This I Believe

“This . . . I Believe”

The morning light blinded me as I made my way down Chestnut in center city Philly. Something in one of the show windows caught my eye. I turned. Oddly enough, at that exact moment . . . someone on the other side of the angled glass turned also. . . in precisely the same fashion. My attention was suddenly diverted.

I felt a fleeting stab of pain for the exhausted graceless woman on the other side of the glass, and felt genuine sadness. She had probably gotten so caught up in the demands of life that she did not even realize . . .

She didn’t realize! I could not have been more correct. The woman in the glass was none other than . . . the mirror image of me.

I felt suddenly ill.

Single motherhood had taken its toll. I tried to think when was the last time I looked . . . really looked . . . into a mirror . . . with a discerning eye. Must have been forever ago. My mind wandered . . .

The seventies. Freedom prevailed. Women burned their bras, escaping the constraints of conformity and control. Some still preferred the safety of the “known,” no matter how bad. Not me. I jumped with both feet into the raging tide of changing times and shifting values; never looking back for one moment . . . until now.

It was suddenly crystal clear. I had gotten so caught up in . . . knocked completely out of balance by . . . the sea of “isms” that dominated the culture, that I lost that part of myself that lends itself to grace and beauty. I plowed forward in life recklessly, rather than moving in measured strides, putting and keeping in place needed systems of support.

Coming full circle . . . with new perspective . . . this I believe: balance is to life as rhythm and composition are to music . . . and shadow and light are to art; intrinsic. In the holistic world, coming back to center is the prescription for every kind of suffering, and in a world rife with disharmony, in a culture clouded with pain and seeking to redefine itself, it is woefully obvious to me . . . that with all that is great and significant, there is nothing more immediately important at any level than . . . achieving and maintaining balance.

Personally, as I seek to recreate myself one last time, moving into the future, I borrow also from the wisdom of the past . . . those “yin” qualities of the sacred feminine . . . that engender strength without harshness or brutality and bring, joy, peace, beauty, compassion, harmony, healing; balance . . . into my life . . . and into a world . . . so desperately in need. “This . . . I believe.”