The Granite Stone

At the back of the quarry there was a tall massive piece of granite that stood apart from the other rocks and earth.  Because of its unique stature and place in the pit, the stone developed a formidable identity.  It fell in love with the straight edges that defined its southern exposure and it profoundly loved the dark veins that flowed through its sediment.  With each hail storm or strong gust of wind, the granite stone would become filled with terror at the thought that it might lose chips off of its flawless features.

Day after month after year would pass by and the granite stone would see the landscape of the quarry change as boulders where smashed and earth moved all around it.  How it wished it could walk away from the quarry to find a safe home.  Though the stone knew well that one day it too would return to the dust of its own creation.  But the thought of its own mortality was too much to bare and instead it focused only on its daily survival.

One morning a mysterious being with a large flat bed truck came to the quarry and purchased the granite stone.  Soon the rock was bumping along winding roads and while it’s dream of escape had manifested, this new adventure was the most terrifying experience the stone had ever endured.

Once the truck reached its destination, the stone was carefully lifted off of the flat bed and placed in a large work shed.  A dark burlap tarp was placed over the granite stone and it could not distinguish day from night for what seemed like an eternity.

There were no familiar sounds, scents or sensations for the stone.  The stone pleaded for an end to its suffering, but no deliverance appeared.  Instead, one morning the tarp was pulled away and the stone felt the burning pain of the morning light.  But the agony of daylight was trifling compared to what was to come in the next moment.

With a diamond crusted chisel the mysterious human began chipping away at the horrified stone.  The granite slab could feel bloods of dust pour down its surface.  Each sound of the hammer would send shockwaves through its stone veins.  ‘How could this be happening’, thought the rock.  And once again it pleaded for its life

‘Please save me!  Why do you watch as I suffer this unbearable annihilation?  Please, tell me what I must do to survive?’  But once again no answer or rescue came to the stone.

So deep was the stone in its own suffering that it could not sense the delicate etchings on the exquisite wings of its surface.  Nor could it admire the grace filled lines of the flowing gown that was appearing from deep within its core.

One morning, the artist came to the workhouse with the most delicate of tools.  In painstaking precision the sculptor created each lash on the eye on an angle.  The iris was as round and perfect as the moon the night before and just as a tiny reflection was made in the pupil, everything changed for the granite stone.

In an instant it could see its true nature.  At one with the artist’s hand, the stone was no longer separate from the world about.  As simple as it was profound, the stone lost its sense of a small separate self and the suffering it had created based on that illusion vanished like dust in the wind.

The artist smiled in completing the work.