The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1922-08-31

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fellow that made three strokes with the
saw and then chucked the job, complained
that he had tried but couldn't make a go
of it? Wouldn't you tell him that the
job NEEDED perhaps thirty strokes, and that
if he'd made three he'd necessarily done
one tenth, neither more nor less?
"But he could see what he'd done. When
you're trying the other job-making your
self over-you can't see."
Well, that just happens to be the differ
ence; that's all. But if you couldn't see
the work of the saw, you'd know, all the
same, wouldn't you, that if you'd made so
many strokes you'd have done that much
of the job? Suppose you were saving a
big branch of tree You keep on five
minutes, ten minutes-apparently there is
nothing doing. Results nil. But suddenly,
crash, down comes the branch. That's
sometimes the way with character-chang-
ing You try and try, and the more you
try the more the things the same way. But
suddenly one mornng-see the idea?
You've won out on some point, got the bet
ter of a weakness, find you don't any longer
want to do some customary shady thing.
Tired of yourself, you said. That's not
strictly the way to put it. Know that old
medical sign, the Caduceus, the wand of
Apollo, standard of Aesculapius? Some of
the dotcors are taking to fixing it on their
autos lately.
Cant say do"
Well, it's two snakes twined round
wand. The top of the wand widens out
into wings, and it's really winged snake
with the other two snakes twisted round
it. I've seen one where the middle snake,
the wand, was gold-colored, shining, and
the two coiled round it were red and
green. The wings were gold, and the
head above; and the eyes were clear dia-
monds.
That was the symbol of a man in the
old days when they understood human ma
ture. The real man was the upright,
straight gold shaft running up the middle,
winged and with shining eyes rejecting
the sun. And the two snakes twisted
round it and everlastingly squirming were
the mind with its everlasting motion of
thoughts and the contemporaries with
its everlasting squirming of wishes, lusts,
longings, impulses, fears, likes, dislikes
and SO FORTH And the real man, with this
everlasting motion of thoughts and emo
that squirm to be himself, forgets what he
really is, the upright shaft of conscious
winged light in the middle; and so, say
ing /, means the double squirm instead
of the real l. is an upright line, even
in print isn't it? A mans thoughts are
not himself; that's why he can take hold
of them and change them. And his i'm
pulses and lusts and longings are not him
self, and that's why he can change them.
He never needs to change himself, needs
only to be himself. He's divine light, him
self, come down into the midst of this dou-
BILE squirm of thoughts and passions. It's
that squirm-whch he thinks is himself
that hes<got to change and bring to order
All that he's got to do with himself is TO
be himself. He never gets tired of him
self; he gets tired of what's going on
around himself the squirm of the two
snakes.
Don't all that put a new complexion on
things?
whats the prescription ?"
Keep up your saw work. day by day.
little by little, that self-uplift work you
tried while and quit because it didn't
seem to be getting anywhere. Keep it up
but do it with the thought of our symbol,
the Apollo symbol. Apollo was the child
of the sun, a ray of it. And each of us
is the child of the great Spiritual Sun of