Healing Reflections

I find comfort in staring at this face --my face. Some mistaken it for vanity, and to some degree, maybe it is. Yet this is the face that I run to for solace. I find strength in that reflection --a reflection of centuries of lives before me; the combined result of thousands of decisions leading to my existence into this world and in this life. Perhaps one of my ancestors wore this face in another time and found comfort in the same reflection. Maybe I resided in these eyes in a previous life, having stared out at the sea of faces who looked on as they projected their desires, fears, and contradictions as they burned the accused; her only transgressions refusing to cede her magic. A feral inclination to maintain the integrity of her essence as a way of honoring the grandmother's before her. As I stare at my reflection, the face staring back offers centuries of resilience, secrets of lives unwritten, and the poetry of the unspoken.  This face has worn and held my joys, my fears, my sadness, transforming through time as my eyes--hopeful and fierce--still hold on to that fire as I reclaim my magic, refusing to apologize for the healing of my soul.