Dr. Heron and Dr. Beaver were “dialogically inseparable” if you will. That is, Dr. Beaver loved to tease Dr. Heron about his Religion Department’s naivete, as Beaver’s Communication Design Department saw it, and heard it, for that matter. Symbiotically, the otherwise distant and silent, downright reclusive, Dr. Heron would listen, occasionally too surprised to respond, sometimes with a confused and stressed “Shawk!”, but always maintaining a profound wise gaze, of course.  How could we have a parable without an allegorical “wise gaze”?

Heron and Beaver discovered each other one day when Dr. Heron noticed Beaver’s beautiful dam, meticulously balanced logs and grass, lavishly layered and etched clay design.

While Dr. Heron perched and peered with unusual fascination, tending to be a bit myopic (adroitly, but profoundly, denied), Dr. Beaver swam by, near enough to be noticed, in fact, rather hell-bent on distraction, in a playful way.

Truth be told, which erupts occasionally, Beaver, on this morning, ever so slightly, slowly, VEXED Dr. Heron.  Beaver invited Heron’s play, but Heron just was not known as a playful kind of girl.

Upon hearing this, Beaver suggested they swim together.  While Dr. Heron preferred the wind’s freedom, she gracefully bowed, then lead the way, and Beaver stopped splashing and wriggling about so….  “I don’t know, so ‘vigorously’ I think.” (Oops, did I say that out loud?  Can he hear me?)

Swiftly, amused by Heron’s bi-polar control issues, Beaver parried with “heartily, as well as ‘vigorously’.”

“Quite so,” admitted Heron, immediately grasping the wisdom of Beaver’s inviting option.

As they swam their leisurely way through the cool green mossy pond’s edge, paddling, each in His and Her way, toward the gently rippling, blue gleaming center, Heron remembered the beautiful dam, now behind, invisible.

“Yes, my best so far, but it wants color to be the very best.”

Dr. Heron was flustered.  How did Beaver know what she was thinking? And, what an extraordinary idea!  Adding color would be wrong, she was sure a dam had no business “wanting” to become a rainbow.

“Oh, no, that would just make it tacky” replied Beaver, delighted with Heron’s misunderstanding. “Beavers have a powerful Workers Cooperative Guild.  Very high Continuous Quality Improvement architectural integrity standards, as they officiously say. Now visual color, that would be more Dr. Chameleon’s Department, over in Arts and Humanities.  Perhaps you are too young to recognize the difference from the Communications Design Department.  They are visual color, but our specialty is audible color.”

“Hmmm. I am surprised.”

“Yes, I hear that.”

“You mean, you understand that?”

“Yes, both. OK, now you want to play me, I see.”

“No, not that, please! Though , I would appreciate seeing why you use “hear” instead of “understand.”

“If you were not so blind, it would probably hit you right between the eyes.”

Dr. Heron contemplated that for an extravagantly long time, in Beaver’s impatient-to-play moment.  Perhaps an iteration would remove them from their quagmire, he thought, guiding Dr. Heron around a lily pad patch, where Dr. Swan was gracefully resting, waiting.  For what, she never said.  Always just “Waiting” in reply to his too frequent interruptions.

Seeing a Butterfly flexing her silky wings atop the closest lily, Beaver asked Dr. Heron why she never sang in round octaves.

“You mean ‘color’ octaves.”

“Yes, color octaves are round.”

“That cannot be right.”

“It can when you realize it deeply enough.”

“But color lacks shape. And why is this dialogue backward, sometimes, I think?”

“Not long ago you didn’t think color had sound either, but I hear you already seeing things as we do in Communications.”

“I can envision color as metaphor for singing scales,” Dr. Heron offered doubtfully, as a conciliation.

“Oh yes, scales are linear color, not round color, like a wheel, you see?  Those are two symmetrical color frequencies.  ‘TweedleDee’ and ‘TweedleDum’. Positive and Negative. Before and After. Or, their official labels, in Design circles, you know, are Yang Color and Yin Color.”

“You have a backward way of confusing things, considering you are supposed to be the Communications Design Department.”

“Yes, well Confusion is our Special Field Theory you know; its an important part of Communications, or not.  Most Herons don’t sync like you do.”

“Why is that?” asked Dr. Heron, scrambling how to respond while freeing her blindness.

“They know Confusion is too soft for building dams.  It is, of course.  But, while I soften to your touch, I have elder cousins rambunctiously and fibrously scaled.”

“Really, Dr. Beaver, please pick an octave and stick with it?”

“I do!” protested Beaver, without apparent influence.

“It is difficult to synchronize when you insist on frolicking so!  While I am blissfully silent myself, during considerably more normal events, I have many younger cousins singing multiple octaves and rhythms. That I enjoy.  Anyway,  I appreciate the beauty and extreme generosity of reptilian Design scales, but it would be wrong to reduce them to mere sticks for resplendent dams. Its a moral issue I think.”

“Do it all the time.  Sticks are low-valued scales, as are Alligator or Armadillo scales.”

“And these ‘low-valued scales’ don’t mind being trapped, denied their value and freedom?  I ask because I cannot see. They are too low for eyes, or ears, and thinking.”

“If you can’t hear my dams’ goodness, then how do you see its full beauty?”

Beaver stopped paddling, as they emerged with the sun-drenched pond.  A change of mood inspired a new, and old, direction.

“I know!  What if you and your tribe of cousins gently built your nests into my dam?  Then we could all hear and see its transformation.  I’m sure we can connect your round octaves to our columned scales!

Drs. Heron and Beaver have made their rapturous, and not at all tacky, dams together ever since.