At Maracas the other morning, I collected a heart-shaped stone which told me this story:
Once upon a time, there were two mountains. They each were so tall they could commune with the cosmos.
From dusk each night, they deliberated with the stars over the physics of the universe and the mathematical equations that explained its unfolding.
They each were so vast that they could commune with, at least, three different oceans and, from dawn each morning, they discussed the philosophical conundrums of existence and the higher purpose of life itself.
The mountains were so busy, looking up at the cold and brilliant gaze of the stars and down to where the warm and turbulent oceans sighed at their foothills, they never noticed each other across the endless clouds and miles beyond measure.
Each thought they were the only mountain in the world.
One unusually windy day, the clouds were being pushed across the continents and one of the mountains suddenly saw the sun glinting sharply off the cheekbone of the other.
At the same time, the other mountain saw the sun explode in a spray of light off the shoulder of the first.
"Who is that?" asked the first, curiously.
"How come I never noticed?" asked the second, intrigued.
"Too busy with physics," laughed the stars, who of course know of every eventuality.
"Too busy with philosophy," laughed the seas, whose everlasting travels around the world make them as prophetic as they are deep.
Ignoring their laughter, the mountains squinted across the light and dust, each recognising themselves for the first time in the other.
Can mountains smile? If they could, they would have at that moment. Can mountains cry? If they could have, that would have happened too.
In the instant they recognised their likeness as momentous beings formed only from stardust. They also recognised their distance as towering creatures each in a place they were meant to always be.
A distance that could not be crossed. Because for all their height and vastness, unlike the stars and the seas, they could not move. Longing for communion with one so familiar and, yet, so unknown, fell across them like ashen evening shadows. What could they do?
They fell into a silence that lasted many, many moons.
Suddenly, deliberations on the origins of everything seemed merely theoretical, and meditations on the nature of being seemed uselessly speculative.
Neither pursuit helped the mountains achieve connection with the other, both the same and, yet, so different.
The stars, ever watchful of what is meant to be, and the seas, ever watchful of the timing of events, together hatched a cunning plan. "Not all communion must involve nightly conversation," they advised the mountains.
"And not all connection is built through exchanging knowledge at every sunrise. You can never be together in this incarnation.
"But you can give each other gifts of yourselves and you can do that for all time.
"Until one day, so much of you reaches the other's edge that your distance doesn't matter.
"We can help you. For we know it is deceptive to believe that you are without desire and emotion."
With that, both mountains began to glow in the ascending light, and pebbles, nuggets of stoney stardust, began to scatter down their surface toward the rivers and oceans.
They have been sharing their hearts ever since. If you look around shorelines and streams, you may find such rocky hearts in all shapes, sizes and colours.
When you do, know that a journey of mountainous love now rests in the cup of your palm.
?