January 2024

 

For the last 18 months, I’ve been raising chickens.

Keeping in theme with our dog, Mick Jagger, and our two feral barn cats, Jackson Browne and James Taylor, our chickens are named after musicians.

We have Lizzo and Miley. Stevie, Taylor, and Aretha. Britney and Dolly.

Cher and Tina are Tolbunt Polish Chickens with fancy headdresses a la Bob Mackie.

The most beautiful of all was Beyonce, but as she grew from chick to chicken, we realized that she was actually a rooster. So we re-named him Jay-Z and sent him to live on a friend’s farm because… fertilized eggs and early morning cock-a-doodle-doing.

Every day, I have a routine with my feathered female flock, bringing them pieces of fruit, sliced veggies and a handful of lettuce.

In exchange, they give me eggs.

The fancy girls lay delicate small cream eggs, and the regular chicks leave me a variety of larger brown and speckled ones. Two were supposed to lay colored eggs, but that never happened. I love them anyway.

Last week, while carrying the eggs to put into a crate, I dropped one. Watching the crumpled shell and the full moon yolk slowly seeping into the gravel, I cried.

It was a strange thing to cry about.

I’d broken thousands of eggs before, whether intentionally to put into food or through unintentional breakage because that’s the nature of eggs.

But this time, I knew the chicken and had received the eggs as a ritual of relating.

The broken egg felt different when I knew the layer.

I had felt a sense of gratitude and responsibility for using my chicken’s gift well, and with one of those gifts, I’d wasted it.

Making a frittata later that day, I started thinking about the difference between the eggs I know and the eggs that come from unknown chickens. I value the eggs that come from owners I have a relationship with, and I don’t give the anonymous eggs much thought, even when I accidentally break them.

Of course, that observation correlates directly to humans.

I obviously have a double standard, valuing my inner circle much more deeply and being quick to discount strangers and their gifts.

I also forgive those I know for their failure to deliver “colored eggs as promised,” yet I’m easily riled when strangers don’t keep their small commitments.

It seems like such a revelatory thing to learn from chickens, but I’m going to start being more thoughtful about how I hold all of the gifts I’m given.

While I am not one for New Year’s Resolutions because I’d rather make small but consistent, sustainable improvements all year round, I consider this a timely birth of a New Year’s Revelation:

If strangers hold each other’s eggs more gently, we might break fewer of them. We’ll cause fewer cracks, treasure the small gifts that are part of our sustenance, and end up with more nourishment of all sorts.

There is a second piece to that revelation, of course.

We all need a rooster like Jay-Z around to keep the cycle going. So, I’ll be way more selective about who I send out to the farm.

Cock-a-doodle… DO.

Where can being more gentle make a difference in your world?

Share them Small: Did someone give you a gift that you took for granted? It’s never too late to tell them that their small gift was appreciated and made a difference.

Share them Big: Can you forgive those who show you their cracks or disappoint you on a relatively small level? Since we’re all delicate and imperfect, forgiveness might be the protective shell that makes us all stronger.

Share it with Me: We all learn from each other. If you have had a revelation, a breakthrough, an insight, or a triumph, we can learn from you so please tell me about it here! I’m collecting stories of these cascades of good for ongoing community building and to track The Parlay Effect in action. I would love nothing better than to hear how you lifted, were lifted, or observed something in others that made you feel good and recognize your power.