Finding Home: How the Heron Pointed the Way
"I don't know why we're even bothering to go out there today," I told my family as our realtor friend pulled into the driveway to pick us up. "It's not like we’re going to buy this house.”
My defeatist attitude fit my general outlook at that time. For many months, or maybe even years, I had an acute awareness that we needed to make a shift. Chief among these aspirational changes was relocating our family home. While our hundred-year-old house in an historic downtown neighborhood was beautiful and convenient, it had become a source of stress, a money pit that dragged us down rather than nurtured our souls. We were desperate to live in a place with less traffic and better access to nature for the kids. J, especially, needed the solace of fresh air and open space. His obsession with birds was devotional, so we wanted to relocate to a place that would afford him access to richer daily bird habitat. But it was impossible to imagine how to get from here to there. The stagnation and frustration were palpable.
Driving out of town on this warm Sunday morning, I watched the clouds become bigger, first peeking from behind strip malls, then opening up to pasture and blue sky. It's always hot in August in North Carolina, but there was a freshness to this day, a hint of September solace. We got off the highway at Lewisville, the exit for Williams Road, and proceeded north toward the town and then past it, toward the river. The roundabouts decorated with muhly grass and echinacea acted as a portal from what our life was before into what was to come.
In truth, the Yadkin River wasn’t too far from where we were already living, twenty minutes as the crow flies. But the river lacks public access and is pretty subtle as far as rivers go, with muddy banks and a gentle, easy flow. Around the Yadkin, from the Siouan word meaning “Land of Tall Trees,” you really do see mostly trees, which hide the river from view.
We turned from Williams Road onto Shallowford Road, named for the place where the river was historically shallow enough to cross. From there, we turned onto the old farm road and tunneled through a long allee of oaks, their branches generously embracing us. The morning sunlight sparkled through the treetops, illuminating the road and transforming it into an enchanted pathway of shadows and light, brightness billowing.
“I hear a field sparrow,” J whispered to himself, like he always does when we’re driving. He had cracked the window to listen for bird calls along the way.
“I bet there’s a lot of birds out here,” he said as we turned into the little river neighborhood, our destination.
As we curved along toward the river, we passed several old farm ponds enfolded in pasture. A few new houses had been built around these ponds, but I noticed how the underlying topography had been preserved, keeping the old, majestic trees, while nestling the houses into the natural signature of the land.
Making our way to the back of the neighborhood, we pulled up to a house for sale and parked under a white oak with a gnarled and twisted trunk. We paused for a moment as we got out of the car to take in the relatively cooler air and the abundance of green in every direction.
“Look at the river!” my daughter shouted as she climbed out.
And that river instantly pulled us, not to the front door of the house, but to the pathway into the woods around back. It was clear this stone pathway was leading us to the water. The land was heavy with trees, as far as the eye could see. But you could just detect the sparkle of sunlight off water in the distance, down below.
We clamored toward the river, J striding his long legs and our other kids skipping down a series of steep stairs. Each set of stairs was punctuated by landings placed strategically to capture a good view or offer a place to rest. Whoever built these stairs must have had a good sense of the design principle of prospect and refuge, because each landing provided safety and shelter while also affording a spectacular view.
When we got to the biggest landing, at the bottom, we were perched at the top of a rocky outcrop about ten feet above the river’s surface. For a river known for its muddiness, a common phenomenon in our erosion-prone region of the North Carolina Piedmont, the river was surprisingly clear. We could see fish darting around between the rocks. The current was like tupelo honey being poured from the jar. The surface was smooth as glass.
We rested our elbows on the deck railing to catch our breath after the long descent. Breathing deeply, I noticed the stands of mountain laurel on the steep slopes and the giant river cane near the water’s edge. We had been looking out on the river for just a few seconds when I glimpsed the long, elegant wings of a great blue heron gliding over the water, just a few feet from our perch. That’s when we knew we were home.
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The great blue heron is a masterful bird with a six-foot wingspan, dramatic curved neck, and a long, sharp bill, like a medieval dagger. He uses that bill to spear fish in the shallows of rivers and ponds, where he hunts quietly and patiently, standing on long, graceful legs. A great blue heron taking flight is impressive. He slowly stretches out the giant wings like a tent, then crouches down to gently jump into the air. Herons soar low to the water and flap their wings effortlessly, as if in slow motion.
A yearlong resident throughout much of the continental United States, and a seasonal migrant to Canada and Central America, the great blue heron is familiar to many. Yet this ubiquitous bird is majestic and mysterious, almost otherworldly. Herons abound in myth and folklore in many different cultures around the world. Across storytelling traditions, herons signify autonomy, grace, patience, and wisdom. Ancient Egyptians viewed herons as messengers from the Gods. The Cherokee believe that when a great blue heron steps into our lives it brings with it the message of self-reflection.
Throughout my years visiting watery places, I have often found great blue herons just when I’m seeking to find my way. There is reassurance in their demeanor, a quiet confidence they convey in their steady, solitary stalking. I see this same self-assurance in J, this ability to seem so grounded in place, while also being ethereal. He looks like he belongs in the landscape even when that land is compromised by development or erosion or contamination. He is a healing presence.
You can still find a great blue heron standing in the shallows of Peters Creek, trash-strewn and eroded, within the urbanized Hanes Park, near our old house. I used to take J down there when he was young, when he clearly needed more space to roam, more nature to touch. Even as I fretted about the potential toxicity, I let him turn over stones and wade in those same shallows. Just like the resident great blue heron, J stretched out his long limbs and stepped gingerly, watching the minnows dart through pebbles and washed-up debris.
And before that, when he was a toddler in Philadelphia, we walked along the shores of the Schuylkill River, our daily pilgrimage. What else can you do with a toddler so clearly out of his element in the city that he literally climbed the walls? By 10:00 am each day, I bundled up his long, heron-like frame and trekked him down to the river, his body visibly relaxing as he spotted the water, his finger pointing up at the treetops.
Even then, J possessed wisdom about the landscape and the creatures that lived in any ecosystem we visited. I remember our city street so dense with row houses, all concrete and cars. We’d bring him outside to toddle on the sidewalk, and he would gaze up at the starlings and notice the little ants streaming up through the cracks. He would find his way to any creature, no matter how small, and even in the most disturbed environments. I think about how we always struggled to give him refuge from the sensory onslaught of modern life, how important any tiny spot of nature was to him, a sanctuary.
He was like a graceful heron stepping through the polluted shallows, always pointing the way for us.
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In these last months, when the certainty had been building that we needed to find our way into a new conception of home, I knew this family journey had started when J was young. It was obvious so early how much he needed to be outside in the elements, touching grass, digging in earth. We could always see that in him. But why had it taken us so long to get here?
The modern world can mislead us with its long list of must-dos. Even as a staunch environmentalist myself, I thought that I could make the most difference joining the fray, trying to make landscapes more sustainable by being part of the modern world, then changing them from within. But the modern world changes us, inures us to its sins, causing us to excuse the first-world actions that erode the very ground we stand on. We get used to the destruction, accepting the “collateral damage” of the road-building and land-clearing and fossil-fuel burning. I got caught up in all the doing that was required to just be part of modern life.
But J doesn’t fall for it. I’ll never forget our visit to the Everglades. We spent several days exploring the wetlands and hardwood hammocks. The cypress trees enchanted us all. But on our way out, as we drove toward Miami, J’s cheeks burned with tears. He wept not because we were leaving that wild place that had touched his heart. Rather, he could see so clearly that the new houses, roads, and businesses all around us had only recently replaced those same cypress trees and wetlands. He didn’t just notice the displacement intellectually; he could feel the scale of the destruction deep in his soul.
There is a known connection between neurodivergence and environmentalism. One theory postulates that some modern-day neurodiverse people are those with certain “hunter-gatherer” genes. Perhaps the traits associated with neurodivergence, for example hyperactivity, sensory sensitivity, empathy, and intense focus on topics of interest, are traits that helped them succeed in a pre-modern societal context. Other theories posit that neurodivergence is more of a recent adaptation - or maladaptiveness - to the stressors of modern-day life. In either case, neurodivergent people make up a disproportionate percentage of people who work in environmental activism (one study showed over 50% neurodivergence among a survey of environmental activists, compared to 1 in 7 neurodivergent people in society at large).
Eco-consciousness is associated with a kind of perception, communication, and relational thinking that does not readily conform to more neurotypical ways of being in the world. Special interests in non-human animals, nature, and the environment, are widely self-reported by autistic individuals, while many people on the autism spectrum have heightened levels of empathy and compassion for those who are suffering or in danger. Similarly, many environmentalists have an unshakeable belief and desire to live a good life and believe in equality and fairness.
At the same time, neurodivergent people of all stripes, including people on the autism spectrum, ADHDers, and dyslexic folks, all report heightened sensory sensitivity compared with the general population. Could what we call neurodivergence simply be a reaction to the toxicity pervasive in our modern-day society?
In J’s case, it’s clear that his unique sensitivities make him a barometer for our own family’s eco-orientation. When he’s feeling “off,” usually because of lack of access to the outdoors, or too much sensory onslaught, he inadvertently points out all the ways that we, too, are lacking access to the outdoors, or are suffering from electronic overstimulation. It’s not that these realities don’t affect the rest of us; it’s that perhaps we’re too caught up in our modern-day concerns to notice. Just the same, J’s lifelong ease in the natural world and his longing for sanctuary in the landscape have taught our whole family that we are at home on this earth.
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It’s been almost two years since that first glimpse of the heron gliding over the glistening river. We sit on the landing, brown water lapping at the piers of the deck below us in an easy rhythm. The day is warm and humid. My leg sticks to the fibers of the chair, casting a pattern on my leg, like the branching of the black gum, pronouncing itself boldly against the light blue sky. Box elders enfold us in their green embrace.
“Sweet-sweet-sweet,” we hear the piercing call through the trees.
“That’s the prothonotary warbler nesting over there,” J tells me, pointing across the river.
These trees and warblers, along with the cicadas, spring peepers, and other creatures big and small, announce themselves like family around the dinner table. I haven’t seen the heron yet, but her promise still hangs in the air - you are home.