People often ask me if I am still writing parables and while it at times is always that the parable references things that are happening in my life, yes I am still collating and writing them. I simply love the analogies that apply to me and so many of us as we are all living and breathing in the same frequency with the same challenges.
I love that with the change of Guides, there is also changes in the parables, the scenes change and the characters as each of the Guides bring the essence of what they are here to teach me about into the Parable.
So without further ado, here is The KingFisher from Lao.
The pond was deep and the bird silent on the branch high above the water. He was as still as he could be and looking up from the pond you could only see the blue of his stomach blending with the sky and the teal blues of his wings blending with the leaves around him. His sparkling black eyes ever watchful on the pond he waited and waited.
Sometimes to the frustration of other birds, they envied his extreme patience as he out waited the movement of the fish in the pond below to move with extreme speed from the branch into the depths below.
The black eyes watched and suddenly the bird streamlined into the glistening water below and returned with a small fish as his prize. He moved from the water with graceful motion of practice and returned to his perch to consume his fish. He cleaned his beak and surveyed the depths of the water again. He looked to see what his disruption caused in the fish below and again he settled back to wait. A smaller Kingfisher alighted beside him and questioned the older bird.
“How do you get such patience?” The younger bird asked. The older Bird looked at the younger bird and replied patiently. “When I was your age, I thought that it was easy, that I could just plunge into the water and get any fish that I wanted” The Kingfisher laughed wryly. “However, that was simply not the case. Many, many times I plunged into the water to see that what I was after had eluded me and I was left with an empty beak. So I had to work out for myself to wait, to look to adjust, to plan and to investigate in myself how far I could go into the depths to retrieve what I wanted. I learned that I had to hold my breath, and to test both the strength of my wings and my resolve to reach deeper to get what I really needed”.
The smaller bird listened to the wisdom of the other and he adjusted his stance to mirror what the older bird was doing. The Kingfisher smiled to himself. He turned to the smaller bird and said “You do understand that the reality is that it is never about the fish but about the resolve in yourself to not settle for less that what you want, but also understanding by the time you are under the water you are actually prepared on holding your breath to settle for what you can seize in that moment before you return to the surface. Knowing all the while in yourself, there will be another opportunity to test yourself, your knowledge, another choice and another meal and another day?”
“Can’t I just wait and go for the biggest fish?” The Kingfisher smiled at the smaller bird. “Yes of course, and you can strive to always get the biggest fish, however, soon you will learn of the value of patience, the work you do on yourself, in teaching you about your strengths and your weaknesses and what you gain from the very dive itself, so it never becomes about the goal or the fish but of the patience of self and the depths in which you can take you”.
The smaller bird look slightly confused but wanted to hold onto the wisdom of the older bird. In that moment the older bird plunged again to the depths of the pool, farther than the smaller bird had ever seen. He watched the older bird rise from the pool and gracefully fly back to him. The older bird presented the large fish to the younger bird with a flourish and the bird took it with pride. After his meal he thanked the older bird.
The older bird received his thanks graciously and preparing to alight from the branch, he winked at the younger bird, “Remember it is never about the fish, that is just incentive, it always the way you treat yourself about believing in you” and with that he quickly flew through the trees.
Moral of the Story:
Water in all ways represents our emotional state. At times we may have to plunge over and over into the depths of ourselves, to regather the morsels of our hurts, our emotions that help us to heal and to also understand ourselves. Sometimes we dive ever deeper in search of large pieces of ourselves to heal and to put back to together but surprisingly it can be the smallest of “fish” that make us realise how kind we need to be to ourselves and how amazingly clever we are at holding onto rubbish that no longer serves us. Dive deeply in your quest to find the missing pieces of yourself within you. Hold your breath and celebrate each piece you find, for you are the solution to you, and the, at times, muddy waters of you, hold the secrets of you that you are looking for.
Jacqueline Mitchell - Insight 