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Creating Bridges: Spirituality & Philosophy:
The Conscious Column
Ducks In A Row
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by David Ault |
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The mother duck gave birth to four little feathered darlings. Though her love for them was genuine, she could not seem to stop the ripple of worry that kept on growing and growing.
"How will my young ones fair in such an unpredictable world?" she questioned. After all, her life had been one upstream struggle after the next, what with contaminated ponds, poachers and good for nothing mallards who had left her with shallow promises and a broken heart. But now, as a new mother, her soul seemed to fluctuate with paradoxical elation and paralyzing fear over this new milestone in her life.
It was a messy, lonely birth.
When duckling number one started to hatch through the speckled shell, the mother could not stop thinking about the mallard that had abandoned her at this sensitive time.
"Relationships are painful and tough," she sighed as the first tiny duckling squeaked and squirmed. In keeping with her present thoughts, she gave this newborn the unlikely name Relationship.
Pondering her future, the mother duck envisioned how everything would be changing. She’d always fancied a career as the head flyer in one of those V-formations, but now, with a family to raise, that dream would be put on hold indefinitely.
She couldn’t be flying off to point’s South whenever she felt like it. Responsibilities were now curbing her ambitions. Soon duckling number two broke through its egg home and because of her current daydreaming, the mother named this one Career.
Being a single duck with new mouths to feed opened up a whole new can of worms. "Actually," she quacked at the thought, "worms mixed with a little gruel would be a real treat right now. Whoever believed the can of worms expression to be negative obviously didn’t have little beaks to fill."
The mother’s thoughts stormed with concern about providing for her new burgeoning family, for her financial duckfolio was sketchy at best. She regretted having fouled up in the savings department. And, as this emotional whirlwind was reaching its anxious peak, duckling number three arrived. Because of her current contemplation, she decided to name this newest addition Finances.
Her once dormant mothering instincts now actively revealed she was not quite finished. "Deliver me from mint jelly," she snapped in frustration, "but this birthing business really takes it out of you!"
Having once paddled after wellness with a vengeance, she now lingered on the implausible task of regaining her fine-feathered figure. Before, vibrant health was effortless for her, contributing to her numerous title holdings as Miss Beat The Skeet. But, the ramifications of having a family would undoubtedly change all of that. Hadn’t her own mother succumbed to the kind of waddle that made others snicker through their beaks? The painful memories washed over her with the dread of her supposed fate.
At that precise moment, with a tiny, lyrical peep the fourth and final duckling announced its arrival. In keeping with the rest of the naming process, she christened this last little one, Health.
And now Relationship, Career, Finances and Health swam behind their mother, developing and growing instinctively in their vast watery playground. The pond was a hubbub of varied characters that interacted with mother and the duckling four on their daily routine.
There were, of course, the other ducks offering unsolicited advice on how the newborns should be raised. The old guard believed in spare the beak bite, spoil the duckling while others swore the benefits of a regimented algae diet.
"Feed them that and you’ll never have to worry about Attention Duckling Deficit Disorder! "Whatever you do, keep ‘em quiet!" demanded the tree perching crows, "lest they scare away our potential meals."
The disgruntled frog community complained of the excess ripples, their lily pads wobbling to and fro from the motion. "Whoa with the paddling," they croaked! "You’re scaring the flies!" Even the crickets in the reeded grass and the air born dragonflies seemed to chirp their interpretation of the territorial rules.
The mother felt she was already being plucked from all sides without the interference from the populace, but she secretly listened in case some useful parental formula was cast out with the rest of the drivel. She heard none.
Instead, everyone seemed to voice how difficult it was to raise a family and, like it or not, life would always be about the survival of the fittest. Sacrifice, compromise, disorder and chaos were the lyrics in this diverse collective's woeful chant.
The mother began feeling a terrible sense of uneasiness in the pit of her stomach. "If they've already been through this, then they must know. They must be telling the truth."
Weighted down by an ever-growing depression, she recalled her own formative years and remembered the stoic determination of her own mother. She'd watched her become thick-skinned but inwardly defeated.
"I picked this pond. I'll just have to swim in it," she remembered her saying. Thus life, at this point, became about making do.Little Relationship was very outgoing and approached everyone with naïve zeal.
"Hey there, my name's Relationship and next week my mother says I'll have grown into my flying wings! Do you have flying wings?" The other ducks halfheartedly listened, their jaded attitudes stealing their ability to even look at the little one.
"Go away. We're busy!" Undaunted, Relationship kept announcing his upcoming adventure. "Do you have flying wings?"
The frogs became annoyed and accused him of making fun of them. "You know we can't fly. Why would you ask such a stupid question?" And with that the frogs unleashed their tongues and snapped at his feathers.
"Relationship! Get back here! The mother cried. "Don't ever swim out of line unless I say you can!" Relationship became sad, for more than anything he wanted to make friends and communicate. What he experienced was disinterest or misunderstandings.
Little Career seemed fixated by the sky. Every time a bird flew over head, her heart beat faster and a rush of adrenaline made her wish she were flying beside them. She would stretch at her under-developed wings and long for the day when she could share in their boundless view.
One day, a bird far mightier in stature and grander than any other floated silently above Career. She stared in awe. "Who is that, Mother?" she questioned unable to take her eyes off its grace and agility.
"That's an eagle, dear one," she answered. Her tone taking on a hushed reverence. "They are the rulers of our skies, the mightiest of us all."
"Then I want to be an eagle when I grow up," enthused Career."Hush," said mother, hoping that the great one had not heard. "You are a duck. You can never be an eagle. You can never explore the skies like them for your life is destined for migration. Period. The sooner you get used to that, the easier your life will be.
And besides, you'll have ducklings of your own some day. It wouldn't be very proper for a girl to go exploring the skies when her role is to stay at home, now would it? You'll learn to do just as I am doing, raising a family." The mother felt a twinge of regret run through her.
She knew in that unretractable moment that she dampened the dream of her little one just as her own mother had dampened hers. "It's for the best," she reasoned but could not bear to look into Career's crestfallen eyes.
As the days passed, so did the maturity of the ducklings. Each worked at becoming adept at the flying exercises their mother put them through. From fence railings to low lying tree branches, the ducklings advanced higher with the growing strength of their wings.
Finances showed impressive strength and often cheered his other siblings. He seemed to have an innate desire for everyone to win and was generous with his encouragement.
Resting comfortably on a tree branch after a practice run, Finances gaze settled on the adjacent meadow down below. It was a dizzying display of activity that rivaled his own pond. Gray squirrel hopped frenetically among the littered acorns, and rabbit seemed exceptionally content as she feasted on thick grass and lettuce."Lettuce!" young Finances exclaimed. "Where did she get lettuce?"
With fixated eyes, he followed several other zigzag hopping rabbits. As they rounded a bush, Finances flew toward another tree to keep them in view – then another and another, until the rabbits came to rest in a garden some distance away. There, in neat succession, were rows and rows of the green stuff.
Without hesitation, Finances flapped and flew over to the garden, landing with the grace of a duck that’d been flying forever. In his excitement, he had totally forgotten about the distance, as his instincts seemed to kick in naturally.
Before him lay an inexhaustible treasure – a never-ending banquet of leafy greens. "There is enough to feed everyone at home until winter calls," calculated Finances.Though some wouldn’t appreciate a steady diet of lettuce, others, such as the frogs, could feast on the bugs that lived contentedly between the leaves.
Finances flew back to tell Mother the great news.
She scolded him for leaving her sight, but paused long enough when the field of lettuce was mentioned. "A whole garden of lettuce?" repeated Mother. "Show me."
With all four tucked around her feet, the mother stressed that no one, under any circumstances, should talk of the garden. "We must keep this a secret," she whispered. "If we let everyone else know, then we’ll all be fighting over ownership."
"But, mother, there’s plenty for everyone," said Finances. "Why can’t we all share?"
"You’re too young to understand," she hastened "but believe you me, there are those who would clear this all out before you could say perfect plumage! No, we need to take care of ourselves. Promise me you will not tell a soul about this."
Each one promised, yet Finances felt the beginnings of an unexplainable anxiety inside him. If the rest of the pond’s inhabitants were that thoughtless and stingy, then one should only fend for oneself – one could never know when there might not be enough.
As Relationship, Career and Finances continued growing in strength and stamina, little Health struggled to keep up. She heard the word puny whispered when the others in the duck community spoke of her. Health’s coloring was not as brilliant as her brothers or richly refined as her sister. Some were generous in their comparisons to the well-known ugly duckling story. And, placing wagers on whether anything of beauty could evolve from her current countenance, the consensus among the pond dwellers believed it unlikely.
Was it disappointment she imagined in her mother’s eyes or simply concern? She couldn’t decide which was worse because even the latter meant that she was somehow a burden. Health decided that no matter what, she would push herself to be as productive as the others and free her mother of any worry.
When her three siblings attempted the latest flying maneuver, Health tagged right along, straining her spindly wingspan and gasping for air. She struggled with the landing and on several occasions missed the branch entirely. She felt the stinging cold penetrate her underdeveloped body when pond-dipping for bugs.
The water’s temperature contributed to uncontrollable shivering, forcing her mother to come and blanket her with her wing. Health knew that this broke the all-important daily routine and was embarrassed she required the attention. "Why can’t I just be like everyone else?" she sighed in disgust.
No matter how hard she compensated, Health’s weak constitution was always creating a mishap or delay. Her breathing became increasingly labored until one morning, she was unable to move from the nest. The mother panicked and started collecting small bugs and algae to help feed her daughter.
"Come on Health, you’ve got to eat this to regain your strength! Little Health could only lie there and obey, not even having the energy to be embarrassed. Relationship, Career and Finances gave up their flying lessons to help with the food collecting, but it seemed to be touch and go for quite some time.
The mother’s anguish was unbearable, watching her young duckling struggle for life. She coddled and cooed at her. She altered her rigid, traditional views and whispered that if little Health got better, she could grow up to be anything she dreamed of. The prayerful watch continued.
Health began to realize that her mother must really love her to be expending such efforts in her recovery. Her affections were not based on Health’s productivity. Mother loved her because of who she was not because of what was expected of her.
The attention and care was paying off, and Health was able to sit up and stretch her wings. Something felt different in her. It was as if this familial bonding had healed the thoughts of inadequacy that had weakened her body and spirit. There was no longer a sense of foreboding – a belief that she would never be able to keep up. She simply felt loved and cared for, creating the best medicine of all.
There was a shift in her mother as well.
Her approach to raising the four ducklings softened and she gave them liberties to explore and discover what their pond world held for them. If the expression "I can’t" ever rang out from the young ones, Mother immediately told them the alternative. Every day, she encouraged them to believe in themselves, to let go of their fears and limitations.
Adopting her own advice, Mother let go of old ideas that were weighing her down. She no longer focused her attention on the difficulty of raising a family but felt blessed by the opportunity. The outpouring of love towards her little ones had rippled its magic back to her. "It is possible to have all my ducks in a row," she discovered.
Most of us struggle with beliefs like the mother did in the beginning of the story. It is hard for us to fathom that we can have simultaneous bliss in the four categories of Relationship, Career, Finances and Health. There is an undercurrent in our belief system that suggests one or another of these areas must suffer in order for the remaining to have their time in the sun. We struggle with the idea of having our "ducks in a row." If one duck is riding the crest of the wave, one or all of the others must be drowning, plucked or shot at.
How many times have we allowed intimacy into our lives only to have our career suffer or get our finances in order only to have a health challenge escort us back into debt? Career blossoms only to have health issues dampen our prospects – finances are flourishing only to have our marriage disintegrate, etc.
I have observed this phenomenon in so many that I had to look at my personal participation in it.I, too, believed that it was virtually impossible to have all the "ducks swimming blissfully in a row."
I uncovered an old belief that dictated that one or more must be sacrificed in order for the others to be successful. Pinpointing the exact moment that belief was adopted can be traced back to 1967.
My father, Pete, suffered from heart disease a great deal of his adult life. Frequently, in and out of the Veteran’s Hospital in Houston, interacting with him can only be found in the slightest memories. In March of 1967, he finally relinquished his struggle and died from heart failure at the ripe old age of 54.
I was seven years old, the last of five children and part of a household that scrimped for the meager means to survive. Dad’s death only exacerbated the situation. Our home was a flat-topped abode in great need of repair, and with four out of the five children still under one roof, there simply weren’t enough bedrooms to go around. I was relegated to a cot-bed in the corner of my parent’s bedroom.
When the phone rang in that pre-dawn hour, I listened in the darkness as my mother spoke with a hospital administrator. She took down the information and kept responding with either a yes or I see. As the conversation ended, she paused for a moment and then began phoning my aunt.
The sound of the rotary dial clicked in rhythm with the choir of crickets hastening to get in their last musical efforts before sunrise. Intuitively knowing this was serious, I sat up, leaned against the wall behind my bed and wrapped my arms around my pillow.
Its pliable form became my home made shield. After apologizing for the hour, my mother told her that my father had died of a heart attack. Then, with frustration in her voice said, "Now what am I supposed to do with a seven year old boy?"
The pillow didn’t work. The words pierced my heart. Hearing these words, my seven-year-old interpretation was that somehow this was my fault.Children’s minds work in fascinating and inexplicable ways.
My mother never actually said it was my fault, but I determined from the comment that I was a burden, that I was going to have to work very hard in order to be worthy enough to remain in that household. Then and there, I took responsibility for my father’s death.
When the actual memory of this resurfaced in my adult years, I recognized how beautifully this adopted belief system had played itself out in my life. I was a champion super achiever – not because I always liked every task, but because I thought it would please my mother, friends, teachers or love-interest. In order to be accepted, I must do before asked, taking responsibility for everyone’s happiness before my own.This demon of unworthiness was like an unquenchable thirst, yet all I seemed to do was fill everyone else’s glass.
Popular author Carolyn Myss once presented an idea called the Six Second Theory. She stated that something that literally could have taken six seconds still governs what we think about ourselves to this very day. Six seconds! That’s not a long time and yet in that fraction of a minute, careless words can leave lasting impressions.
You may have had a second grade teacher say something like, "I just want you to mouth the words. OK?" Even with a great love for singing, that 6 seconds helped bury that love and formulate a decision to stop altogether. It could have been an off-hand comment from a parent or sibling, but it chiseled away at your core foundation creating a belief about yourself thatwas thought of as truth.
Those comments were molds into which we poured ourselves, letting an identity take form that would rule our entire lives. Nothing could be further from the truth.
When I realized the power and validity I had given my mother’s comment, I had one of those sky opening, angel singing, a-ha moments.What my mother said really had nothing to do with me.
It was simply the frustrated expression of a woman who was sad, frightened about the future and worried about feeding all of us. It had nothing to do with me personally. Yet, the internalized lie made it feel like it had everything to do with me.
Whatever six second moment you are holding on to, the one that gets in your way and holds you back from your greatness, well, it has nothing to do with you either.
Those seconds might be the opinions or fears of people who are dealing with their own survival, with their own collective six seconds. As we recognize this, we can begin to disrupt the contagion of despair, anxiety and hopelessness that we mindlessly pass on to one another.
Our unbelief in a "ducks in a row" existence comes from someone else’s opinion – it is often colored from their own history of fear and disappointment and thus, we let it color ours. Most likely, the erroneous beliefs have passed from parent or elder creating adiseased family tree. They serve no purpose for our present experience.
I was told that life was hard, challenging and sacrificial. Everything I observed supported that. There was little that floated in the air of that Southeast Texas home that encouraged a belief other than basic survival saturated with worry.
But, the possibility of transformation can root in the most malnourished soil.
The indestructible seed is the willingness to change our belief. Remembering the words of Matthew 21, we are instructed that whatever we ask for in prayer, believing, we will receive. This scripture is a simple reminder that God gives us the desires of our heart if we believe in our worthiness to receive them. This principle’s manifestation isn’t based on our past as saint or transgressor. It is a law, activated by our current state of consciousness. Likewise, Luke 12 teaches that it is God’s great pleasure to give us the kingdom. Not just an alleyway or a portion deemed suitably matched to our life’s accomplishments, but the kingdom - the kingdom, the whole kingdom and nothing but the kingdom so help God’s pleasure. We must retrain our minds to embrace this belief.
To illustrate this point, when we place an order in a restaurant, we believe that what we ordered will be served us. Seldom do we find ourselves worrying and doubting that our request will be met. We don’t follow the waiter back to the kitchen and stand in front of the chef to make sure that the specifications are met. We simply place the order and expect it to be delivered. We believe in the process.
We believe that everyone will follow the rules of driving every time we start the car and venture on the streets and freeways If we believe in these things, simple and common, can’t we believe that our prayers are answered? Can’t we believe that God will provide in all areas at all times?
By allowing our prayers to be cast in waters of absolute faith, then every facet of our life thrives in equanimity – our ducks swim harmoniously in sweet demonstration.
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David Ault
Visionary Vocalist, Author & Motivational Speaker
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David Ault is highly regarded as one of the finest visionary vocalists and motivational speakers within the New Thought/transformational movement.
His focus on remembering the Divine within and reclaiming that connection has empowered hundreds of thousands on their spiritual journey. The union of David’s charismatic message and heartfelt singing has elevated him to guest speaker of choice in many nationwide churches and global organizations.
As a licensed minister and practitioner through Religious Science International, as well as author, songwriter/recording artist, David has traveled and shared his gifts for well over fifteen years.
Working closely with notables Louise Hay and Marianne Williamson and sharing the stage with many cherished mentors ranging from the late Og Mandino to Dr. Barbara King, Jerald Jampolsky, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, Father Leo Booth and Mary Manin-Morrisey, David harvested that experience and developed his own unique style of teaching. His compassionate presence, warmth and humor continue to be an unforgettable guidepost for audiences as they rediscover and reawaken to their personal magnificence.
Starting out as a professional actor and singer, David worked extensively in Broadway tour shows, film and television winning critics awards in both New York and Los Angeles.
Throughout the 1980’s, David, along with the late Jerry Florence and Keith Kimberlin made their mark in New thought history by helping pioneer an unexplored musical genre—visionary vocal music. Known as Alliance, their remarkable blend became legendary, helping establish them as one of the most successful vocal groups in the Spiritual recording field.
David continues this musical path with the release of his critically acclaimed recordings, The Healing Bridge, Travelin’ With The Angels, All Is Calm, All Is Bright, And Then It Is Morning, all distributed through his Los Angeles based organization, The Conscious Company. Now, his highly anticipated literary debut, Where Regret Cannot Find Me, is heralded as “a fresh and exciting discovery in Spiritual literature ... a work of pure heart!”
“I feel extremely blessed and grateful in following this path”, says David. “It is my ongoing intention to create a message in word and music that assists us all in reawakening to our personal magnificence!”
www.davidault.com
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