Everything is an Opportunity for Waking Up

Heedful of the 15-mile-an-hour speed limit, I drive carefully through the empty streets of my retirement community on an ordinary day. Suddenly, I see something extraordinary.  

A Great Blue Heron presides regally on the left side of the road. Holy s_ _ t! I whisper to myself as I pull cautiously to a stop. The bird is immense, nearly as tall as I am. It looks at me intensely, slowly turning its small head atop its slender curved neck so that one eye can focus on my fire engine red car a mere twenty feet away. Its black legs equal nearly half its height. A pale blue-grey, aerodynamic cluster of chest feathers and folded wings perch atop them. The neck flows upward from this central mass and is crowned by a proportionally small head and a disproportionally long, pointed beak. The bird stares calmly; I stare, slack-jawed and awestruck. Moments pass, each of us immobile. Then, gracefully, the heron lifts one thin pole of a leg, revealing four equally skinny toes, three in front and one in back, bends its miniature knee backward, and steps over the low wooden barrier on the side of the road. It follows with the second leg and glides elegantly down the steep bank littered with fallen oak leaves, broken branches, and rotting tree trunks toward a shallow pond.

Wanting more, I push the gear shift into “park,” slide out of the car and grab my iPhone from my right back pocket. I walk quickly but fluidly—not to frighten the bird—to the side of the road and look down the bank. The heron has already reached the pond and is moving deliberately through the water on its stick legs. It is well camouflaged by autumn golds and browns—bare branches, yellowed leaves, and black water. Its body feathers blend with the trees, and its legs, neck, and pointed beak are almost indistinguishable from the willowy saplings around it.   The Great Blue appears to be the forest gliding through itself.

The terrain is too steep and cluttered with woodland debris for me to descend on the same route as the bird, so I swing around to the right and take the familiar path to the pond, clicking pictures of the heron whenever it emerges into view through the underbrush. Click, click, click. (None of the shots are any good; it turns out later.)

Finally, he stands still at the edge of the pond. I do, too. I am entranced—all glowing eyes and beating heart. I don’t know how to take in such exquisite beauty, powerful fragility, and deep composure. The heron and I are alone together. From my perspective, I am the admirer, and he is the admired—there is no space in my mind to consider his perspective.

For several minutes, neither of us moves. Then I think, I have to tell someone! Quietly and slowly, I turn and walk back to my car, still idling by the side of the road, the driver’s door open. I slip my phone back into my pocket, drive the remaining minute to my front door, and burst in, “There’s a Great Blue Heron in the pond!”

Sarah Faith is impressed and immediately Googles “Great Blue Heron” on her iPad, reading aloud to me the information the search engine pulls up. It is a large bird with a wingspan of 5.5 to 6.6 feet and a height of 3.2 to 4.5 feet. It hunts alone but nests in colonies, usually in tall trees near water sources. It feeds mainly on fish but also eats other aquatic animals, insects, and rodents, and it can eat up to two pounds of fish per day.

In Native American tradition, it is associated with good luck and loyalty. In Christianity, it represents perseverance and patience. In Celtic tradition, it heralds renewal and calmness in challenging situations. It symbolizes the characteristics of balance, strength, clarity, and connectedness.

The facts, myths, and omens wash through my ears and into my brain. Google encourages me to consider my encounter with this bird a fortuitous event. But I’m only half paying attention, impatiently, to the information. I feel a powerful urge to return to the pond as quickly as possible to see if the heron is still there—to feast my eyes on this miracle again. But I don’t go alone. My entrenched sense of responsibility reminds me that my dog needs his afternoon walk, so I leash up the frisky little guy and take him with me, insisting, “No barking!” as we go.

It takes only a couple of minutes for us to reach the pond. Lo and behold, the heron is still there, standing stalk still in the same spot it was ten minutes before. Because it is camouflaged, the dog doesn’t see it, and it is too far away for him to pick up a scent, so while he sniffs the decaying leaves at our feet, I stand and gaze again. The heron is not fishing; it’s waiting. Motionless, we watch each other.

Moments pass, and I have another brilliant idea. I must share this experience with someone likely to appreciate its specialness as I do. I think of my neighbor on the street next to the pond, a woman who loves the forest and its creatures. You stay there, I silently tell the bird, I’ll be right back.

I knock on my neighbor’s door; sure enough, she’s interested in seeing a Great Blue. While she puts her coat on, the dog and I shuffle from foot to foot impatiently. When she emerges from her front door, and we walk toward the pond, we hear a faint drone in the distance. “Leaf blowers!” she exclaims, extremely annoyed. “They ruin this place. They drive me nuts!”

I try to be sympathetic, but I want her to focus on the beautiful bird I am sharing with her. However, the noise from the blowers has ruined it for her, and perhaps for the heron too, because he looks around anxiously after a few more moments and glides upstream toward the footbridge. My neighbor and I decide it’s time to move on and leave him in peace. She invites me to walk in the woods a little longer, and we take the dog for his afternoon stroll together, chatting quietly about the quotidian details of our lives: sleepless nights, failing health, and community news.

Later that afternoon, in a pause between activities, I recall the image of the Great Blue. I’m antsy and annoyed with myself. I sense I’ve missed a profound opportunity for communion and insight. I rehearse the compulsive behaviors that prevent me from being fully present in life: photographing experiences to preserve them, researching facts to understand, seeking to share soul-stirring occasions with others to pursue intimacy, and letting responsibilities deflect me from my heart’s call. Why could I not simply stand still and look, listen, and open myself? Why could I not be fully aware of the essence of the encounter? Might a veil have lifted? Might I have seen the truth?

The following morning, during meditation, I calm my agitation and recall the image of the Great Blue, as I first saw it, regal, by the side of the road. I breathe deeply and gaze long, feasting on the mental vision with my third eye, the eye of intuition. The bird, in all its majestic peacefulness, revisits me. This time, instead of analyzing it, I recognize it. I know it for who it is—an avatar. The divine source of everything, incarnate in the form of a Great Blue Heron, stands amid an ordinary day. Solitary yet inseparable from the world, it moves effortlessly through beauty, chaos, and debris, self-assured, serene, and unafraid.

In the last few weeks, I’ve repeatedly returned to my mental picture of the Great Blue Heron. Each time, I feel revisited by an inexpressible peace and humble confidence that the bird and I are kin. I am also an avatar, an incarnation, though partial and flawed, of the source of all goodness. Each time the vision of the Great Blue returns to me, I am certain of the indestructibility of this exquisite world, the love from which it is born, and my intrinsic place within it.