A Grain of Sand

“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.”

-William Blake

Quite an amazing thing, a grain of sand; how many ages has it been buffeted by the wind and how many oceans has it seen? How many feet have walked on it and how many rivers have swept it away? I first heard this excerpt from William Blake’s Auguries of Innocence in a movie and at the time I didn’t really understand it. But if you really think about the journey of a grain of sand, you can truly see eternity. Where did that grain come from? An eternity ago, was it a great mountain, a rock, a wonder of the world? The Pyramid of Giza, built over 4500 years ago still stands in all its glory, how then can you fathom how long that grain of sand has been traveling? So you see, to be captivated by this grain of sand is perfectly understandable. How can it not fascinate the most intellectual minds?

However I must caution, to be taken in by the sands can destroy what is held most dear. For if you spend all your time studying that grain of sand and forget about the ocean at your feet, you forget beauty itself; for it is the ocean that has formed that grain of sand and it’s the ocean that’s brought it for you to study. The ocean, in all its formless beauty capable of the most devastating destruction and yet so peaceful. To hear the waves lapping on the shore and to see the sun as it sparkles on its surface, the glare hurts your eyes but you don’t mind, since it’s the sun that gives you its warmth. It warms your insides, it gives you life and love; it protects you. And so the two work in tandem, they help guide you when you are lost and they pick you up when you have fallen down.

Do not forget what is the most important, which is love. For without love all hope is lost and faith is meaningless. To turn your back on love is to give up everything that gives this life meaning. Why would you spend your whole life looking for purpose in a grain of sand, when all you need to do is look up and you see all this time the ocean has been right there, waiting for you to realise what is truly important. And she is still waiting for you to see that all this time all you had to do was look at her and find your purpose there, for she does not ask for anything in return but that you love her and that you love her unconditionally, with no exceptions and no secret clauses. But remember, because this is unquestionably important, if you keep searching in that grain of sand, the tide will soon take the ocean away and then there will be nothing, nothing but a great expanse of sand and no ocean.

“Before you, Bella, my life was like a moonless night. Very dark, but there were stars---points of light and reason... And then you shot across my sky like a meteor. Suddenly everything was on fire; there was brilliancy, there was beauty. When you were gone, when the meteor had fallen over the horizon, everything went black. Nothing had changed, but my eyes were blinded by the light. I couldn't see the stars anymore. And there was no reason for anything.”

This quote might seem corny but I think it holds a great truth. Just like our atmosphere will shatter a shooting star, so the moon will take away the ocean with the tide, and how long will it take and how far are you willing to walk to get it back? Because once they are gone, there really is no reason for anything. All you are left with is a blind shadow of how it used to be and no hope of ever getting it back.