Today I’m going out to sell diamonds. It is part of a whole process in which I’m giving away and selling things that no longer serve my life.

Besides that more lofty reason, I could use the cash.

The diamonds are gifts from a time when my family and I valued such things. Though I never wear them, I have over the years held onto them like a safety net.

I arrive in a notable jewelry shop just off the Santa Fe Plaza. The jeweler, a young woman with short blonde hair and clear green eyes, pulls out her loupe and examines the first diamond—one of a pair of stud earrings.

My heart pounds as I await her assessment. Lately, I have held onto the idea that these diamonds might fund a few more months of my writing about The Inner Adventure.

The jeweler clicks her tongue and nods and then picks up the second stud. As she examines it, she shakes her head.

I feel the tentacles of my desire and call on my Beloved.

The jeweler says one of the pair is faulty—worth next to nothing. The other, however, is a nice diamond. Disappointed, but not defeated, I hold out the third that is a family heirloom. I have confidence in its worth.

As she examines it she smiles. “Yes, this is a quality diamond,” she says. “But it is old.”

I see that it doesn’t hold the sparkle of the diamonds that surround me in this shop. They glitter with such intensity that the whole room radiates with luminous colors, like thousands of rainbows reflecting off each other.

The jeweler hands me the loupe and invites me to look. I view the diamond up close—a stunning rock. In fact, I realize it is the highest valued item known. People give it as a precious gift to celebrate wedding engagements and anniversaries. It is the most treasured thing in the material world.

And yet…

While I gaze at the many prisms, the jeweler explains that this stone was hand cut. Today, through the precision of machine cutting, gemologists awaken much brighter sparkle, she says. Thus all the glitter surrounding me.

“We would not buy these diamonds,” she explains kindly. Again my heart sinks. However she does recommend an antique dealer down the street.

When I ask her the value, she says maybe $200 to $400.

What?

Honestly I had estimated thousands. And in its day, the heirloom may have been worth the equivalent of that. But even a diamond, the most prized of stones, the most durable and lasting gem, doesn’t hold value.

I go to one antique dealer and another. Both offer what the first jeweler estimated.

I head to lunch with a friend. While we lounge on a cushy couch in her living room, she tells me that she has a check for $100,000 that she will deposit in the bank today. It is one of many from the business that she and her husband own, which is worth millions.

She tells me that when she holds the check it feels heavy, full of weight. “When you have such money,” she says, “you have to protect it, so you don’t lose it, and so no one steals it.”

I know that weight. I have felt it with these diamonds over the years, and with other possessions.

“It’s the reliance,” I say. “When we rely on such things, life becomes perilous.”

In contrast, when I rely on the Divine, it feels just the opposite. It’s like a great opening into eternity. Rather than some bank account or some silly stone, I am relying on the Infinite, the very power that creates banks and jewels

We laugh at the peril. It has no hold over us. We are immortal and eternal, with a power at our fingertips that outshines the most precious of stones.

As I leave her home I suddenly have a vision of the jewelry shop’s sparkly diamonds, shining their rays in a billion directions, with all the colors of the universe reflected.

I am that.

Maybe, now that I don’t fear losing them, I will wear my diamonds, a reflection of my stunning inner radiance.

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