Lindsey Pritchett - Searching in Nature

Back in February, I went home with a friend for her birthday. She lives in the mountains, 45 minutes north of Charlottesville. There isn't really that much up there in the way of civilisation. It's mostly farmlands and forests. upon our arrival at her house, I realised her cat was missing. The next morning, her mother told us that the cat had been missing for a few weeks. We decided to go out and search for the cat, just to see if we could find it. We both knew that the likelihood of finding the cat and the cat not being feral were slim to none. Regardless, we embarked into the woods to search. We spent over an hour looking for the cat, walking in the woods to no avail. There was absolutely no sign of the cat. Eventually, when we had finally began to loose hope, we came across a random pasture at the top of the mountain.
If you are familiar with the area, you likely know that red clay is the common natural sediment in this location. In the middle of the pasture, there was a tree growing up from brown dirt and there was a massive sect of quartz stone sticking out of the ground. We wound up carrying 5 small pieces of quartz back with us. The place was magical. It was the perfect place to sit and relax after searching for the cat for so long. Upon finding this place, it became apparent to us that we were not going to find the cat: that she was gone for good. Yet we took the quartz and the pasture to be a sign from the gods, commending us for our good deed and thanking us for caring. We still have those 5 stones. We arranged them around our dorm room to remind us that there is beauty to be found in even the worst situation.