Black pearls, frequently referred to as Black Tahitian Pearls, are highly valued because of their rarity; the culturing process for them dictates a smaller volume output and can never be mass produced. This is due to bad health and/or non-survival of the process, rejection of the nucleus and their sensitivity to changing climatic and ocean conditions. Before the days of cultured pearls, black pearls were rare and highly valued for the simple reason that white pearl oysters rarely produced naturally black pearls, and black pearl oysters rarely produced any natural pearls at all.
Fluffy: What is the price of a handful of pearls?
Ruby: ‘The market value is $35,000.00.’
‘Fluffy’ looked at the contents inside a small plastic bag as ‘Ruby’ held out the precious stones with her left hand as ‘Oscar’, Pete and Landy looked at our general direction. Not knowing what this meant, ‘Fluffy’ waved her left hand into the air as if the tiny objects had little value to her. In her mind, she wanted something bigger, like a house. Without thinking she bade the visitors goodbye, walked past the hotel door and out into the night air with the louse besides her.
At that time she thought perhaps that was a joke or maybe she should have accepted those ‘interesting’ pearls, which really meant nothing to ‘Fluffy’, who doesn’t wear much jewelry. Besides, pearls are nothing more than sand. With acidic vinegar, pearls could easily be destroyed. In time they would loose their value, be washed away by the ocean tides and later on turned into other pearls by another oyster.
What did those pearls really mean? Was it some kind of test? Symbolically, leaving without those pearls could have meant that any temporal objects could never replace the value of TRUST as priceless. By taking those pearls, that could have meant security (without the fear of losing a principal value) would have been more important than freedom, knowing all is well no matter what happens to any deal.
I suppose like the pearl, its very formation takes a long to time grow. This is true with trust. The core value is at the heart of the oyster, its pearl. Though it is just sand, irritating to the oyster, it is wrapped lovingly layer by layer until a beautiful pearl is formed.
That my friend is tonight’s lesson: change is slow but more rewarding. Like the pebble being dropped into a pond, the change to the surface of the pond originates from the center, is gentle and flows outward gradually. From the heart, one could transform self and others, one at a time with love, of course, instead of the raging fire of anger and hatred that burns fast and destroys much in its wake.
Copyright © 2008 by Fluffy von der Flynn. All rights reserved.
Leave a Reply