ASHOKA

My Aleph

So way leads on to way. A while ago I wrote a silly piece about having a melancholic chat with a bag of wilting greens. That led to an invitation to write for renowned diamond atelier William Goldberg (there’s a street in New York named for him!). I am very grateful to the Marshfield Public Schools system and the things I read as I passed through it that lodged in my developing brain. One of those was “The Aleph” by Jorge Luis Borges. I had my own Aleph experience in the diamond cutting room. The William Goldberg team also had an artist named Caldwell Bosch add animated illustrations to the piece. I am soundly chuffed about the end result so I am proudly sharing it here.

Last month I was writing a story about the artistry of diamond cutting. Knowing very little myself, I visited the William Goldberg cutting room to learn from master cutter Willy Lopez.

It didn’t take long for me to feel out of my depth. “What do you mean, ‘the stone guides you’?” I asked.

Willy smiled. “You must listen to the stone. The stone will tell you what it wants.”

“How?”

“Let me show you,” he said, and abruptly walked out of the room, motioning for me to stay put.

I wasn’t sure what I was waiting for. The cutting room was quiet and full of tools I didn’t recognize but wished I knew how to use. Then I heard it—a faint hum from the drawer in front of me. The sound grew stronger, clearer, until it gathered itself into a voice.

Hello.

I pulled open the drawer. Resting on a white cloth was a large rectangular diamond with soft, rounded edges. I lifted it carefully, searching the space beneath and around it for the source of the sound.

I rested the stone and the cloth on the table so I could examine it more carefully, as my hand was trembling slightly.

Do you like what you see?

I had no idea how, but the warm, clear voice was coming directly from the stone.

“I do,” I replied. “Very much so.” The sound of my own voice startled me more than the talking diamond. I looked around the room, expecting to see someone jump out and laugh at me.

It’s okay, it’s just us.

“And who are you?”

The diamond glowed as the light it had collected danced and twirled and spun, bouncing from facet to facet before leaping back out of the stone.

“Right. You are an Ashoka.”

The diamond sparkled contentedly.

I am. I have been since the moment my 62nd facet was brought into alignment.

“So any diamond that is cut to these exact dimensions becomes…you?

It isn’t a sudden springing into existence. I was always me, but I didn’t know I couldn’t see. When my outer layers were cut away - well, then the light came in.

“You came to your senses! Or I guess your senses came to you. How do you do that thing with the light? It looks like you capture it and hold it before releasing it.”

I don’t capture the light; I invite it in. My long facets let me see how the light wants to behave. It comes in willingly, enjoys our time together, and then goes merrily on its way. Have you heard of the Golden Ratio?

“I feel like I’ve seen a YouTube video about it. I remember something about seashells…all living things contain some repeating mathematical pattern?”

You’re close. It is a relationship that shows up again and again in nature because nature builds itself. The small part relates to the large part the same way the large part relates to the whole. It is the harmonious, reverberating key we can’t help but sing in.

“It makes sense when you say it, but I’m not sure I could explain it to someone else.”

But even if you can’t explain it, you know it. What you noticed about the light - that is the Golden Ratio at work.

“Proportion and harmony. Okay. I’m guessing if you’re around for billions of years these things make sense on a deeper level.”

One does tend to take the long view. But again - billions of years buried in the Earth and then dug up and cut from my rough within the last century - it’s been quite the flurry.

“What do you make of your namesake, the Emperor Ashoka? I’ve heard about his powers of transformation … what’s that about?

He had quite the epiphany, didn’t he? There have been many conquerors and many peace messengers. Very rarely has one person taken a turn at each. Yes, I feel connected to him, and it is an honor to be. The power of self-alchemy, the courage and wisdom to face yourself and dare to change course - this is a potent, necessary force.

“And you allegedly have the power to remove sorrow and bring joy. That must be a lot of pressure.”

Fortunately, I thrive under pressure.

“Was that –”

Everyone loves puns.

“Some people enjoy them; others don’t carat all.”

Humor also has the power to remove sorrow and bring joy. I know I am revered for my beauty, but I think those who gaze long enough also see my humor.

“I see you. Hot and funny: a potent combo. But back to making sorrow disappear –”

To remove sorrow doesn’t mean to make it disappear. Sorrow and joy exist in equilibrium. Joy is more plentiful, but sorrow is more dense. Sorrow visits us all and sometimes it lingers. It’s heavy and it occupies the space where joy wants to be. It can feel, after a time, that it is the only thing there is.

I don’t make sorrow disappear. I can help make it beautiful; I can help someone understand its meaning. And I can help it move along. Move again. Re-move.

“And you have seen quite a bit of what we humans are all about. You’ve observed the Joy & Sorrow equilibrium.”

Well, I’ve certainly gotten quite the heady glimpse. The people I’ve visited have tended to be exalted, admired - so maybe the average person isn’t as reverent and awestruck as I always see them as being.

“Was anyone as reverent and awestruck as Bill Goldberg?”

Bill…I hope you get the chance in your life to be seen by another as I was by Bill Goldberg. I - well, the original Ashoka diamond - Bill had to have it. But it left with someone else. And Bill became obsessed with finding the right rough and painstakingly liberating the Ashoka within.

Imagine you’re trapped in a cave for billions of years, singing half a melody to nobody at all, and then one day the light breaks in, and you see someone peering in and they’re singing the other half. That was Bill Goldberg, helping me sing my song.

“And now Willy Lopez carries on that legacy. It’s like Bill Goldberg taught him how to pull Excalibur from the Stone.”

Ha. Only the worthy may extract me! But yes. Not any rough can become an Ashoka, and it takes a special cutter to find us and introduce us. Bill was that special kind of person, and Willy Lopez is that special kind of cutter. And what more powerful way is there to honor someone than to continue doing the work they loved?

I heard the door swing open behind me. Willy Lopez re-entered the room. “Am I interrupting?” he asked cheekily, looking pointedly at the stone on its cloth in front of me.

“I - er - no, of course not,” I stammered. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to–”

“It’s okay,” Willy said with a knowing smile. “The stone tells you what it wants.”