Mirroring is a technique taught to us by The School of Lost Borders, who have been guiding wilderness rites-of-passage ceremonies for over 30 years. SoLB guide and teacher Emerald North, described the intent of mirroring to me as “shining a light on the gifts of the story”.

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Stories, particularly Medicine Stories, need to live in the world so they can be acted upon. If they are only ever held inside a person, they retain an amorphous quality and can soon be dismissed as fantasy or forgotten.

Medicine Stories are brought into the circle to be shared, witnessed and held, which literally breathes life into them. 

 

Mirroring is a way of reflecting a person’s tale of their time in nature back to them using the language, symbolic elements, and movements contained within the Four Shields teaching. A mythopoetic form of expression, it often uses movement, song, symbol, metaphor, and references to nature in its telling. Mirroring is an invitation to take what resonates and to discard what doesn't. Done in an intuitive way with love, compassion, and truth, it is intended to be empowering, and yet can sometimes be challenging to hear because the obsidian mirror inevitably reflects shadows as well as light.