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“To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a heaven in a Wild Flower Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour.” [Blake, ~1803] Rain fell in the mountains, and a brook was born. The young brook splashed and slithered over rocks and under branches, meeting other brooks and merging with them, growing and slowing. No longer a brook, a powerful river emerged from the mountains in a final waterfall, which encountered the desert.

“You cannot pass,” said the desert. But nothing had ever stopped the river, so it flowed forward, now out across the desert. The desert passively soaked up the river’s water, stopping the river’s advance. “You cannot pass,” said the desert.

The river had learned persistence. It continued to flow out into the desert, expecting eventually to win passage. But the desert was no stranger to persistence.

The river accumulated floating debris at the mouth of the waterfall, forming a temporary dam, building up a huge backlog of water, then bursting upon the desert. The desert seemed to be overwhelmed by the torrent, but only temporarily.

The river tried to avoid the desert, skirting it by flowing along the base of the mountain’s foothills. The desert found and drank the river water.

The river felt defeated. Persistence, power and avoidance had always succeeded before but had failed to overcome this obstacle. Everything the river had ever been was for naught - its youthful brooks, later streams, and final river strength - in the face of this obstacle. Everything? Or was there a time before the brooks?

The river gave itself to the wind. And the water that fell over that final waterfall never touched the desert floor. The water was swept up and evaporated, carried by the wind out of reach of the desert, across the desert, to mountains beyond.

Rain fell in the mountains, and a brook was ‘born’.

[loosely based on a Sufi teaching story, e.g., Shah, 1970]