Water Diamond

A single water crystal slid silently down the face of the skylight in the early morning Sunshine. Millions of facets sparkled as brightly as the finest diamond, until it melted and became liquid.

The staggering but impermanent beauty of this watery jewel gets me thinking about the invitations I receive to try to make permanent that which is always changing. My culture, although in a constant state of flux, has evolved a mythology of permanence. Permanent beauty, permanent youth, permanent life; these are the goals of my culture. But this culture is missing out on the real beauty that can only exist with change.

The water crystal shimmers as it spins and shrinks. Facets form, greet the Sun, and disappear, leaving space for new facets to form, until the whole crystal vanishes. The beauty is the change. Even diamonds are temporary. They are formed, and they will dissolve. It is only the fleeting timescale of a human lifetime that makes them seem to last forever.

I have been taught to fear decay, and to look at rot as something that is inherently bad. But rot and decay are more than inevitable. They are an essential part of the flow of life. When I watch the water crystal sliding down the skylight, I resist the invitations to wish it would slide and slide forever. I resist the invitation to stop the process, and hold it shining in the Sunlight forever. I resist the invitations to think that beauty is something I can hold onto and keep forever.

And so in this way by my willingness to accept the impermanence of my life, I am able to connect to the eternal of change, of love, and of the energy that is inherently part of the cycles of transformation. I am more likely to see the beauty in everything including rot and decay, and I no longer value the beauty of a diamond over the beauty of a drop of water.

Today, I will be paying attention to the invitations of my culture that inform what I am supposed to think of as beautiful, and what I am supposed to value. I will resist the invitations to fear change so that I may be more likely to see the beauty in its perpetual transformation.