Speculum (mirror) is on the origin of the word "speculation". Originally, "to speculate" was to observe the sky and the star movements, with the help of a "speculum". Sidus (star) is also on the origin of the word "consideration", which means etymologically, to look at the all assemblage of the stars. Those two words, related now to intellectual and abstract level, have their roots on the study of the heavenly bodies reflected in a mirror. So, a mirror, as a reflecting surface, carries a great number of symbols concerning the path to knowledge.

So, what reflects a mirror? Truth, purity, sincerity? In a Museum of Hanoi, one can read in a Chinese mirror: "Like the Sun, like the Moon, like water, like gold, be clear and bright and reflect whatever there is in your heart".

We will find this imagery in Initiation stories, in the realm of Poetry, actually, in all Traditions.

Probably, there are now not so many "magic" mirrors as in The White Snow fairy tale. Perhaps we have not a very fancy mirror in our homes. We are no Knights who have to face their fears fighting a Dragon and saving a blond Princess. But, normally, we all have Bathroom Mirrors. A bathroom mirror is daily life. Not glamorous all the time, and what it reflects probably is not brilliant all the time (specially in the mornings!). But it’s our Truth. Perhaps in our modern times we have to face the fact that we are not Knights fighting a Dragon anymore, but we have inner “Dragons” to fight with… and we need to understand that the enemies are not to be found in the outside. Actually, that there is no enemy to "fight", apart our own ignorance.

A friend once told me:

”Is ignorance, therefore, that which we do not know, or is it that which our own shadow keeps us from reflecting upon? Truth is the essence with which enlightenment considers to achieve understanding. And understanding has no beginning, nor ending, for it can be incarnated by choice when the reflection of it is truth. Likewise, when we are not inconsideration, we are in the darkness of a shadow we control.

In summary, we are the result of the light from the stars, and the stars are a reflection of the Creator's enlightenment. Thus, we are a reflection of that same original light. It seems to me this has been said countless times for thousands of millennia.”