Both Heron and Koi

There’s a simple brush painting scroll on the wall of my room that shows two abstract fish. The black one is swimming down and the red one is swimming up. Melissa gave it to me for some past occasion and said it symbolizes prosperity. I’m wondering this morning what it might mean.

Out back, in the temple pond, we have three beautiful koi.  There used to be five, but two of them disappeared shortly after I sighted a great blue heron flying away from the pond. I was on the porch and the great blue must have been right by the waterfall. I heard some commotion and looked down in time to see him flying low over the pond and grass and into the trees. He was big and I was surprised.

I have always loved great blue herons. They look like flying dinosaurs who have survived from ancient times to wander the watery landscape of the northeast. They are large birds, with wingspans of five to six feet. Great blue herons fly with a soaring ease but are most often found standing still in the shallow edge water of lakes and streams and estuary shores of this area.

I remember a surprising sighting one morning when my sister and I were camped on an island off the coast of Maine. We had woken up that morning totally engulfed in the dense fog that sometimes descends up there. The fog was so thick, we couldn’t see the shore that was twenty feet away from our campsite. Though we had our trusty compasses and charts, we had no urgent place to be so we decided to leave our kayaks on shore and sit tight till the fog lifted. While we were eating our morning ambrosia of oatmeal, raisins and maple syrup, we were startled by the sound of birds overhead. We looked up, and right over our heads appeared first one, then another and another huge blue herons.

We sat in our camp chairs, looking in silent awe. They flew with such large ease. Great blue herons are generally solitary and shy birds that like to keep their distance from us humans. But these herons were just ten or fifteen feet over our heads and they kept coming as we sat still. Each one appeared out of nowhere, coming from over the open water to the southwest, headed together up the coast. It was a few minutes and many many heron later that the quiet stillness of the dense fog returned.

We later surmised that this siege of great blue heron were using the tip of our island to verify their internal navigation as they flew to their morning hunting grounds. They flew effortlessly together for support and safety in the middle of the disorienting fog. We were surprised and delighted by their collective visit and were certain we had been graced by this flight of ancient angels.

I wasn’t so pleased, however, to see the single heron near the Temple pond a few years later. I suspected he was checking out the menu at this out-of-the way fish joint. After he flew away, we didn’t see any of the koi for a number of days. We were afraid he had eaten them all. But eventually the three uneaten fish gathered their courage to swim out of their cave and re-inhabit the pond. Ever since this time, they have been much more cautious. People or shadow or sounds will send them quickly back into hiding.

I wonder if they think back to the good old days when they didn’t have to take heron precautions—when they could swim near the surface without fear? Do they mutter among themselves in the dark of their caves about feeling cooped up and missing how it used to be? I suppose not, but their new normal is a far cry from how it used to be.

In spite of this, most mornings they eagerly wait by the corner of the pond for Melissa and I to come down with our tablespoon of fish food. We scatter it on the surface of the water and they quickly gobble it up. They only take a minute or two, sucking up the little pellets of nutrition like candy, then quickly head back to the deep water as if they were being chased by the heron that flew away long ago.

Through all this, the koi are growing noticeably bigger. Their elegant and brightly colored bodies swim through the water with ease and power. I could watch them for hours. They remind me of the fish on my painting swimming both up and down.

Perhaps prosperity comes as we learn to navigate through the fog and appreciate both the ups and the downs—the cycles of fear and ease. Sometimes we carefully hide in the cave of our solitude. Sometimes we join with others for safety and encouragement. All of this beauty, loss and surprise is necessary and included, no need to hold back.