An Egg Is For Life; Not Just For Easter
At this specific time of year everyone is most likely thinking about eggs – the chocolate, Easter egg type which are mostly bought in large cardboard boxes and plastic packaging or sometimes wrapped in brightly coloured foil. I’ve had eggs on my mind most of this year for a very singular reason.
My 7 year old sons’ teacher (who will remain annonymous) evidently spent the whole of his Christmas vacation constructing his own chicken coop in his garden and when back to school in January he decided to share his chicken raising interest with every little boy in class 2a. He doesn’t have his own children.
So we’ve had the chicken coop, a pre-built one, I might add, for 5 weeks at this point and we have a mixed-breed family unit of 5 laying hens. A hen produces an average of 300 eggs a year, as a result we also have a great deal of eggs, which is perhaps why they are upmost in my mind.
The egg has long been a symbol of renewal, the life cycle and fruitfulness. Curiously its’ symbolic supremacy is rivaled only by that of the cock. It is the capability of the egg to craft a new life that made it so mysterious to pagan believers. People used to think the earth was shaped like an egg and early myths thought the yellow egg yolk, symbolized the sun, which in turn was considered as a source of life. As eggs embody the very essence of life, they have throughout the ages been endowed with magical properties of being able to divine the future.
Traditionally various cultures hold their own traditions and beliefs regarding eggs. In Egypt eggs were hung in the temples to encourage fertility, in Germany farm workers used to daub their pitch forks with egg whilst digging the land, as they believed the egg would