Ugly Ducklings

Hans Christian Andersen is fondly remembered worldwide for his fairy tales and one of my favorites has always been "The Ugly Duckling." We are told the moral of this story is that the duckling (who is is persecuted by all in the duck yard)... escapes, perseveres and eventually realizes that he is not ugly at all but a beautiful swan. The tale concludes with the marvellous knowledge that it hardly matters where you are born if you have the right talents.

We are all born into relatively ordinary families....we go to school like all the other children...take family vacations...and do things that everyone does but how many of us fail to be recogized or appreciated by a parent or teacher or even society that we have special qualities that make us creative and free thinking? We grow up, get normal jobs, raise families of our own but somewhere inside we feel like we are somehow apart from the rest of the world.

We continue down this path until one day we meet someone... a witch or pagan or pick up a book about metaphysics or mythology that suddenly opens our eyes to the fact that we were never not ducklings to begin with...we were swans the whole time! We discover our " spiritual home" our niche so to speak and it transforms our lives. We now are where we belong and wonder why it took us so long to get here.