A solitary pearl falls from the mighty blacksmith’s cumulus anvil.
That raindrop is followed by another and another and another. The shower becomes heavier as the clouds above grow darker and more menacing. The shower becomes a squall and the drops swell.
The cumulus rises, it’s heart cut out. The wound glows scarlet and black in the haze of the setting sun. The atmosphere dims and sparkles and crackles with electric.
The sheeting rain is harder and heavier and threatening, the tempest all consuming. The womb has become a continent wide, super cell growing with the passing of moments. A drop matures to a shower, the beads become a deluge, now a planet-wide cyclone of incomprehensible ferocity. Extending its embracing arms and swelling and flooding and consuming.
The tumult rising exponentially through the Troposphere, through the Stratosphere, the Mesosphere, the Thermosphere, the Exosphere, the Ionosphere and on into the vast baroness of desert space. Reaching out past satellites, the moon, past Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, past Uranus and Neptune and Pluto in one direction. Past Venus Mercury and the blazing Sun in the other.
Past Orion, Cancer, Leo. Past the North Star and the Southern Cross. Past Cassiopeia, and Ursa Major, Ursa Minor and onto the vast Galaxy of Milky Way, onto Andromeda, The Black Eye and Medusa.
Past black holes and space rainbows and asteroids and meteoroids and the most distant nebulae. Out further and further through the light of a trillion years.
A blizzard as vast and complete as our mind will allow.
Each drop within is a universe and within each drop a storm rages. Each drop within that storm is a universe and within a storm rages. Each drop within that storm is a universe and within a storm rages. Each drop within that storm is a universe and within a storm rages. Each drop within that storm is a universe and within a storm rages. Each drop within that storm is a universe and within a storm rages…
Within ONE of those drops is our universe, calm and tranquil. Within that universe is a galaxy, within that galaxy is a solar system, within that solar system is a planet, our planet, our Mother Earth.
On Earth there’s a home with a garden and in that garden sit I.
I have to attend a meeting in town in a few short minutes and the time has come to leave. I walk to the garage, put on my helmet and gloves, fire up my bike and set off.
I feel the chill of the breeze and think to myself that I should have put on an extra layer, but don’t have time to return.
I’m slightly late so squeeze the throttle, the revs rise and I glance to see the needle stroking 90mph. The ride to Motueka skirts along the edge of an estuary, an estuary that many thousands of birds call home.
On that road is a box. The box is 25cm, by 25 cm, by 25cm. It’s not a physical box, it’s scribed in time and space.
As I look up from the instruments I catch a flash if iridescent blue and yellow and gold.
It’s a kingfisher.
It’s a Kingfisher flying toward that box. I see it one fraction of one second as my front wheel enters the box and at that very same moment the Kingfisher enters the box. As that nanosecond passes the kingfisher slams into the spokes, its soul is ripped from its chest cavity in a mist of blood and feathers.
From the moment that bird fledged, its entire life was heading towards that box. Just one breath of air, one altered decision, one deviation from path and that box would have faded away.
A missed turn to the left, a turn to the right. A red, not a green light. A touch of the brake, a fly in the eye. An anxious heartbeat missed, an excited one gained. A flutter of a butterfly wing on the other side of the world.
How extraordinary, the decisions we make!
Suspended in the endless everything is Your Box.
Is it gold and studded with jewels from the four corners of the globe and brimming with sumptuous riches. Or is it black and lined with satin?
The extraordinary decisions YOU make will determine.
