The Diamond Path

This winter we've had plenty of occasions to celebrate rain in the Southwest. Yesterday another storm swept through the Chiricahua Mountains, and today the path I walked was diamond-strewn with ice crystals, glittering in the early sunlight.

We used to get a similar effect at San Jacinto Wildlife Area in southern California: there, the rains would wash millions of tiny flakes of pyrite from the rocks and soil, and deposit them in long golden rivulets, so that the path glimmered in gold. The effect was almost as ephemeral as this dawn's ice crystals. Soon the ground would dry and the winds would pick up the tiny, lightweight flakes and broadcast them across the hills. Then only a very practiced eye could discern, in the right light, the golden sheen on the hillsides.

Are there parallels here, in learning to discern the sparkling sheen on the more symbolic paths of our lives?

The road taken (Photo by Narca)