How to Use an Urban River #5 – A Heron Yogi

Welcome back everyone, and hello to all of you new subscribers! Thanks for joining The Possible City. This is the fifth installment in a series exploring true stories about the curious and wonderful ways that people in Daejeon, Korea use their local waterway throughout the day.

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3:00PM — Two young lovers stand at the riverbank together. They stare into the shallows, watching as a heron moves his long neck from side to side. Calmly shifting at seemingly impossible angles, the majestic bird’s head swoops fluidly, as if were on a rope — only to stop suddenly.

The bird gently lifts one leg, moves forward, eyes the waters, and continues its stretching and shifting act with intense focus. Though the couple had initially stopped to admire the stark white color of this large bird, they end up staying and staring, wondering what all the streching and shifting is about.

Then suddenly, with a splash, and a quick darting snap of a beak, they find out — gasping in excitement.

They have never seen a heron catch a fish before.

Just behind the lovebirds, another familiar figure appears — the young woman from earlier in this series. She is here with her mother, and half dozen other humans, doing their own kind of impossible stretching and shifting.

A group yoga class gathers here regularly on the river.

On this particular day, the yoga folks seem unaware of the heron yogi — undisputable master of stretching, balance, and patience — just beside them. Nor does the heron notice them.

As the humans work themselves into some kind of triangle pose, the reeds along the river ripple in the wind, the couple look into each others eyes with wonderment and love, and the heron lowers his neck in one final downward dog arc, pulling up, looking to the heavens, gulping down his prize.

Though the yoga group and the heron may not notice each other, their practice somehow connects them.

After the yoga session, the mother walks up to her daughter, shaking her head. “I can’t stretch like you anymore.”

The daughter touches her mom on the shoulder. “But you’re better than last week. Keep going!”

They’ll both be back next week.

So will the heron. He’s here every day.

The illustrations in this series were originally commissioned by the Daejeon Sejong Research Institute.

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Questions: What are the water birds like in your part of the world? How do your urban rivers support them, and how could they do it better?

Next Week: In our final entry of this series, we go fishing illegally — kind of.

Another Story: Do you know your “BFPs?” The rights of an urban river to meander is one of them.

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