The brownie reached into the muck at the bottom of the pan, and plucked out a tiny grain of gold.
Most cities have a limited number of interesting, educational places to take young children. In the Phoenix area, one of those is the Arizona Museum of Natural History. Many of the displays are interactive, and perhaps the most interesting of those is the gold panning fountain.
We’d begun at the science section, with its interactive Martian displays, and moved on through the dinosaur, local geology and Indian tribes, into the section on early settlers. The last included a sample mine that led outside to a gold panning fountain.
Designed in rough imitation of a mountain stream, the fountain flowed into elevated pools that were filled with warm water and lined with glittering sand. Children between the ages of seven and eleven toyed with shallow plastic bowls, while their parents either watched or impatiently snatched the bowl and tried to show them how.
The three of us observed for a few moments, then stepped up to an empty pool with two unused panning bowls. Debbie gave one of the bowls to her daughter, Susie, and I accepted the other. “I almost remember how to do this,” I said, as Susie and I scooped sand into our bowls.
I began swirling water into the bowl, but soon realized that I’d filled it with to much sand. I dumped some of the sand, and dumped more until it felt right. Then I focused on swirling the water, just right, so that the lighter sand was carried away while the heavier remained.
While Susie plucked tiny glittering grains from the surface of the sand, and Debbie placed them in a little plastic baggie, I continued on. I focused in the heart, aligned with patience and purification, and radiated that outward to the children and the adults as I worked.
The waters swirled around and around and around, and the mound of gray sand slowly grew smaller and smaller, until suddenly, the last sand swirled away, revealing a glittering streak of gold dust. More, by far, than any of the children had plucked from the water.
I repeated the process twice more, giving all the gold to Susie, who thanked me for helping her collect it.
Most cities have a limited number of interesting, educational places to take young children. In the Phoenix area, one of those is the Arizona Museum of Natural History. Many of the displays are interactive, and perhaps the most interesting of those is the gold panning fountain.
We’d begun at the science section, with its interactive Martian displays, and moved on through the dinosaur, local geology and Indian tribes, into the section on early settlers. The last included a sample mine that led outside to a gold panning fountain.
Designed in rough imitation of a mountain stream, the fountain flowed into elevated pools that were filled with warm water and lined with glittering sand. Children between the ages of seven and eleven toyed with shallow plastic bowls, while their parents either watched or impatiently snatched the bowl and tried to show them how.The three of us observed for a few moments, then stepped up to an empty pool with two unused panning bowls. Debbie gave one of the bowls to her daughter, Susie, and I accepted the other. “I almost remember how to do this,” I said, as Susie and I scooped sand into our bowls.
I began swirling water into the bowl, but soon realized that I’d filled it with to much sand. I dumped some of the sand, and dumped more until it felt right. Then I focused on swirling the water, just right, so that the lighter sand was carried away while the heavier remained.
While Susie plucked tiny glittering grains from the surface of the sand, and Debbie placed them in a little plastic baggie, I continued on. I focused in the heart, aligned with patience and purification, and radiated that outward to the children and the adults as I worked.
The waters swirled around and around and around, and the mound of gray sand slowly grew smaller and smaller, until suddenly, the last sand swirled away, revealing a glittering streak of gold dust. More, by far, than any of the children had plucked from the water.
I repeated the process twice more, giving all the gold to Susie, who thanked me for helping her collect it.
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