The gathering

[Guest guest]

....he came to the ultimate source of the river.

 

It was a kind of meadow in which nothing happened: no cattle, no mysteriously

gushing water, merely the slow accumulation of moisture from many unseen and

unimportant sources, the gathering of dew, so to speak, the beginning, the

unspectacular congregation of nothingness, the origin of purpose.

 

Bright sunlight fell on the meadow, and where the moisture stood, sharp rays

were reflected back until the whole area seemed golden, and hallowed, as if here

life itself were beginning.

 

He looked at this moist and pregnant land, thought: This is how everything

begins - the mountains, the oceans, life itself.

 

A slow accumulation - the gathering together of meaning.