Once upon a time there was a drop that wished it would never have to evaporate. The drop feared that, at the moment this happened, it would lose its form and identity, and would cease to exist.
Its life at present passed it through windows, gutters and manholes, and it accumulated all sorts of memories of its brief existence.
The drop had been told that its spherical shape was due to an inner magnetic attraction that defined and individualized itself. Its curvy surface was the result of surface tension, manifested at the edges of its being, which the drop understood as its ‘self’.
Inevitably, however, the moment it feared, arrived. Under the midday sun, the fragile drop began to evaporate. It became light, was lifted to great heights, and continued to exist in the white clouds of the sky. She felt reassured in that foggy comfort, but ‘heaven’ wouldn’t welcome it forever either.
On a stormy day, the clouds frowned. Among the lightning strikes that dominated the space, the little drop began to condense. Becoming a drop once more, it poured like rain and fell from the sky.
As it fell, it caught sight of a vast, mysterious ocean. The drop was falling towards that ocean – that was its destiny … there the drop would fall.
Its end was near, for how could it be a drop and an ocean at the same time? This time, it’s beautiful round form would be lost forever and would certainly not be recognizable in the blue mass of the sea. No one could point to it and say, “Look! There is the drop that last week ran on my window!”
As it touched the ocean, the two forms merged, and this phenomenon made it see that the same magnetic forces were present in the large body of water that once individualized it as a drop. However, such forces now united the drop with the Whole.
The drop understood that it carried within itself the essence of individuality and, at the same time, that of Unity. The difference was determined by its orientation: toward itself or toward the Whole.
It is not known whether the small drop from before retained its memories of trees, windows, gutters and manholes … memories of being blown away by the wind, or shining on a bird’s wing. Maybe that’s not so important after all.
Today the drop moves through an endless blue space, in communion, unveiling the secrets of the deep and enigmatic ocean.
Countless possibilities of existing unfolded in front of it. The drop could glide through the foam of the waves, in the constant coming and going of the seas, or even observe the luminescent beings from the deep abyss.
It could engage with both microscopic or gigantic beings, enjoy the profusion of colors, or the strange and beautiful creatures that live in the corals.
It could even, through its essence, be all of this in eternity, and then return to the earth, irrigate the soil, nourish the plants, and complete the cycle of a self-giving existence. The drop has become as vast as the ocean!
