The Message of the Heron
When you "land" on the Tanglewood Life Coaching website, you are greeted by this magnificent creature. The Great Blue Heron has always impressed me, I feel connected, watched over, loved by it in some way. In fact, years ago, when creating my company, the original name I selected was "Great Blue Heron Coaching"! After some thought, I shifted and went with "Tanglewood" because of its significance and the symbolism as it relates to the work I do (See the Welcome Page for the full description). It has been some time since I posted on this blog, I began thinking about it last week, and, over the weekend I even mentioned it to Jerry (my husband), "I want to spend time writing this weekend." That, my friends is dangling an intention out to God and then surrendering to whatever shall be. So...I hope you will enjoy this short and sweet post about the encounter that followed the intention and subsequent release.
Suddenly I notice that we have dropped into a period of silence. Jerry and I, along with our dog, Turk, are perched on the river bank where we decided to pause and offer a morning prayer. This place is sacred to us. Here, we are away from the noise of the bustling town just miles away. I am grateful in this moment. It is so quiet and I know that I hear God more clearly while in nature, in between my thoughts.
As if someone tapped on my shoulder from behind, I turned to see it gliding toward us. I know for sure I stopped breathing. My spirit animal, a Great Blue Heron, following the flow of the stream, flew past us. Moving his wings, I could hear the rush of air displaced. He headed directly into the thick of the woods and I worried he would get caught up in the labyrinth of winter branches. As I exhaled, he settled onto a high branch just downstream. Each of us reacted – but without words – a common feeling of awe. What is this creature, prehistoric and regal, spiritual and symbolic. I cannot describe the connection I feel, perhaps you too have seen a Heron in flight and know of what I speak.
Curious as to why I feel so connected to this magnificent creature I did some searching and found various descriptions. This, however, resonated most strongly with me, “Heron symbolism is prompting you to look deeper into aspects of your life. In so doing, it will bring out your innate wisdom and show you how to become more self-reliant. Additionally, the Heron meaning asks you to ground yourself regularly. Thus, this spirit animal teaches that grounding yourself in the earth and your spiritual beliefs will help you discover emotional insights more clearly and more quickly.” (Credit Click Here)
Perfect alignment as I expected. I recently left a comfortable paid position to return to my work on my own at Tanglewood. I serve others through teaching and guiding them to return to Faith over Fear, to feel Worthy over Unworthy, and to remember that their Birth-Right is Joy and Well-being. Of course, I am on the path of spirituality and re-igniting my Faith and what I know for sure is that the messages we are meant to see and hear are all around us. We need only to pause and be silent long enough to notice.