Cuckoo

While spending a week in Zeeland, the Netherlands, I heard a cuckoo ‘cuckooing’ pretty much every day. Now, I grew up with a little bit of Folk Wisdom that said that when you hear the call of a cuckoo close by and you have no money/coins in your pocket, it will surely start to rain.
Luckily this wasn’t the case. (Myth busted!)

But then why did I keep hearing the cuckoo calling out, even though there were many other birds singing and calling that ~ from the sound of their songs ~ were a lot closer?
So, what sets the cuckoo apart from all of the others?

The thing that comes to mind for me is that the cuckoo doesn’t breed their own eggs, or raise their own chicks. They will lay an egg in the nest of a different kind of bird who will then keep it warm and protect it with their own eggs until it hatches. The cuckoo being the biggest chick will then throw the smaller ‘birth children’ of the parent bird out of the nest so it can benefit from all the food the parent bird can muster to bring to the nest.
And yes, research suggests that the parents are even happy with the bigger egg, and after hatching their fast growing chick! Bigger is better as it gives a greater chance at survival! That is, unless it is a cuckoo’s egg, and a cuckoo’s chick.

And every time I heard the cuckoo’s call, thoughts like this sprung to mind.
Eventually leading me to ask myself whether in my ‘nest’ I was nurturing a chick of a cuckoo…

After all, it is really easy to happen in our lives. For us to get sidetracked by something that is not truly ours, yet it does seem to need our attention anyway. It can be family related, or it can be an attitude through which we are anticipating and solving problems before they actually become a problem. Leaving the question if that problem ~ had it occurred ~ would have been our problem? Or was it a ‘cuckoo’s egg’? Did it trick us into leaving our own life ~ our own path in a sense ~ to nurture, solve, or get something going that never was our own?

It gave me a different perspective on any number of times I have let myself be sidetracked in my life!

And as soon as I gained this insight, the song of all of the other birds seemed louder, more clear. And the cuckoo’s call started to fade more into the background.
Leaving me with a little pearl of wisdom which most certainly entered my life in a most unanticipated manner!

Are you protecting a ‘cuckoo’s egg’? Or even nurturing its chick?
Perhaps this is the time to reconsider your priorities!