If you’ve been reading this blog for years, you know my love of Great Blue Herons, so when I read about Jarod K. Anderson’s book, Something in the Woods Loves You, I knew it was for me. 

The book opens with this:

“There’s an old story about Great Blue Herons. It says that while hunting the twilight shallows, herons can produce a strange, luminescent powder, pluck it from between their feathers with their spear-like beaks, and sprinkle it on the dark water to attract fish.”

He says yes, it’s a myth, and yet, picture how this is to the fish. “The fish are not curious in an intellectual way.  It’s a physical thing, their bodies called forward to witness the inexplicable. There, in the shallow winter waters, they are ready to believe in miracles.”

The heron allows Anderson to build the meaning he needs for the moment.  “Making meaning in this way is like creating harmony with two voices. I sing my portion. The heron sings hers. The harmony is woven and meaning exists in the world.”

I’m feeling the joy of exploration these days, an inner walk to explore what connects, how evolving connects and expands.

I’m with these words of H. Richard Niebuhr: 

“Pilgrims are persons in motion – passing through territories not their own – seeking something we call completion, or perhaps the word clarity will do as well, a goal to which only the spirit’s compass points the way.’