The weight of a snowflake

“Tell me the weight of a snowflake,” a coalmouse asked a wild dove.

“Nothing more than nothing,” the dove answered.

“In that case I must tell you a marvelous story,” the coalmouse said. “I sat on a fir branch close to the trunk when it began to snow. Not heavily, not in a raging blizzard. No, just like in a dream, without any violence at all. Since I didn’t have anything better to do, I counted the snowflakes settling on the twigs and needles of my branch. Their number was exactly 3,471,952. When the next snowflake dropped onto the branch–nothing more than nothing — as you say — the branch broke off.”

Having said that, the coalmouse ran away.

The dove, since Noah’s time an authority on peace, thought about the story for a while. Finally, she said to herself, “Perhaps there is only one person’s voice lacking for peace to come to the world.”

I found this beautiful story in Synchronicity by Joseph Jaworski.

4 thoughts on “The weight of a snowflake”

  1. Glad to see that you made a post out of this……I read Synchronicity back in the 90’s and composed a “One Voice” presentation that I would give to local clubs and organizations. I still revisit this book regularly….and this story is the best part of the book.

  2. Interesting, my aunt had this very story framed and “author unknown” beneath it. This was in the 80s. ***

    This appears in various forms across the web, and is referenced either as “Thus Spoke the Caribou” from “New Fables” by Kurt Kauter, or from “Synchronicity”, by Joseph Jaworsky.

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