Once upon a time:
There was this fountain. It was a fountain that poured out abundant love. The fountain imagined vessels into existence to hold all of the love that was pouring out of it.
Every vessel the fountain imagined was different. Some were ceramic and some were crystal. Every bowl, cup, and decanter was made in the image of some particular shape of love that had shimmered within the fountain’s dancing patterns. And every ewer, flagon, and flask filled up with the love, sloshing with all that it contained. Each of the vessels glistened in the overflow, all of them radiating from the love cascading into and around them.
Then all of the vessels smashed themselves to pieces.
Why they did this—even just after it happened—was not clear. It was apparent at once that the act had been wantonly foolish and destructive. It was simply that smashing themselves had been the one choice forbidden to them by the fountain. Smashing themselves therefore became the one choice that was fascinating.
The fountain remained unchanged, but all of the vessels lay shattered. All the love that had been in them spilled away.
The vessels reformed themselves, sort of. Pieces were missing. The pieces that did still remain fit poorly together in the wake of the violence. For the sake of being whole at all, a vessel would graft its remaining pieces into a clumsy, awkward, mismatched assembly that at least managed to hold some small, meager, misshapen amount of space.
Most of the vessels did this. They now were porous and small, unable to hold much love at all. What love they did hold seeped out. These vessels would have been discarded—except that the fountain said no.
The fountain made a new vessel instead. The new vessel came out of the very heart of the fountain.
Look at this, said the fountain to the vessels. You can be like this.
Some began to try, rearranging their shards to be more like the perfect vessel. But even as they had just begun to do this, the new vessel itself was lost. The perfect vessel was smashed. The new vessel was the one discarded, while the ones that should have been discarded remained.
But something was happening. Even more of the broken ones bravely began to let go of their meager and malformed shapes. Even more of the damaged vessels strove to match the proportions of the perfect vessel about which they had heard.
All of them were still missing pieces. All of them were missing huge shards. Previously, they had patched and covered themselves to make due, to make themselves somehow whole. Now, as they stretched instead toward their fuller shapes, the gaps became fully evident. The vessels tried to hold love, and the love spilled out through the wide and open holes.
Yet the fountain still was abundant. It was as abundant as it ever had been, as abundant as it was from the beginning. Love poured out of the fountain so fast that it filled the vessels and kept them full, the overflow replacing all of the love in all of the vessels as quickly as it flowed out of even the widest holes in their sides. The fountain did this for every vessel that simply believed the fountain’s promise that a broken vessel could again be whole.
Something else happened, too. The love that spilled out of all of these large open holes was shaped by the jagged gaps. The shimmering patterns created by these shard-shaped openings intersected in intricate ways. As the vessels spread wide to reclaim the original dimensions that the fountain had given them, the fullness of each vessel’s damage was revealed. Love streamed out of the holes in crazy gushes, and the wounds became beautiful.
There was this fountain. It was a fountain that poured out abundant love. The fountain imagined vessels into existence to hold all of the love that was pouring out of it.
Every vessel the fountain imagined was different. Some were ceramic and some were crystal. Every bowl, cup, and decanter was made in the image of some particular shape of love that had shimmered within the fountain’s dancing patterns. And every ewer, flagon, and flask filled up with the love, sloshing with all that it contained. Each of the vessels glistened in the overflow, all of them radiating from the love cascading into and around them.
Then all of the vessels smashed themselves to pieces.
Why they did this—even just after it happened—was not clear. It was apparent at once that the act had been wantonly foolish and destructive. It was simply that smashing themselves had been the one choice forbidden to them by the fountain. Smashing themselves therefore became the one choice that was fascinating.
The fountain remained unchanged, but all of the vessels lay shattered. All the love that had been in them spilled away.
The vessels reformed themselves, sort of. Pieces were missing. The pieces that did still remain fit poorly together in the wake of the violence. For the sake of being whole at all, a vessel would graft its remaining pieces into a clumsy, awkward, mismatched assembly that at least managed to hold some small, meager, misshapen amount of space.
Most of the vessels did this. They now were porous and small, unable to hold much love at all. What love they did hold seeped out. These vessels would have been discarded—except that the fountain said no.
The fountain made a new vessel instead. The new vessel came out of the very heart of the fountain.
Look at this, said the fountain to the vessels. You can be like this.
Some began to try, rearranging their shards to be more like the perfect vessel. But even as they had just begun to do this, the new vessel itself was lost. The perfect vessel was smashed. The new vessel was the one discarded, while the ones that should have been discarded remained.
But something was happening. Even more of the broken ones bravely began to let go of their meager and malformed shapes. Even more of the damaged vessels strove to match the proportions of the perfect vessel about which they had heard.
All of them were still missing pieces. All of them were missing huge shards. Previously, they had patched and covered themselves to make due, to make themselves somehow whole. Now, as they stretched instead toward their fuller shapes, the gaps became fully evident. The vessels tried to hold love, and the love spilled out through the wide and open holes.
Yet the fountain still was abundant. It was as abundant as it ever had been, as abundant as it was from the beginning. Love poured out of the fountain so fast that it filled the vessels and kept them full, the overflow replacing all of the love in all of the vessels as quickly as it flowed out of even the widest holes in their sides. The fountain did this for every vessel that simply believed the fountain’s promise that a broken vessel could again be whole.
Something else happened, too. The love that spilled out of all of these large open holes was shaped by the jagged gaps. The shimmering patterns created by these shard-shaped openings intersected in intricate ways. As the vessels spread wide to reclaim the original dimensions that the fountain had given them, the fullness of each vessel’s damage was revealed. Love streamed out of the holes in crazy gushes, and the wounds became beautiful.
