Looking back on the bleak period when depression swept away the herons from the sky of his mind and voided the world of wonder, he reflects:

There are two paths to magic: Imagination and paying attention. Imagination is the fiction we love, the truths built of falsehoods, glowing dust on the water’s surface. Paying attention is about intentional not

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Reflecting on the difficulty of interpreting his own life and on the myriad symbologies of the great blue heron — among them an ancient myth in which the bird dusts the surface of the water with golden starlight to attract bluegill — Anderson writes:

The heron is exactly what the heron is to you in the moment you choose to give it meaning. It will b

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