When the Heron Came A-Calling

Have you ever had an animal keep showing up until you couldn’t ignore it? The Great Blue Heron did that for me, and it changed the direction of my life.

Sometimes an animal will appear in your life repeatedly so that it feels less like a coincidence and more like a conversation. That is exactly what happened when the Great Blue Heron entered my life; I was at a crossroads in my career.

It all began with a dream...

I was asleep when something tugged at the blankets, trying to pull them off. I stubbornly held on, refusing to open my eyes. Then I heard a loud squawk. I sat up, and I found myself staring into the bright, piercing yellow eyes of a Great Blue Heron standing on my bed.

Without another sound, it turned and flew through the wall—now mysteriously gone—and landed in a towering blue spruce tree where dozens of other Great Blue Herons were roosting.

When I awoke, the dream felt unusually vivid and surreal. As I headed downstairs to make a cup of tea, I replayed every detail, hoping not to lose the dream; I wanted to record it in my journal before the details faded. Standing at the kitchen sink, filling the teakettle, I noticed a large shadow glide across the yard. I looked up just in time to see a Great Blue Heron flying overhead.

The dream had followed me into waking life. I dismissed it as an unusual coincidence even though I was getting more strange synchronicities in my life.

But the heron wasn’t finished with me yet.

A week later, my teenage son and I were walking through the woods near the stream that feeds the lake on the edge of our hometown. We stopped to sit on a small stone bridge and noticed a Great Blue Heron hunting for fish about thirty yards downstream.

For no apparent reason, the heron flew toward us and landed to our left, not five feet away. It turned to face us and then started talking in GBH-speak—squawking, lifting its wings, tilting its head, and generally carrying on a pleasant conversation with two open-mouthed, dumbfounded humans.

This went on for about a minute. Then it became quiet, content to simply stare at us for another minute. Seemingly satisfied with our meeting, it flew back to the very same spot and continued hunting for fish, as if chatting with two humans was a normal occurrence.

My son and I looked at the bird, then at each other, wide-eyed and speechless, unsure what to make of such an unusual encounter. It’s not every day that a bird strikes up a conversation with you—especially a Great Blue Heron. They generally keep their distance from people.

By then, I had stopped dismissing these encounters as coincidence and saw them as divine messengers. Whenever the same animal begins appearing repeatedly—in dreams, unexpected encounters, conversations, books, or even on television—I have learned to pay attention. Life has a way of speaking to us through symbols, and repetition is often its way of saying, look more closely. The language of the Universe is a symbolic one, and my favorite symbols are from the animal kingdom.

Every animal possesses certain qualities, or talents and abilities that help it to survive and thrive in its environment. By learning to observe those qualities, we can sometimes discover strengths or lessons that apply to our own lives. This was how I began to understand the meaning of the animals that appeared in my life, and it became the foundation of my study of animal symbolism.

As I reflected on everything that had happened in that amazing week, I began researching the symbolism of the Great Blue Heron. Certain themes stood out because they described exactly where I was at in my own life.

At the time, I was standing at a crossroads in my career. I had a secure job as a graphic designer, yet my heart was pulling me toward a far less conventional path as a writer, illustrator, and creative entrepreneur. One path offered security. The other offered freedom, but with no guarantees.

The Great Blue Heron is often associated with independence, self-reliance, patience, and the courage to follow one’s own unique path. Unlike birds that move with the flock, the heron often stands alone, quietly trusting its own timing. That image spoke deeply to me.

Another quality I discovered was its connection with versatility. Over time, the Great Blue Heron became my personal symbol for doing something non-traditional—for embracing my nature as a jack-of-all-trades rather than seeing it as a weakness. At the time, I didn’t fully understand that message. I simply knew I didn’t fit neatly into one career or one label.

Looking back now, I can see the heron wasn’t asking me to abandon everything familiar overnight. It was inviting me to trust that my seemingly unrelated gifts belonged together. Writing, art, design, teaching, symbolism, tarot, coaching, and entrepreneurship were never separate paths. They were all expressions of the same calling.

More than anything else, the Great Blue Heron reflected one word back to me: freedom. Not freedom from responsibility, but the freedom to become who I was meant to be instead of who I thought I was supposed to be.

The Great Blue Heron didn’t promise me immediate success. In fact, I still had much to learn and discover on my chosen path. Instead, it reminded me to stay faithful to my own inner calling. Every meaningful step I’ve taken since has been an expression of that original invitation. And today, I couldn’t be happier with my choice of the non-traditional path of the creative entrepreneur.

And whenever I hit a pothole and start to doubt, guess who shows up to remind me to keep going?