dark shadow on a wall of stone.  It makes you look twice...is that the lion or is it its shadow--you ask yourself...  And that leads me to ask myself what is it I am really seeing?  Am I looking at what is really represented or a shadow/mirror image of the real?  What appears to be real may, in fact, be an external representation of something more.  What is that something more?  

I expect I will continue to explore this theme throughout my year, as it is being given to me as a gift, a messenger seeking to bring some insight, consciousness, and perhaps, guidance for my journey this year.

To close this particular entry, I'd like to share a poem by Jane Hirschfield which has its own pointers in it, as well.

The Kingdom

 

At times
the heart
stands back
and looks at the body,
looks at the mind,
as a lion
quietly looks
at the not-quite-itself,
not-quite-another,
moving of shadows and grass.

 

Wary, but with interest,
considers its kingdom.

 

Then seeing
all that will be,
heart once again enters --
enters hunger, enters sorrow,
enters finally losing it all.
To know, if nothing else,
what it once owned.

 

 (from The October Palace)