HOMING INSTINCTS

Finding our balance in the midst of change is an art – a creative moment-to-moment dance, a journey filled with unexpected twists and turns, with endless possibilities and new discoveries.  There may be times we feel lost along the way. Listening to those inner callings, we all have the potential to find our way back home.  It’s right here, inside our remembering.

HOMING INSTINCTS • JoAnne Dodgson  www.pathwaysforhealing.net

Blue Heron walked along the riverside, the callings for home growing stronger inside her.  She dipped her long beak into the river for a drink and noticed lights shimmering in the water.  With her piercing gold eyes, she looked underwater to see where the light was coming from, but the source didn’t seem to be there.  So she raised up from the water, looked overhead, and saw three full moons rising, glowing on the horizon.

Blue Heron stood at the riverside, reveling in the beauty of the moons.  She spontaneously started to hum, softly and discreetly at first.  Her humming grew louder, more colorful and creative, with lively rhythms and elaborate melodies.  The musical vibration inside the blue heron’s throat kept growing and expanding until her radiant song could no longer be contained and held back.

With joyful abandon, the heron exuberantly sang out her blue heron song.  She passionately danced her blue heron dance, splashing in the river, leaving playful tracks along the shore.  She sang to the moons, celebrating mystical wildness and beauty.  She danced rhythms of peace to the black and blue ants.  She sent shimmering waves of compassion to the emerald fish, honoring the extraordinary diversity of life.  She sang to the caterpillar she’d met on the hill, weaving musical notes with fibers of trust in the potency of magic and fearless, self-empowered change.

And there inside the rhythm of her blue heron song, she felt whispers of sweet rememberings – the soft rustling of feathers, the majestic sensation of winds beneath her wings.  She stepped to the river’s edge, boldly opened her wings, and lifted up into the air to fly.

Blue Heron flew for many days and many miles, following the instinctual knowing she carried deep within.  As she crossed the great waters, a storm blew into her path.  She soared with the winds racing in from the north.  She sang gratitude to the showering rains.  She danced with the lightning and rolled with the thunder.  When the storm clouds passed by, there just ahead, filling the sky, were herons as far as she could see.  The blue heron joyfully joined up with her flock, passionately weaving her way into the flowing tapestry of undulating wings.