By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo

 

IN Morocco, I watched a man walk quietly, his steps without the slightest sound, the lightness of a cat, through a small reflecting pool, a very still water that mirrored everything and everyone who passed. In this stillness, nothing seemed to move, not a leaf, not even my own breath. It was the clearest reflection I’ve seen, not only of its surroundings, but a most rare experience of being one with the divine. I felt my own existence, like the tiniest of sand, at the same time, becoming an integral part of the vast expanse of the desert.

Reflecting pools are places of contemplation and reflection. They make us look beyond what is reflected, to look inside ourselves, to find ourselves, to embrace our being. They are usually built along monuments inspired by great love and grief, of intense pain, or memorials to the human spirit.

The Taj Mahal for example. In 1631, Shah Jahan was grief-stricken when his third wife, Mumtaz Mahal, a Persian princess, died. For her, he built, over the spread of 16 years, the Taj Mahal. Emperor Shah Jahan himself described the Taj in these words:

“Should guilty seek asylum here,

Like one pardoned, he becomes free from sin.

Should a sinner make his way to this mansion,

All his past sins are to be washed away.

The sight of this mansion creates sorrowing sighs;

And the sun and the moon shed tears from their eyes.

In this world this edifice has been made;

To display thereby the creator’s glory.”

Taj Mahal is a monument of love. It was built with monumental cost. Ashok K. Bhargava commented that “Shah Jahan was Emperor of India. He depleted the Treasury, building Taj Mahal. His son seized power for mismanagement of the treasury for personal glorification of his love, imprisoned him and he died in the prison as an old man.

A reflecting pool was built in front of The Washington Monument, the world’s tallest obelisk on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., “to commemorate George Washington, a Founding Father of the United States, victorious commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783 in the American Revolutionary War, and the first President of the United States from 1789 to 1797.” This pool, to me, mirrors Washington’s reflection in regard to slavery and the ownership of human beings.

Pangasinan recently held a groundbreaking ceremony for a Reflecting Pool and Interactive Fountain Project around the Provincial Capitol Building, built in 1917, designed by Daniel Burnham and executed by William Parson & Ralph Harrington Doane, during the American occupation (1898-1946). The building is the centerpiece around which the project is to be built. “During the ceremony, Governor Guico emphasized the symbolic nature of the reflecting pool, stating that it mirrors the dreams that have now become realities and projects that have been concretized.”

The project involved the cutting of century-old trees, from which residents have attached so many memories, and their sanctuary from the heat of summer, and the onslaught of climate change. There will be new trees, as promised, but residents said, they will have to wait another 100 years to enjoy it. This space was their place of reflection and meditation.

Leaders will be remembered for their impact, good or otherwise. But they will stay in people’s hearts for their lives of integrity, honesty and industry and the depth of their spirituality. Their lives and character go deep into the subconscious of many and shape the consciousness and identity of the next generation.

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