Why do faces become masks?

We get attached to them as our identity, because we have an idea. Idea = identity, and we feel we must have this. Supposedly, it’s not only the only way we can relate, it comes to be seen as the only way we can function.

Yet, do any of these ideas make anyone function any better? Do they ever heal a broken heart? Or renew love between estranged partners? No. These ideas are usually half baked at best, and by the time one accepts that they must drop an old identity, it’s too late to show your loved one a new one. How do people get stuck in these situations?

Pressure from others? That is what leads to the shedding of identities, but what leads to forming them? What makes women “put on their face”?

I’m thinking a father or other loved one imposes their expectations. So to get their love we put on the face they offer us.

The difference between what she thinks she is and what environment mirrors back.

Both true, and they inevitably crumble as anything that lacks heart or soul will. It’s a false front, a distorted face. It’s no wonder that when humanity actually has the rare experience of encountering a disincarnate spirit, their minds twist it into something scary. It’s what they do to the living as well.

Nobody is actually seeing the person for the face. People who remember faces tend to see more of who a person is than those who remember names. But some do not remember faces so much as they remember fronts, the persons body language or how they dressed. This does both the witness and the remembered a severe disservice.

Good looking people get better jobs. In the end, the companies that hire good looking people also downsize, and we have communities lead by men and women who are more interested in social networking than actual principle based change. It’s all to keep up a good face.

As Bill Hicks said, “I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs.’ ‘I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking.’ ‘Hey, wait a minute, there’s one guy holding out both puppets!’” How can a wooden face be anything more than a puppet? There is a way, and many people actually do it in the virtual world of Second Life, where all of the public images are supposedly “fake”.

The ancient Shamans had the practice of wearing masks during ceremonies. The purpose of this was to free the spirit inside them to act in the world. To allow the spirit of raven to move through them freely. To allow the spirit of wolf to guide their senses and thus the welfare of their tribe. In Second Life, many people seek to express something in themselves that they often don’t even have words for. They don’t have a name for it. They just feel it.

The Shamans were going in and letting out their “role” as wolf, raven, deer, but it was more than that. From the Shamans experience and spiritual connections, they could really become as one with deer. Not literally become a deer, but join in the spirit of deer. In Second Life, we can join in the spirit of our true selves. This is why even now they have been doing sociological studies of the impact of environments like this on peoples social behaviour. It has had one, and a big one, but it is for a very simple reason. In Second Life, in the act of putting on a “false” face, we may have for the first time revealed our true spirit, and once that has been shown we can’t shove it back in its mental cage.

If I were to show my true form in Second Life, it would be either this …

, or this … ,

which unfortunately people read as if it were a face. So instead I take a form like this …

,

and I talk in ways that people find non-threatening though the only threat I pose to anyone is to show them how they are threatened by their own prejudices, their own bigoted attitudes. Otherwise I am only about freedom and life. These are the things I cherish.

So yes friends, you have a face. You actually have many faces, and this is not a bad thing. It’s not wrong. What might be amiss is that your faces might be masking your spirit instead of expressing it.

Face doesn’t need saving. If it’s a good face, it was formed for reasons that are beyond prejudice of any kind anyway. It doesn’t need protection from judgment.

Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.

Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~