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...By the time an eagle reaches the age of 30 or so, its physical condition has deteriorated to the point that survival is difficult: its talons lose their flexibility and cannot properly grip prey, its beak becomes dull and bent, and its wing feathers grow thick and heavy, sticking to its chest and impairing its flight. The bird then retreats to a mountaintop, where over a five-month period it sequentially knocks off its beak by banging it against a rock, plucks out its talons, and then plucks out its feathers, each stage producing a regrowth of the removed body parts that "renews" the eagle and allows it to live for another30 to 40 years....
http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/eaglerebirth.asp#Ajj3IyJmuDgyGTbp.99
What a beautiful story! And how inspirational!
I read it a few days back in the Op-Ed page of my Deccan Chronicle to which I am addicted and which supplies to me unending blog-posts from limericks to light pieces.
DC carries everyday a new inspirational piece titled like 'Mystic Mantra'...it trashes my Letters to its Editor though.
This Mystic Mantra carries messages written by current exponents of all religions and pseudo-religions. This DC column is far more readable than the daily 'Speaking Tree' of ToI...I having never met a speaking tree.
The writer of the above eagle tale urges all of us to rejuvenate ourselves in our old age like his eagle instead of feeling defeatist. Folks like me are asked to pluck our metaphorical heavy feathers, rusted talons, and dented beaks; and grow new ones and live for many more years...in fact double our allotted threescore ten (that is 70 like me now):
King James Bible
The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.
DC's Mystic Mantra quoted above tells us to fly away, not to heaven but back down to earth to gorge on more prey.
This exhortation resonated with me because I lost my mind at 62 soon after retirement for all of two years to severe clinical depression. But lo and behold, I shed my physics feathers and grew brand new blogging ones. And I hope I live thereby to another 62 years enjoying my blogging and ever-growing pension...making it sixscore and four.
And so I got curious and Googled for that eagle-tale.
And found that the Sadhguru of the Mystic Mantra had lifted it word for word from an elaborate hoax that is trending on the net, with fake videos to boot (visit the site above).
And then I visited wiki and found that half the eagles die in their nest, throttled by their sisters, and the other half hardly live beyond 30 and none rejuvenates itself:
...Eagles normally build their nests, called eyries, in tall trees or on high cliffs. Many species lay two eggs, but the older, larger chick frequently kills its younger sibling once it has hatched. The dominant chick tends to be the female, as they are bigger than the male. The parents take no action to stop the killing....
Sigh!
I don't think I ever actually saw an eagle, bald or hairy. I did see birds of prey circling in my Muthuker skies far far above the earth, so far that they looked like tiny dots doing their hovering. They may be kites, or hawks or even vultures, although I did see lots of vultures in the Railway Maidan at KGP cleaning up dead cattle in droves bone-dry. I am told that they have now become extinct due to man's developmental urges. Vultures can easily be identified...they are not only bald on their heads but their necks too and they are real ugly, like me.
But my mom at Muthukur used to say that the chaps who were circling in the sky were real eagles (called Garudas). She also told me that they are the vehicles carrying Lord Vishnu when he gets tired of sleeping on his serpent-bed in the ocean of cow-milk and getting constantly massaged by his comely wife, Laxmi.
As proof she used to ask me to listen to her eagle's cry when one of them descended to earth to snatch our neighbor's chick. And she said the cry goes like:
"Krishna, Krishna, Krishna..."
Krishna, my foot! It goes like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlq2kcYQcLc
Very screechy, going like: Cheecheechee! Chee Chee Chee!
And my Father used to tell me, with relish, the gory tall tale of this prince, Jeemuthvahana, who offered himself as prey to an eagle to save the threatened clan of serpents:
Mother was also partial to the itinerant hawkers who used to visit our door-steps trying to palm off what they called pendants with genuine eagle-claws and convinced her that whoever buys and wears them will never ever be bitten by snakes which are mortally scared of eagles and their claws:
I guess nowadays they are hawking genuine rhino-horns to rejuvenate our aging menfolks:
Anyway, nowadays I often read about 'legal-eagles' like our FM. I had earlier read about 'culture-vultures' at KGP, it being in Bengal.
And what about 'peace-kites', 'foolish-falcons', and 'hindu-hawks'?
...Posted by Ishani
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...By the time an eagle reaches the age of 30 or so, its physical condition has deteriorated to the point that survival is difficult: its talons lose their flexibility and cannot properly grip prey, its beak becomes dull and bent, and its wing feathers grow thick and heavy, sticking to its chest and impairing its flight. The bird then retreats to a mountaintop, where over a five-month period it sequentially knocks off its beak by banging it against a rock, plucks out its talons, and then plucks out its feathers, each stage producing a regrowth of the removed body parts that "renews" the eagle and allows it to live for another
http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/eaglerebirth.asp#Ajj3IyJmuDgyGTbp.99
What a beautiful story! And how inspirational!
I read it a few days back in the Op-Ed page of my Deccan Chronicle to which I am addicted and which supplies to me unending blog-posts from limericks to light pieces.
DC carries everyday a new inspirational piece titled like 'Mystic Mantra'...it trashes my Letters to its Editor though.
This Mystic Mantra carries messages written by current exponents of all religions and pseudo-religions. This DC column is far more readable than the daily 'Speaking Tree' of ToI...I having never met a speaking tree.
The writer of the above eagle tale urges all of us to rejuvenate ourselves in our old age like his eagle instead of feeling defeatist. Folks like me are asked to pluck our metaphorical heavy feathers, rusted talons, and dented beaks; and grow new ones and live for many more years...in fact double our allotted threescore ten (that is 70 like me now):
King James Bible
DC's Mystic Mantra quoted above tells us to fly away, not to heaven but back down to earth to gorge on more prey.
This exhortation resonated with me because I lost my mind at 62 soon after retirement for all of two years to severe clinical depression. But lo and behold, I shed my physics feathers and grew brand new blogging ones. And I hope I live thereby to another 62 years enjoying my blogging and ever-growing pension...making it sixscore and four.
And so I got curious and Googled for that eagle-tale.
And found that the Sadhguru of the Mystic Mantra had lifted it word for word from an elaborate hoax that is trending on the net, with fake videos to boot (visit the site above).
And then I visited wiki and found that half the eagles die in their nest, throttled by their sisters, and the other half hardly live beyond 30 and none rejuvenates itself:
...Eagles normally build their nests, called eyries, in tall trees or on high cliffs. Many species lay two eggs, but the older, larger chick frequently kills its younger sibling once it has hatched. The dominant chick tends to be the female, as they are bigger than the male. The parents take no action to stop the killing....
Sigh!
I don't think I ever actually saw an eagle, bald or hairy. I did see birds of prey circling in my Muthuker skies far far above the earth, so far that they looked like tiny dots doing their hovering. They may be kites, or hawks or even vultures, although I did see lots of vultures in the Railway Maidan at KGP cleaning up dead cattle in droves bone-dry. I am told that they have now become extinct due to man's developmental urges. Vultures can easily be identified...they are not only bald on their heads but their necks too and they are real ugly, like me.
But my mom at Muthukur used to say that the chaps who were circling in the sky were real eagles (called Garudas). She also told me that they are the vehicles carrying Lord Vishnu when he gets tired of sleeping on his serpent-bed in the ocean of cow-milk and getting constantly massaged by his comely wife, Laxmi.
As proof she used to ask me to listen to her eagle's cry when one of them descended to earth to snatch our neighbor's chick. And she said the cry goes like:
"Krishna, Krishna, Krishna..."
Krishna, my foot! It goes like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlq2kcYQcLc
And my Father used to tell me, with relish, the gory tall tale of this prince, Jeemuthvahana, who offered himself as prey to an eagle to save the threatened clan of serpents:
Mother was also partial to the itinerant hawkers who used to visit our door-steps trying to palm off what they called pendants with genuine eagle-claws and convinced her that whoever buys and wears them will never ever be bitten by snakes which are mortally scared of eagles and their claws:
I guess nowadays they are hawking genuine rhino-horns to rejuvenate our aging menfolks:
Anyway, nowadays I often read about 'legal-eagles' like our FM. I had earlier read about 'culture-vultures' at KGP, it being in Bengal.
And what about 'peace-kites', 'foolish-falcons', and 'hindu-hawks'?
...Posted by Ishani
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