Far to the east of Equestria lie the mountains of faith. In these high mountains lives a breed of earth ponies not often seen in Equestria. Those few outsiders who’ve met them call them “rock ponies”. They are smaller of stature than most earth ponies, and they live most of their lives underground, in the caves beneath the mountains. In these tunnels they never see the sun or moon, and they pay homage to neither Celestia nor Luna. Rather, they are mystical ponies, who spend their live in pursuit of enlightenment. Among their tribes, nothing is valued higher in a pony than wisdom.
One day among those ponies was born Cosmic Stream. Rock ponies’ coats always tended to more muted colors than their cousins who lived above ground. But Stream’s coat was a pure, pearlescent white. Her parents, Time Flow and Hidden Current, were very proud and expected great things from her.
But as she grew up, Stream had enormous difficulty understanding the rock pony teachings. While her friends were mastering meditation and delving into secrets of the mind and soul, Stream struggled with the most basic concepts. Her instructors pitied her as the peace and understanding that their teachings were supposed to bring remained hidden from her. Patiently they attempted again and again to make her see what they saw. But try though they might, Stream’s mind refused to follow the same path as them.
When she was almost a mare, Stream still had not gotten her cutie mark, and she was already years behind in her instruction in rock pony mysteries. It became clear that something had to be done. Her parent and instructors met with the elders and wiseponies of the tribe. After much discussion, it was decided that Cosmic Stream must undertake a spiritual journey, to discover her talent and find her own path.
The very next day, Stream said her tearful goodbyes to her parents and friends and walked up tunnels seldom trodden, up to the surface. Though it saddened her to leave her people, she was also excited by the prospect of a journey of discovery, and possible the fulfillment of her greatest dream: to gain wisdom and finally be in harmony with her people.
As she descended from the mountains, however, she found herself overcome with homesickness. Rock ponies live together in small communities, and almost never go a day without seeing each other. The loneliness began to bear down on her. At night, she had terrible nightmares in which she died alone, a long way from her home and family.
After two days of travel, she had entered a narrow valley. She plodded along as her fears weighted her down more and more, until at last she fell to her knees and could not rise again. She cried then, cried for her people, for her mother, to come get her and take her away from this place. But even as she sat there for hours, nopony came.
Left alone, she kept trying to evade her fears, to hide from the images that scared her so badly. But no matter where she tried to hide in her mind, her fears would always find her. In the end, when she had tired herself with crying and no longer had the energy to run, she stood her ground. She turned to her fears and faced them.
Images assaulted her – images of a lonely death, or of return home in defeat only to be shunned. Each image made her cringe inwardly, as if a hammer were breaking down rock. But there in the very center of her, she found a place where she could stand, where she was safe, where she could face her fears and be unmoved.
Having found her courage, at first she tried to destroy her fears, to drive them out with hate and violence. But with every blow her fears were only driven back for a short time, to return again. Frustration built up in Stream’s mind. Then at last the solution became apparent to her. Rather than strike at her fears, she embraced them. She acknowledged her fears, admitted that she had reason to be afraid. But those fears could not persuade her to stop moving forward, and so they no longer served a purpose. Having found this truth, Cosmic Stream felt her fears melt away in her arms. After the coldness she had felt for days, the absence of the fears that had weighted her down felt like the kiss of a gentle breeze, or the glow of the sun on her face.
She awoke then to find the valley that had appeared so somber and cold to her before was now bathed in the purple light of dawn. Encouraged, and proud of herself for having discovered an important truth, she sat out again.
When finally she left the valley, she had reached the foot of the mountains. There she found her way blocked by a dense forest. Her new courage still held strong, and without much further thought she entered.
The forest grew wilder and denser the further she went. The going was slow, and kept slowing down. Two days after she had gone into the forest, Stream found herself before hills steeped in brambles that grew meters high. She sought a way around it, but no manner how far she struggled, the brambles remained. Desperate to keep going forward, she started struggling through. With many cuts and nicks, and her beautiful coat in tangles, she finally cleared the hill. But as she stood on the top, she saw layer upon layer of hills before her, all covered in brambles.
Stream now began to think that she could not continue her journey, that it would be better to give up. That thought was pushed aside as soon as it first occurred to her, but it hung on with surprising tenacity. At least, she thought to herself, I should retreat, get out of these brambles. But if going forward had been difficult, going back was no less so. The harder she fought to escape, the more the brambles clung to her, until at last she could not go any further either way.
Enmeshed in brambles, the entire undertaking of this journey began to seem ludicrous to Stream. What had she been thinking? Of course a young pony like her would have no chance in the big, cruel world outside the mountains. The fear that had brought her down in the valley had been cold, but the doubt that now gnawed at her heart tasted bitter, like defeat.
Night fell, and she lay herself to rest where she was. Another struggle was taking place in her soul. She tried to attack her doubt, but found it too slippery. She tried to stand her ground as she had done with fear. The doubt did not attack her defenses as the fear had; rather it clung to her, covered her, smothered her. What will had driven her this far was dying out, and she felt like railing against the universe for being such an unjust place. Indeed, she thought, it would have been better if I had never tried. At least then I would not be feeling this anguish, this hate for myself for failing.
Then she thought of her life before she had left, of the lack she had felt every day. She thought of the courage she’d found on the way. Had she not set out on this journey, she would never have discovered the answer to fear. Yes, she though, I may have failed. But that is okay. It is still better than never having tried. Better to be defeated here by forces outside my control, than to never have set foot outside and be defeated before I left. There she found the answer to doubt: not to fear failure, to try regardless. Doubt had wound itself around her soul as the brambles had surrounded her body. Now she found that she could shrug it off, leave it lying at her feet, and continue on without it. Without that burden, her movements felt light as a feather.
Morning in the forest found her struggling forward through the brambles. She did not hasten, she often paused, but she never stopped moving forward. When she stood upon another hilltop and saw more brambles ahead, she continued on. Making slow but steady progress, she found one day that the brambles were thinning, and the hills declining. By the end of the day, she had reached the edge of the forest. She looked behind and saw the blue mountains as a distant view behind the green forest, and it was beautiful.
Behind the forest lay scrub lands that continued on for a few miles. The grazing was plentiful and small streams sated her thirst. She began to recover her strength, and her coat once again took on its opalescent shine.
As she traveled on, the lands around her started becoming more arid. The green grass became yellow, and there were fewer and fewer streams. Before long, she was plodding along over a thin layer of sand overlaying barren rock: a desert lay before her.
The lesson she had learned in the forest again came to her aid. Though making progress was becoming more difficult, she continued on. After several days, she stood in the middle of the desert.
An odd thing was happening. During the day, the hot sun drove all thought from Stream’s head, and she plodded on in a mindless stupor. But at night, the heavens opened up above her with a display of stars the likes of which no pony had yet seen. The first night that she saw this, Stream had been moved to tears by its beauty. But after several days, the desert reaching to every horizon and the endless display of stars together made Cosmic Stream feel very small indeed. Not the cosy tunnels at home, nor the narrow valley, nor the dense forest had so strongly driven home in Stream the tininess of her own existence. The universe was displayed before her, and she found herself insignificant by comparison.
Another thing was happening that was even worse to Stream’s well-being. In the valley she had had nightmares, and in the forest she’d had feverish dreams of being tangled and unable to move. But here in the desert she had no dreams at all. Her rest was fitful, and after several days of this she was ready to scream her anguish. The world was becoming an unrelenting assault upon her senses that not even the unconsciousness of sleep could dispel.
In the stark glare of naked truth, Stream turned within herself for a third time to seek an answer. The strength to keep moving without doubt could do little for her here. The courage to stand firm against fear could not shield her from the harsh truth that glared at her on every side. Within her own mind and soul, Stream ran around wildly, looking for anything, anything at all to keep the enormity of the world from drowning her. She grabbed hold of her family and friends. But what were a couple more ponies to the world? Their lives were infinitesimally short, and their importance negligible. She sought protection from all of ponykind. But to the universe, even thousands of years of ponies roaming the lands were of little concern.
When all pretense had been stripped away, and all illusions of importance pierced, Cosmic Stream’s soul was laid open to its core. There, she found something. It was small, and fragile, and in the vastness of the universe it was tiny. But it was enough. It was her own Self. It was the glimmer of light at the core of all that she was. And it was unique, a small part of the world that would never be seen again. It was the ground of the solid place that had sheltered her from fear, it was the source of the strength to cast off doubt. It was the center of her universe.
In finding her Self, Cosmic Stream found that she could stand against the enormity of all the world around her. Though she was small, and her time short, she was here now, and it was enough. Looking up at the night sky, she found again in the sea of stars the beauty she had first seen there.
She slept then, at peace once again. But when she awoke the next day, no dream had come to her. Though she had found her core and could keep going regardless, the loss of her dreams still saddened her.
Several more days trekking found her at the other side of the desert. The sand and rock suddenly ended, and were replaced by a lush green haven. Humbled and grateful, Stream ate her fill. Seeking water to sate her thirst, she heard the most lovely sound. Clearing a raised bank, she came upon a wide, calm river. It ran amazingly clear, as if it were made of liquid crystal. She drank and the water seemed to cleans her, sweeping away her sorrow.
That night she lay on the side of the river. As the stars came out, she saw them reflected in the river. The stars themselves were bunched together in a long layer, as if a river ran through the heavens. A smile touched her face as she fell into an easy slumber.
And, at last, a glorious dream appeared to her. She saw the river beside her, the river in the sky, the stream of time. She saw all of ponydom, being gently swept forward together in that great stream. Where that stream led, nopony knew. But they were in it together, and that was good. Some tried to struggle against fate, to swim against the stream. Others were content to let themselves be swept wherever the river led, and enjoyed the journey. In the end, they ended up in the same place. Pervading it all was a sense of rightness. Cosmic Stream felt that all was as it should be. No doubt or fear or worry would ever again harm her, for she had seen the harmony of the universe.
She woke up the next morning to find the river next to her was on her flank as well. The cutie mark had appeared during the night, and Stream knew exactly what it meant. With a big grin on her face that has not wavered since, she set out to return home. When she’d get back, she would no longer be a student but a teacher. She had found courage and hope. She had found her Self and reached enlightenment.
So ends the tale of Cosmic Stream, who passed through fear and doubt and truth to find the river of dreams.
