Off the Cuff with Jacqueline Ross – March 2023
Greetings, Humans,
I’d like to share a short parable by Anthony De Mello. I read this story for the first time about ten years ago and revisit it from time to to time to reflect.
“A man found an eagle’s egg and put it in a nest of a barnyard hen. The eaglet hatched with the brood of chickens and grew up with them. All his life the eagle did what the barnyard chicks did, thinking he was a barnyard chicken. He scratched the earth for worms and insects. He clucked and cackled. And he would thrash his wings and fly a few feet into the air.
Years passed and the eagle grew very old. One day he saw a magnificent bird above him in the cloudless sky. It glided in graceful majesty among the powerful wind currents, with scarcely a beat of its strong golden wings. The old eagle looked up in awe. “Who’s that?” he asked.
“That’s the eagle, the king of the birds,” said his neighbor. “He belongs to the sky. We belong to the earth—we’re chickens.” “Oh,” the eagle cried, “I wish I could soar like that bird.” The chickens roared with laughter, “You cannot soar. You are a chicken and chickens do not soar.”
So the eagle lived and died a chicken, for that’s what he thought he was.”
Interesting story, eh? It has a way of putting life into perspective. What a shame it would be to go to the grave with our hopes and dreams that were never fulfilled, all because of a limiting belief system about ourselves and having allowed the negative opinions of others to infiltrate our temple.
Get your soar on,
Jacqueline
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