January 2024 ~
As we move into 2024, I have continued reflecting on place and how place relates to belonging. My relationship with the ocean, and with the ocean’s mighty whales, invokes a strong sense of place. I experience the relationship between humans and ocean as child and Mother, and I am curious how we can reconnect to our deep origins in the ocean.
Without her, there is no us.
About 25 or so years ago, I had a dream that my father and I were climbing in a very large bleacher stand, overlooking the ocean. I seemed to know it was the Pacific Ocean. Despite the fact that we were outside and surrounded by immense space, we were trapped. We could not leave the bleachers. We were climbing up and down, up and down, and sideways, looking for an exit. We never found one. As we climbed, I noticed that my father was getting tired, and he began to appear old to me.
Desperate to find a way to get out, I turned to look to the ocean and saw four whale tails, dancing, almost as if they were synchronized swimmers. There were two pairs and they were swimming, pirouetting, and dancing with their tails above the water. In that moment, I experienced a felt sense of safety, calm, and some sort of holy reassurance that everything was okay.
Two things became clear to me: the dream was a forewarning of my father’s death—a call to prepare. And, the whales were offering their compassion. Whales are deep divers and communicators about their, and our, relationship to place. They are emissaries of love and compassion. This dream ignited my ongoing relationship with whales as teachers, mentors, friends. I read about them, learn about them, and dream about them.
As I began to learn more about these great beings, I journeyed to the South Pacific, to the island nation of Tonga, in 2015. There I learned to free-dive in the azure waters where whales breed and birth. My encounters with these beings were dream-like. Moving underwater immediately invites us to slow down.
As I now reflect back on this first journey to visit the whales, I am beginning preparation for my annual eco-somatic whale encounter retreat in Tonga, a country whose land and inhabitants have become my teachers. The whales, too, are important teachers. Tonga is special in many ways: since 1978, when King Tāufa‘āhau Tupou IV declared a moratorium on all whaling within the kingdom’s waters, all Tongan waters have been a sanctuary for whales.