What Heron Sees

Great Blue Heron glides gracefully over the pond. As she stalls her flight, her long stick like legs penetrate to surface of the water, seemingly without a ripple. Like a 747 landing on a lily pad, Heron improbably morphs from magnificent soarer to stealthy hunter finding her footing in the soft clay bottom of the pond.

To accomplish this act of transformation Heron is able to see through the water surface. In order to calculate her gentile trajectory, she must be able to see where the bottom of the pond is, and be sure that the depth of the intervening water is not deeper than her legs are long.

Heron gets me thinking about how easy it is for me to see the surface of things and miss the richer description that includes what is just past the immediately obvious. Like Heron, it is useful to see and understand the surface, but to also take in what is below, just beyond what we notice at first glance.

Today, I will be remembering to ask questions that illuminate territories that exist just beyond what is immediately obvious, so that my life can be more richly described. I will also remember that what might seem obvious is also worthy of my curiosity inquiry.