Transformation and Rarity

As I have written about before, over the past several months I have felt somewhat of a compulsion to search for and collect sea glass.  I know, in my heart, that I am searching desperately for something else, something that I have not yet realized or discovered, but the sea glass provides a beautiful diversion to what it is that I might really be looking for.  Sea glass consists of small fragments of glass which have become reshaped and sometimes re-colored over many, many decades barely reminiscent of their original shape and form.  The glass somehow finds its way into the ocean(or sometimes rivers and lakes) either by human hand, shipwreck, or happenstance.  This leaves it open to the elements resulting in a metamorphosis that can be breathtaking.  Each tiny piece is a rarity in it's own right.  A small example of how something can begin as one thing, and then, over time, end up as another. I also collect other interesting bits and pieces during my long, meditative walks on the beach.  Seashells, rocks and other ephemera catch my eye.  I cannot help but marvel at the absolute beauty which the ocean gifts back to the beach.  To me, it is like a treasure chest filled with the most marvelous of wonders.  I wander the beaches with a feeling of reverence that sometimes overcomes me.
Last week, I came across this rock that is filled with holes, varying striations and remnants of shells that must have been inhabited by tiny sea creatures at one point in time.  I often find rocks which have holes burrowed straight through, but this one was quite an interesting piece.  It was like a miniature village of some sort which was once part of the ocean floor.  I am sure that at some point in time, it was just a smooth rock, but somehow over time it's surface changed.  It was remolded by the sea.  Small animals and shellfish turned it into something other than what it had started out as.  And then, one day I was walking down the beach and it showed up at my feet.  It now resides inside of my home and it is still changing.  When Mark began to examine it, yesterday, he turned it over to look at it from the bottom and as he did, sand poured out from the holes.  It is an ever-changing creation of nature which continues to evolve in subtle ways even as it is explored by humans.
As I sit here considering the shear wonder of how things change, I cannot help but be reminded about what we, as individuals, go through during our lifetimes.  We are shaped and reshaped over and over again.  Each one of our lives sculpt us into unmatched beings of rarity, and just as the sea glass, or the rock or a seashell can change it's form depending upon the elements which it is exposed to, we change in so many subtle and not so subtle ways over the course of our journeys.  Each one of us is a rarity that should not be taken for granted.  A work of art which is in the constant process of transitioning, adapting and shifting; resembling what we once were, but in many ways, not even close to looking like what we will someday be.

As a bit of an aside, I had to share something that I noticed about this rock after going through the pictures.  There is a heart(without the pointy bottom) carved at the base.  And somehow, whatever other message is derived, for me it often comes down to one thing, one very important, life-affirming thing.  Love.