RECONCILIATION

The concept of reconciliation is part of my inner life. The dictionary has a few different definitions for reconcile, but the ones are I respond to are: to reestablish a close relationship, to resolve, to make harmonious.  
    I hear "reconciliation" as, first, an acknowledgment that there are many aspects to my being. Some of them are known to me and some are hidden from my conscious mind. Some of them are good, they fuel me, but some contain unresolved things in the past, feelings I don't want to uncover because they feel huge, able to annihilate me. There are many others; each of us carries a universe within.
     There have been times on my path that in retrospect were events of transformation, some big, others small, of coming to see things in a whole new light. These didn't necessarily happen in a blinding flash - most of them only rose to the surface after a long time of invisible wheels turning inside and after a long time of my despairing they would ever come. Some brought a new understanding of the past, some a new sense of my strengths and weakness, some an acceptance of long ago hurts and resentments, some giving me courage to face my rage and fear.
     Each of those transforming moments has felt to me like a reconciliation. I take something in, accept and digest it; I feel a new harmony inside, a resolution of what was hidden, fragmented, into a whole. I feel I'm embracing I feared or couldn't see. No longer afraid, no longer blind or in illusion, I take it in, absorb it. My whole being isn't changed but it's altered as I embrace the new and feel myself expanded. 
     Once, an image came to me, seemingly out of nowhere. I was standing on a tall cliff, looking out at the wide, wide vista in front of me. There was someone standing next to me - it was myself, younger, smaller, trying to hide her fear. I reached out and put my arm around her. It will be all right, I heard myself saying, and I drew her close, took her in. Then we stood together, my arm around her, and looked out at the beauty spread out below.
     Reconciliation...