At three a.m.the mind wanders many paths.  Sometimes they re-join and a message emerges.

During an early morning thunderstorm awakening, I recalled an experience at the open pit mine in Arkansas digging through the muddy rubble for crystals. Small points eluded me until an experienced crystal hunter helped train my eye. A few way too large chunks unrealistically tempted me.  At one point, filthy, covered head to boot heel with thick red Razorback mud, I paused and looked around.

Razorback Red soil heaped up for crystal seekers to dig through.

Four things happened in quick succession. Surveying the devastation of mining, I started to cry. As I reached down in the ruined earth to apologize to the elegant, imposing crystal in front of me,  a thought as clear as a refined crystal came to me, “Mining is a vicious activity.” As if to confirm my thought, deep red blood splattered on the rock.  It took a few moments for me to realize the blood was mine! I had sliced open my little finger along the length of the last phalange on a razor sharp edge of the rock.

I just stoode there watching the blood drip on the crystal and sinking into the brick colored soil. I let the bleeding go, partly from shock, partly to wash out dirt, partly as a tribute for the violence done to the earth.

When I returned to the car we cleaned off and bound the wound, which kept bleeding for hours and opened up and bled many days after. On the way home, I reflected on the raw crystals and the lovely pure white and clear refined crystals we “ohhh” and “ahhh” over and buy in stores.

Our lives are like these crystals.  Sometimes we are torn from all we think we know and love. The forms of violence are endless. The list goes on and on. In the raw we are rough, stained and fairly unattractive.  Refined, we can glimmer, gleam and shine – sometimes in genuine completeness. Other times if too refined, we can become phony looking because our true selves are hidden by another factor – false perfection.

As I reflected, my little finger began to ache – again. A reminder of a time when I sympathized with Mother Earth and received a scolding from her. A lesson to share.