my heron

[gurdonark]

On the last bridge with the last creek before the
parking lot entrance to my office, I can view the last panorama of altered nature before I begin my work. The creek has concrete borders, but it trickles in a fairly natural way.

Every morning I look out at that creek, and see a good-sized but immature white heron in almost the same place. I anthropomorphize that heron in my imagination so that it becomes almost a "friend" to me. It doesn't do anything for me, exactly. It just stands there. It never performs any of those nature show maneuvers. I see it as I drive by, when I crane my head over towards it slightly, as my car is going 30 miles an hour. I see it, have a little "heron moment"--a moment in which the heron is part of some great nature panorama (complete with concrete), and I drive on.

A heron moment is arguably a more comforting fantasy than some crushes on women I had in my single days; after all, I never worry whether the heron could ever "like" me. I assume a sort of heron-Gurdonark compatriotism far less physical and needy(thankfully, I quickly ponder) and yet far more friendly, if remote, than headier (and sometimes rather cinematic but certainly futile) fantasies about strangers I was also destined never to really meet or know. After all the heron is not an "other" in my mind--the heron is part of my world. I never need to meet or feed or hug or talk with this heron. The heron will be part of my world whenever I pass by, and he is there.

Today when I drove by, the heron was not there. There's no melodramatic eco-drama here; he literally was just gone. He may be back tomorrow. He may have flown to creeks with more plentiful mosquito fish. But when I noticed my surprise at his absence, and felt a mild feeling of lack, I realized that in my mind he was "my" heron, although in fact he was never mine at all. I "own" everything I see, but I actually own nothing, really.

Comments

[nacowafer.livejournal.com]

I used to have a heron--I could see her from my bedroom window. She was blue.

[inushnu.livejournal.com]

I have been working on this issue of ownership quite heavily in my life and it's a difficult one. There is such a strange balance we have to maintain in this world of the tangible and surreal.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I love great blue herons! They are so cool. Out my window at home, I don't get any herons.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Yes, it is a strange balance indeed, with herons as touchstones.

Re:

[nacowafer.livejournal.com]

Well, this was at my parents' homestead in N.C. where I grew up. There's a big pond, and there was (still, I think) a pair of blue herons who took up residence. They're so graceful when they take off--almost like they're floating. And big--so huge but seemingly innately gentle--and soft. And they were always so very still, until that single moment before lift-off...

Heron Myth

[inushnu.livejournal.com]

I attempted to look it up but only came up with fact sheets, not speculations from admirers.

This makes me wonder about the heron and its magnetism... i have yet to meet a person who doesnt feel something from the appearance of these birds.

iiinnnteresting!

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I had a wonderful childhood, but I'm jealous of anyone whose parents' homestead included a pond. We lived in town, and never had a pond. My grandfather had a pond, two wonderful ponds in fact, but never had herons that I saw. I don't think that there were nearly as many herons when I was a kid as there are now. Maybe herons are like hawks and eagles and pelicans, which all revived in full force when DDT got banned. Interesting google search for me to try.

When I go to a pond or lake here to fish or hike, I always see so many herons. The great blue ones are my very favorite. They are so shy of people--two generations ago they were hunted for their feathers for hats--but they are so graceful. I have seen just what you describe. The sight always makes me happy, and yes, oddly giddy, inside.

In November, the white herons migrate back south from here, round about November. They rise way high in the air, in loping, uneven and yet graceful spirals. One sees them circling and circling (or, rather, ellipticalling and ellipticallying). Then they get very, very high, and then they leave.
Blues seem to stay here all winter, though.

We don't get the cute little green herons, here.
I suspect VA is too far north as well. But I'll bet the Carolinas have them.

Re: Heron Myth

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Yes, I had the same thought. I'd like to know more about herons!

From Heron I Will Speak of Hummingbirds

[reneesarah.livejournal.com]

For three years I lived on the Hoopa Reservation in Northern California. It was still very natural and wild, and to live there was to live in a place that was mythic and spiritual, as well as being "earth as we know it". In front of my little blue house there I put up a hummingbird feeder. Every day I would coo about and admire the hummingbirds that came there. Apparently, I wasn't the only one who had noticed that hummingbirds were now hanging out around my porch. One day while I was exclaiming to my children about the emerald green luminousness of hummingbirds, a hawk swooped down and made himself a breakfast of one of them. One of my very pragmatic sons said, "Do you love the hawk any less than you do the hummingbirds?"

Re: Curious

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I always worry that I post things which are way too long. So I use cut liberally to spare my friends.

Re: From Heron I Will Speak of Hummingbirds

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I love hummingbirds, and hawks, and the idea of spending 3 years on a reservation. But in my mind they are always people, the hawks and hummingbirds, not voracious eaters of one another and of butterflies!

Re: Heron Myth

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I've done a bit of light heronreading. It appears that the heron is a bird that dates back a long, long time. Maybe we all have some species consciousness of always having had herons--I'm not good at that sort of thinking. But the thing I found interesting was confirmation of my belief that herons have made a big comeback in recent years...sure enough the banning of DDT made fish healthier which made herons bloom.

Every time I see a heron, I'm going to remember how important banning DDT was.

Re: Curious

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the point of view. I ponder this tension often, and am never sure with any given mid length post when I make the right choice. But it's good to think on.

[miscelenaclosed.livejournal.com]

Hey... I had a blue heron for a while a few years ago, too!

He (ok, it might have been a 'she', but I thought of it as a 'he') sat on a concrete platform above the drain of a storm water management pond beside the highway. I looked for him as I drove by every evening, and about two out of three nights that summer he was there. He disappeared at some point in the fall, too, I think, and I was saddened when I realized he was likely gone for good. I *still* automatically turn to look for him when I go through that area, although I've changed jobs and rarely pass that way anymore.

The white ones that are so prolific in Florida are a joy to see in February when I'm on vacation, but they don't stir my soul and lighten my whole outlook the way the blue one did.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

What a cool great blue heron story. They are just so magickal. They have that certain....something....so serene, so powerful....I'll bet Gandhi reincarnated as a heron.