Mirror Fasting is the Everything at the moment – the idea is that you regain a healthier sense of self by just not looking into mirrors for a month for more. It’s a fascinating idea, although I thought only vampires needed to do this.
Also, is it possible that this concept is yet another way to make people – women in particular – feel bad about an over-hyped pretend ‘sin’?
Still, I love anarcha-hippy trends that feel like you can give up something that you’d taken for granted and be more emancipated. My Aquarius Rising would love to scream ‘Fuq yeah‘, do some air punching and leave mirrors behind. Who needs stupid reflections? Sagittarians have probably already smashed their mirrors and had their shaman transmute any bad luck from the fragments.
But okay – reflections are everywhere. My computer reflects me when it fades down to screensave, my fave picture on the wall in my bedroom has reflective glass at night, if one is to have dental hygiene (Saturn crossing my Moon this week makes this pretty much an obsessive ritual) a mirror is unavoidable. Worse, it’s a zoomed-in, see-all number.
It’s not feasible to go Victorian and drape tacky black Goth polyester sequinned scarves over them all. What’s more, is this some kind of dreary puritan s**t repackaged as zen noire psychic minimalism?
Mirrors actually count as “Water” in Feng Shui and apparently you should never ever have one you can see yourself in from the bed or else dire spiritual consequences befall ye.
This could be why Leos get lost so often when they’re astral travelling at night – the mirrors on the ceiling above the bed distract their soul. But seriously, you do have to be extremely careful with the placement of mirrors and they very easily trap ghosts. The old custom of covering mirrors after someone had passed comes from the belief that the soul of the person could become caught in the mirror.
One day I will impart my truly terrifying Haunted Dressing Table Mirror story.
Also, isn’t it a fact that when you look in a mirror, you are not seeing how you actually look anyway? I mean, obviously you can check your complexion tone, stray brow hairs and whatever but to view how you actually appear to others you need a True Mirror…or do you?
Wikipedia has this explanation which confuses me even more:
If one looks in a mirror, one’s image reverses (e.g., if one raises one’s right hand, his left hand will appear to go up in the mirror). However, a mirror does not “swap” left and right, any more than it swaps top and bottom. A mirror reverses the forward/backward axis, and we define left and right relative to front and back.
Flipping front/back and left/right is equivalent to a rotation of 180 degrees about the vertical axis (in the same way that text which is back-to-front and upside-down simply looks like it has been rotated 180 degrees on the page).
Therefore, looking at an image of oneself with the front/back axis flipped is the same as looking at an image with the left/right axis flipped and the whole figure rotated 180 degrees about the vertical axis, which is exactly what one sees when standing in front of a mirror.
Oshun, the African-Cuban-Brazilian goddess – is often depicted with a mirror as it’s one of her sacred magical tools. Less salubriously, the “wicked stepmother” in Snow White has a magic mirror that does double-duty as a kind of spirit guide.
I don’t think I can Mirror-Fast and it’s not because I am trying to be Goddessly – it’s more that there would very quickly be scant separation between my sleep and day clothes. I would become a coconut oil smeared blur of a woman because I’d use it for everything – cooking, haircare, brow grooming, lipgloss…people would scuttle away from me in the street and I’d think it was an aura-thing.
I gather that Mirror Fasters push through these fears but I’m not there for this, possibly because I already veer dangerously close to ‘intuitive dressing.’ In fact, I think i want a True Mirror, only rose-quartz tinted. You would ideally be able to wave a hand and it would morph from eye-brow analysis to psychic-scrying mode.
Thoughts?
Mystic this is a super cute and funny post also with loving jibe at Leos (who get it) for extra points xxx
So strange to re-read stuff from aeons ago
mirrors?
meh.
i’m over them, and i’m still in my 20s. 99% of the crap you notice, no one else notices or doesn’t care about anyway. and i care less and less and less. no one seems to think i’m gross, or don’t let on that they think so.
aqua rising square pluto. uranus 10th. venus scorp 9th.
HA HA HA!!!!!! “…i would be a coconut oil smeared blur of shit getting out of control and i would never pull again.” That is just awesome! 🙂 Ha ha ha! Love it 🙂
This Merc and Mars in Leo couldn’t handle it. Well, I could, but I think it’d annoy the heck out of me.
I’ve found that my perceptions change depending on the mirror, and not just literally. At home, I feel strong and athletic and in my power. When I visit my family and look in their mirrors, I’m amazed at how much older I am (and thinner- 🙂 ) and how much I’ve grown, both in positive ways. So it’s a literal and psychological projection of the self. Mirror as image.
With a Leo Rising, God NO! Interesting but I have trained my mind to flip to the opposite when looking in the mirror. After 15 years of having to mirror my patient’s movements, I automatically do this even when looking in the mirror.
I say affirmations in the mirror, as cringey as it can be, I think it’s pretty powerful. Sometimes I feel a bit like I’m going into a trance so I stop – had no idea ghosts could haunt mirrors!!!!!
I once went without looking in a mirror for an entire month while I was in highschool. I disliked my appearance, and so I decided to not use a mirror, ever. As a Leo, I can spot and remember where reflections are, so they were fairly easy to avoid once I decided I’d go without.
However, I found that instead of making me feel better, it only made everything so much worse. When you go without looking in a mirror because you’re afraid of what you’d see, you end up deluding yourself because while you may not be directly faced with what bothers you, it’s still lurking there subconsciously, especially if you know it’s something that you can fix (like being overweight, which I was).
A mirror doesn’t need to be a harbinger of hideous truths. You might not be able to change everything, but change a few things, and you might see that you feel better.
I literally forget to look in mirrors for days at a time. My Ascendant is in the very last degree of Sagg. Not that I think I always look fantastic. I’m a Scorpio Sun & Venus & while I’d like to imagine myself looking like a Vampire Dita Von Teese, I usually wear no makeup, do nothing to my hair, dress in a lazy way. I just don’t give a f@*K when it comes to what others think of my appearance.
There are times I do love getting tarted up for my own enjoyment, but I find most people aren’t paying attention to you anyway, and it’s rarely worth the effort to attempt to impress them.
A mirror fast?! Never! Unthinkable….I’m as bad as a Leo…. with Taurus rising Aquarius sun. Chiron in 1st house conj. ASC has my looks being the cornerstorne of my moods and also an outward sign of any personal revolutions I may be going.. My looks both reflect and shape/affect what is going on inside me.
Also, seeing my reflection in the mirror has always been very comforting for me, since young. If I went on a mirror fast, I would go AQUA crazy. Just saying
i so agree. i have aqua rising and moon conj NN there in the 1st. i think i can too easily go without looking at mirrors. like why would i look at myself when theres life to be lived, a sky and a moon to look at!? maybe i used to be too stuck to mirrors and how i appeared to others. but now, deliberately going to look at my appearance makes me feel very comforted as well!! like “OH there she is i’m a person in the world!” lol
when i find myself wondering when the last time i looked at my reflection was—it usually means i am being too much in my head [aqua crazy? maybe virgo sun crazy too]
i am also very sensitive to how people are responding to me. like too sensitive, i think i can read people’s thoughts sometimes. so i like to appear in a way that pleases me [makes me feel unique], so that if someone likes me its because they like how i am CHOOSING to be. probably that element of personal authority//will & individuality is why leos like mirrors too? taking pride in how one looks as a reflection of inner self-respect…. ?? so obviously whoever doesn’t like that can just fuck right off 😛 i know i don’t need anyone in my life who doesn’t like me EXACTLY how i am! it’s fun to be yourself
also neptune on my moon [@ 29] gave me some strrrrrrange reflections, angles, waves, etc. some spiritual moments from that// trippy- druggy to see so many different ways the world reflects you back in turn. i was 15 when neppers was on my ascendant & not as knowledgable about astrology so dont really remember that too well
Hi !!!!!!,
I forgot to mention I too have NN in 1st house ( in Gemini), maybe it’s that aspect that makes us sensitive to other people’s response to us. And yes it is a choosing of we want to present ourselves depending on the context around us. Interesting!
Gotta love NN in 1st house 🙂
Wow you just described the way i dress against surface perceptions, somewhat a challenge to superficial judgments, plus hearing the thoughts, or feeling strongly as though i do.
Venus in Aqua 3rd (communication house) and Aqua IC/NN, Moon Jupiter Neptune conjunct in 12th.
I just love how you put that into words in that paragraph. Thank you, !!!! (haha great moniker to reply to 🙂 )
No, I love mirrors (Taurus, Leo rising and Leo moon in 1st house), even though I’d like to change a lot of things about my face. When I was going through all sorts of hell and was probably half “out of body” (so to speak) they helped me feel real, they made me want to take better care of the person I saw in them.
As a child I used to play with a mirror on the floor, pretending there was another, upside down world in it.
Hey K.E,
My Gemini sister played this at our Grandparents home, the ceilings in each room different (their bedroom had cherubs and grapes) it would keep us entertained no end, and i still remember the clearly taking big steps over the doorways. It was our Piscean Grandmother that showed us the game.
MM: ” i think i want a True Mirror, only tinted.”
Me: I was thinking the same thing,I even bookmarked the site!
MM: “This could also be be my Moon in Libra.”
Me: Mine too.
Omg I couldnt do it. My progressed Sun is now in Libby Fleur and I am suddenly into Napolean makeup like you wouldn’t believe. Love it all, espesh the lash extensions. I am also best friends with my hairdresser (which is an hour’s drive away now at best) and my new beautician here on the Gold Coast. Definitely believe in the no mirrors visible from the bed – my life has turned around most amazingly here after my move with no mirror in the boudouir! As Mystic predicted, my life has morphed amazingly – I have so many new male friends – my Gem gay flatmate who is a soulmate forever; and many more I won’t go on about as I’ll sound like a complete ditz. I meet them all during that lengthy Mars through Virgo (in my 7th house over my Merc/Uranus/Pluto conj) and they have mostly all turned out to be besties – Aries, Taurus, Gem, Cancer, Libras and Scorps.
And the biggest news is my Libra man is back in my life – full on – and better than ever. My Gem gayboy bestie had a massive hand in this – unbelievable story or rescue and recovery but I’m saving that for my book/screenplay. Truly madly deeply happy Pisces rising, Leo Sun, Cancer Moon gal. xoxox
when i am dieting and need an extra push up go new mirrors in prominent places to make sure i dont cheat. it works. it feels like another person is there watching and coaching you. when i was at my fattest i took down all the mirrors in the house because i couldnt stand to look at myself.
Much synchronicity here! I’ve been considering the purchase of a very large mirror to put above the fireplace since I’ve been eschewing the things for the last almost three years. I have a mirror in each bathroom, and one in the car, of course, but haven’t used them except to pull my hair back and floss my teeth. I am finally in a place where I can condense into a short sentence what Saturn in my twelfth house helped me discover these past two plus years, including a job lay-off in early 2009 which meant I no longer needed my mirrors for vanity purposes; however, I can see that I’ve aged a lot the past couple of years. Is my Leo Sun that obvious?
Lately my awareness of mirrors and their energetic effect has been heightened, after my neighbors (across the street) placed a door-size mirror on their outdoor garden fence facing where I live. (!!!!!!)
They’ve since removed the mirror, quite interesting to feel the before and after on this one. Noticeable.
Not a pleasant experience, but I’m certainly more aware of *all* mirrors now.
No way to this fad i had a mirror incident the other day.. I caught myself walking down a hall way towards a mirror and it was very interesting to see how I walked. More macho than i would have liked. have done some adjustment and took my new outfit for a hottie walk with heels around the cafe precinct in the sunshine on Tuesday . it boosted my ego no end.
wiggle it.. just a little bit !
Heels make such a different to your walk and confidence IF you can wear them longer than 15 minutes at a time and without getting bruises on your knees.
Think it’s generational but i can’t get my head around high heels and JEANS together. Boots & jeans, ballet flats & jeans, moccasins & jeans but not heels or sandals.
How to tell the sex of a chromosome?
Pull down it’s genes.
yeah agree. heels and jeans, well only if the jeans are tight and the heels are Just So. (I vibe 1980s-fluffy-bimbette at times so this sort of thing works for me).
sandals – only yummy flat ones.
ohh hahahaha! I was just contemplating this yesterday.
I suddenly had all this spare time when I had no bathroom mirror. Only a dimly lit 3/4 length mirror in cupboard. Suddenly, no time wasted investigating potential flaws in skin, no temptation to attack a breakout and make it worse, No angsting at face: I had no means to do so.
I realised that having no bathroom mirror would be an excellent way to drastically reduce time spent worrying about appearance “ageing” (UGH I hate even writing that word it’s SO loaded and tacky and associated with negative crap) – because I wld have no opportunity to put myself under the microscope. Only use another smaller (harder to see) mirror for makeup and whatever. Which I use at a bare minimum, so that’s cool too.
And I do think the mirror does not always tell the whole truth – or any of it, if you have a distorted opinion of yourself. I remember crying myself to sleep at uni several times because I thought I was so ugly.
sorry. not sleeping at uni. I mean when i was in my late teens.
Sad, Pi. Teen years are so hard. Almost felt like this tonight. But, you know, onward and upward. One day i said to myself, so if it’s true, what are you going to do about it? Then you start living.
yes. i can’t remember what got me out of that funk. it was a long and strange journey
and good advice btw. xx
Hmmm.. interesting. I need to contimplate this concept. I hate being in pictures.. can’t stand it. I see myself and I am like ugh. I wish I knew exactly how people saw me. I would like to believe a lot of the comments but then again, are they true!
Ellie it’s all about the lighting. Have you seen supermodels
sans their marquillage and unstyled hair?
No different to anyone else, just amazingly photogenic along with professional lighting.
100 photos can be taken for that 1 useable shot.
I’m sure you look angelic.
Hi Pegasus.. Thank you!! I have seen photo articles on models and how they really look. Being a Virgo it also tuff. LOL!!
xo!!
How bizarre! Just saw my profile this evening from mirrors being held for me. Nearly died of shock. Felt depressed. Came home and looked at myself face on – relief! Wondered whether i should not look at self. Decided that was obsessive behaviour and unhealthy.
Lived in a place with only a small mirror high up and could never see my whole face without jumping, Only cared each time i saw my reflection in a glass door at work discovering wardrobe malfunctions. Part Sag – always check fly. Had chocolate all over lap today. I would hate colleagues and clients to think i’d shat myself. Especially since i was smiling a lot.
Millie do you put on clothes inside out and back the front as well?
I so miss the days when throwing on faded jeans & a white tee was The Look plus a little bronzer & lip gloss was all that was needed to look great.
Now it’s close to a military procedure to leave the house enough so as to yearn for an ashram & sarong only.
No but Sag sis frequently has tops on inside out. She doesn’t even care.
Oh wait, yes i wore a gorgeous yohji yamamoto ensemble backwards. AquaMa was there and i went up to her later and asked how it looked – she frowned at me and told me turn around.
Usually take care dressing but sometime during the day, perhaps even in the morning on the way, i seem to get that Sag kid look, all undone and scrappy.
Evening Lovelies 🙂
This Sage has to weigh in. I certainly do grunge it although it conflicts with Toro Asc. It’s situational in my mind. I’m also not too fussed with a bit of cat hair etc but like all things, it changes over time. Once upon a time I was appalled at all that after being relaxed and now I’m back to relaxed and sometimes working it. Balanced in my mind.
But yeah.. I still keep an eye on the fly 😉
I live in a 50’s faux deco house with a cabinet mirror. That’s all for the last few years.
Then recently we bought a full length mirror (for the kids to dance in front of).
Holy CRAP! I think the LACK of mirrors post pregnancy was possibly the only thing that got me through that wildly unattractive time.
If it freaks you, never give it the frowning curious peer – ALWAYS come up to it with a big smile! 😀
Gorgeous advice!
I remember when I first house-sat for an older gent and found that I couldn’t see myself properly in any of the bathroom or bedroom mirrors because clearly that wasn’t a priority for him.
I definitely felt different – not necessarily better or worse – for not being able to really look at myself in the mirror.
Different people will have different effects. I suspect that really vain people will have a revolution…but what type of revolution isn’t guaranteed! I say – give it a go. It’s free!
Are you kidding? NOooooOOOOOooooo. I actually think it’s better for one’s self esteem to be able to face one’s self in a mirror like the way faith isn’t really faith unless tested?
I have mirrors everywhere. Fenged of course. Actually the only room spared a mirror in my flat is the tiny hallway that connects all the rooms, but literally every single room has a mirror. Three of them are full length in fact, one takes up half the wall and has WHEELS, so I can cart it around wherever. Is this vanity gone awry?
Alas no. My family being Chinese believed in using mirrors as reflectors of good luck, so I have literally grown up in a house unable to avoid seeing myself. Has this ruined my self esteem? No. In fact, it has halted me mid-shoveling something direly unhealthy into my mouth, just for a) the fact that pigging out is undeniable and b) wallowing in a trough of food is not a good look.
Also Venus in Leo/Virgo Rising renders the inability to calibrate myself for public consumption a disservice and well, rude.
Oooh, half-wall-sized mirror on wheels. I like 🙂
Mirrors have their practical uses and i need to look slightly well groomed for work. Also contact lenses etc. i have made friends with my reflected self.
I really could do a camera fast though…like forever…not photogenic in the slightest.
OMG YES to the camera fast. I am SO NOT photogenic to the point that dates who finally met me in person actually went beyond looking relieved to grinning as if they won something in the lottery. It is THAT bad.
Plus I rather loathe the whole sucking my cheeks in doing a mock kissy face standard FB pic. I also hate sodding pigeon toed poses models always do but I digress..
YES can totally relate to the date reaction 🙂
And i dread facebook photos…part of life these days though. I have untagged myself from photos but i know they’re still out there……
Yeah, duck-face is NOT a good look.
agree. I have a grand total of about 20 photos of myself – since say age 15, and where I am recognisable not some blurry group photo – that I have not deleted or destroyed. Plus, I don’t really have photos taken of me. or any good photos are living in my friends’ hard drives c/o their own cameras, and have never been sent to me. oh well :\
Being angular doesn’t translate to photos but love taking them, a lot.
Angel i have seen that ‘kissy’ photo and it’s cute as and you do great cheekbones.
That true image thingo is quite amazing as peeps do have a better reaction to my looks than what would suppose they would have, specially those in their 20’s. Maybe i give them hope re ‘ageing’ dunno. The youngest at my new job is 15 years old and says Helen Mirren is the same scale as me. Needless to say i take her Lindt chocolate when she is on shift with me 🙂
But hey, we are all Women, that’s beauty enough.
bbbaahhhaa I have to remind myself to look in the mirror most days in case I look like the wild woman of Borneo…must be my Saggo sun…or my apparent ability (so my friends tell me) to put together a look based on pure luck but it totes works…?! Either way I find mirrors disconcerting…I surely don’t look like that do I?! The image I have in my head of me is radically different to the one I see in the mirror…when I remember to look! I keep expecting to see a bow and arrow or a sword by side when I do look in the mirror!! Oh well…bag to the humdrum single working mother look I guess!!
Haha! I love that your inner warrior wants to be seen
…oh yeah baby 😉 – I blame it on an earlier obsession for all things Celt/Viking and Xena/Buffy…and a year spent in Japan at 18 learning among other things traditional Samurai Archery ;-)…and with Scorp rising and Scorp in Mars and Jupiter I’ve got the whole warrior woman thing going on!! Does tend to scare the bejeebers out of the little boys though!!!
I use mirrors as thinking tools, and am generally looking through the image, rather than at it – although perhaps I could do less of that. I didn’t have one in my bathroom for over 4 years – which funnily enough would freak men out most (although I later discovered this was all about shaving). But had a huge one in my bedroom. Now my bathroom is full of mirrors. I like bathrooms as thinking rooms too.
Leo rising.
Mirrors reflection reversal thingys are a bit like how you never really see yourself in profile.
I think being able to see and acknowledge the way that you look in a range of different circumstances is a good thing. I’m with Alter above on the mental health implications of ‘I don’t want to look at myself’, it doesn’t necessarily scream happy to me.
Gawd, no. Leo rising. I’m forever sneaking a peek at myself in mirrors, glass doors, shop windows, shined-up shoes, the backs of spoons, whatever.
Warning! The back of the spoon may not accurately reflect your visage. The reflection on your patent-leather shoes is a better option.
I’m Libra rising and am a complete narcissist! I would die if I lost reflective surfaces!!!! I actually always thought I was a Leo rising and would tell ppl that – wild mane of red hair, obsessed with self-image, painted self-portraits all through high school… Nope. No planets in Leo.
Mirrors are very important to me. Whenever I look in one, I tend to find food stuck in my teeth, hair going weird, snot ball sitting just inside my nose, etc. Really embarrassing things that I would’ve died a thousand social deaths for if I hadn’t caught them in the mirror.
*checks reflection* – Oh look at that, I have a weird pale nose hair sticking out of one nostril and a bit of dinner broccoli stuck between bottom teeth. Ahhhhhh! I’m not feral, I swear.
Would be very interested to know more about the Feng Shui of mirrors because I have SO many in my house. I used to be able to excuse them all away with “Oh it’s my cockatiel. He loves his reflection and sings so beautifully when he sees it.” But my poor baby died earlier this year so now I just have to admit I have ’em because I’m VAIN. (And paranoid. Damn nose hairs…)
Cocketiels are supposed to be very loving, why not some replacement therapy?
Re house of many mirrors, me too, to reflect light, to put them opposite and get the never ending illusion in them AND because of my living alone forever, they are company-my own’s better than none…lol.
Lol re yr exuberant flaunting – love it!
I’m Leo Rising Libra Sun – I have heaps of mirrors in my house and handbag. No mirror fasting for me!
Great synchronicity with this one, last week I was just taking note of people who I know have had mental break downs (possibly drug/alcohol induced or even psychiatrist induced) and how I usually didn’t like how they would start taking down all their mirrors or even attacking any decorative image at all.. not necessary violent but the feeling about not having a mirror due to the mental state also went hand in hand with the removal of all decorative images.. and art.
Upon knowing this I tended to watch out in the later years for professors or other personnel within the systems I worked or went to school with who had no decorative images in their offices.. I took note that many economics professors in my opinion with no art at all and only post it notes for “decoration” were the type of people, although seemingly perfectly sound, were probably the least sane… just on that little bias I have.
I on the other hand have been out in the woods.. I took notice that if I need a mirror to put contact lenses in, then so be it.. but I’ve been very good about not even seeing the impression shine back at me.. which filters through my own senses which everyone says.. like with photos that maybe I’m not seeing the fullness of self when so focused on these illusions which shine back at me..
I take for example how people could compliment me for my appearance but even in a mirror intensive mode do not understand how they can see me like that.. but this is the conflict, the illusion verse what we really feel and the way we possibly can not always be so utterly beautiful to ourselves as others may see us..
I do think there is a use and I’m not afraid of it, but the conversation about the person facing a psychotic/mental/emotional break down being so disturbed by the mirror as to attack it, throw it away or break it.. well, I am feeling I understand that stuff.. maybe its my 12th House ASC ruler.. but the idea of the image one sees in the mirror is just that, its a “lie” and when you have problems you can not resolve with these ideas of projected images of the self and what you feel like within, there can be a violent confrontation..
I guess when you get to the point where one is stripping down the exterior as a distraction for what seems to be inside.. one doesn’t get violent results but the reasons are possibly the same.. just a general discomfort with the reflective illusion.
No, not ready for a mirror fast just yet, I’m going to be freaking out later as I get older, when the image I see doesn’t match up with what I imagine it to be, but that eventually will be part of my growth, and I probably won’t confront it violently but softly with a little more make up 😉
…but in any world we only see the “illusion”, and never the actual “self” just a “projection” of an agreement in protons…. and even these very due to the state of mind and the state of the perception.. and even the emotional state.
Since we can not see the “self”, perhaps those people who have problems with the mirror are only expressing that by getting rid of it, after all, the concept of “self” is only one that I can feel personally, but never see.. and even my personal voice does not match up to what I hear when I speak silently to me..