FilmOnDeepWater

Reveal
22 April 1999
Portola Valley, CA                                                                                 

Revealing is about removing a veil.  Literally, from a Latin word revelere meaning “to unveil, to reveal”.  It is not a terribly old word as they go, but it has been around for more than six hundred years.  What happens when we remove a veil?  There is such drama in the moment. What is behind it?  How will we feel after it is removed?  Who will we be with this new information?  How will the impact of this revelation change things?  And who exactly is behind the veil?  Is it another, is it me?  Is it a stranger, or one familiar? When we reveal ourselves to another, when we drop the veil, who is the knower and who is the known?

When the bride lifts her veil, or has it lifted by her new husband, she is seen for the first time.  And yet so is he.  They both are revealed, not just to each other, but to themselves as well.   It is as if in some deeply symbolic way before that moment, before the revealing, they had been not truly visible to each other, and maybe not visible to themselves either.

A revelation is an uncovering, not a discovery.  Discover is a word for another day.  Revelation is a moment of seeing clearly for the first time, seeing what was there the whole time, right before my eyes, yet it was obscured from view.  It is not something outside our awareness.  Its power comes from the very fact that it is mysterious, but is already present in our consciousness.  We see the bride, or an apparition of the bride.  We already know that there is a secret about to be uncovered. A mystery about to be revealed.

The act of revealing is an act of making us known to ourselves.  It is an act of becoming.  It is also an act of letting go.  Letting the veil drop can be an incredibly powerful moment of tolerating being seen, of becoming completely visible and known. 

The moment the veil drops we are not only seen, but perhaps for the first time, we can see clearly.  When we choose to live our lives with the seductive sisters - secrecy and mystery - as close companions, we also give up the possibility of seeing the world as it is.  We can only see the world through the veil of our own distorted sense of safety.  Revealing is choosing to be known, and to know that I can also free myself to see, to know, to accept, and to love.