The Best Fishers

We took some time this afternoon to try out a newly repaired motor on the old boat for a few hours...how blessed is that? The motor broke down...after I got this picture. We were close to the harbor, no big deal.

Here is a piece I wrote last winter that works with this picture...

Earlier as I sat with my mind blank about what to write my eyes wandered out the window to the gardens and forest beyond. I spotted a grey bundle in a tree where a grey bundle shouldn’t be. I knew without reaching for the binoculars that it was a blue heron who has been making the local lakes and ponds his. He’s all folded into himself with his head buried deep in his elegant plumage for protection against the driving rain. The tree he’s sitting in is above a small pond the neighbors cleared, expanded and seeded with fish a few years ago.

Watching a heron hunt is like watching a turtle race. I consider it a responsibility to move through the bush without disturbing wildlife, after all, they are out making their living. Yet, I love watching the heron lift those cumbersome graceful bodies off the ground to perch patiently somewhere near until the disturbance is over.

Heron medicine is a constant in our days on the coast of B.C. When heron shows up in your life know that you are meeting a masterful fisher. Become the slow motion grace of a heron as you make your way. Say to yourself…I too am heron.