It rained earlier.

The mirror is our only proof.

Its prior presence salts the silvered glass & creates illusions: that I am shedding tears & that rain is falling across the Minton Sparks' face & into her blue eyes.

If mirrors are windows, are windows mirrors through which we see our truth?

I made this picture to create a second mirror, the one into which you look right now.

There is a mystery in this picture I cannot describe. It has to do with the different energy in pieces of glass we call windows & other shapes called mirrors. We rely on what is unreliable – how do we look? In the answer lies the biggest reason we use mirrors: to help us look "Just right." But the mirror, like the one is Sleeping Beauty, never yields a universal truth. 

Decades ago I was fascinated to learn that Intensive Care Units are required to have windows. Without them, intubated patients, already disoriented, become more so. Unable to distinguish day from night they thrash about in a phenomenon called ICU psychosis.

Windows are crucial for caregivers as well. Dwelling in florescent light instead of daylight affects energy.

Ultimately, we use windows & mirrors to help us answer the greatest trick question of all: What is real?

The only "truth" is that every reality lives behind our eyes, not in front of them. 

People posit, "If these walls could talk." What if mirrors could talk? 

Inside this mirror and behind every window in the building across the street live stories. 

Behind every hospital window dwells a patient cut off from health & home. The mirror tells them what we must always remember: they are more than a diagnosis. 

If we look with love through the windows of our eyes into the mirrors of theirs we enable the compassion that helps us help them heal. 

-Erie Chapman

Photograph "Windows of Consciousness" by Erie, 2018