‘TWO ROOKIE QUESTIONS: How does one candle reptile’s eggs? And what if the neonate
is pipped but just won’t leave the shell?’

A parameter is needed to calculate the parameter. Yet a proto-chicken’s
egg contains the embryo of the first chicken. This is the way to keep the
question small, not using it to loose a large and heavy one. Brahmanda
gives rise to the earth from its yolk, the sky from its white; or vice versa.
Thoth either hatches the cosmic egg or else emerges from the cosmic egg.

1st – The Egg and the Berry
An egg, classified as meat in the American food triangle, is the antithesis
of a berry. Plants have engineered the ultimate incentive to consume, a
supernutrient package prolonging dispersal. The egg is an evolutionary
expedient, risking dependency and predation for the sake of a quiet birth.

2nd – The Egg Hunt
The bomb squad invented it: an Easter egg emitting beeps that make the
egg hunt feasible for the visually impaired. Once found, big on the lawn,
it’s disconnected by a volunteer, replaced by its reward, a traditional
plastic egg filled with sweets, then reset for another child’s enjoyment.

3rd – The Contraband Egg
Six peregrines released in Scotland have an exotic prenatal history,
escaping a predator caught at Dubai airport with fourteen eggs in socks
taped to his chest. They were chicken eggs, he insisted, for relief of his
back – swollen by rheumatic highland rains, twisted by a fall from a crag.

4th – The Sea Turtle’s Egg
On a dark beach backed by woods without bars the drugs trade conjoins
with the poaching of sea turtle’s eggs. An addict might even use eggs as
currency for cocaine. Hueveros, expecting to dig up several nests, instead
spy from the trees on an eco medic moving clutches to a secret hatchery.

5th – The Counterfeit Egg
Ruthless in its arms race, the cuckoo, in hawk-like plumage, lays a
mimetic egg. The warbler, freed from shame by lack of an imprint clause,
tirelessly feeds the giant imposter. Otherwise, having colluded with the
devil under a one-time curse, might it not shun its second brood?

6th – The Free-range Egg
This quota of hens per acre creates a grassless manure bath. Europe’s way
is to place waterers and feeders deep inside a few small doors. Two or
three model hens peck outside. In a confinement flock surrounded by a
lawn trimmed beaks deter cannibalism. Yolks are suspiciously yellow.

All six – The Inconceivable Egg
The dove, symbolic imago, is seldom imagined hatching – though the
female is broody, purring, sometimes even loving. Like Venus it emerges
fully formed, enfolding our curiosity in its wings. It’s lonely in its flight
but never vulnerable. The egg is too narrow an auspice for a race’s destiny.

♦

Introduction to Six-Way Mirror | The Index of Hexagrams and Cantos