I have done this many times now, taking people to the Dolphins. I am well aware of the kinds of reactions, lessons and transformative experiences people can have, even if I am usually surprised by something new on every trip. The need to receive each persons insights as the most sacred trust is a constant.
I smiled my warmest smile and leaned forward to hug her. She buried her head in my shoulder and sobbed again, then started laughing.
Before she knew it, she was laughing big belly laughs, and was lying on her side, tears streaming down her cheeks into her hair.
“You see, I thought I was just out here to have some fun and to have some great stories to tell my husband and kids. I begged for the opportunity to do this trip by myself, to have an experience of my own. I have never done anything as wild and adventurous as this before.”
“And I didn’t speak up when you asked if any of us had any fears about being out here. To tell you the truth, I have been terrified I would do something to ruin the trip for everyone, or get hurt or do something stupid.”
“I started having dreams of Dolphins about a year ago. Wait a minute...it was a year ago today! Gosh, what....? Do you think.....? Hey, that is right, I wrote it in my diary and this is the first anniversary of my first Dolphin dream! God, what do I think about that?”
“It was an all out festival of dreams there for a while, every time I went to sleep, Dolphins were all around me. They came to the store with me in one dream, and I had to find a special cart to carry them into the shopping center... It seemed like everywhere I turned they were there. On TV, in magazines, on billboards. Suddenly I realized how they were everywhere and I had never noticed them. Oh, I saw them, but I never really saw them, you know what I mean?”
I nodded. I call this The Calling. Many people hear this call these days. Often it is in dreams, sometimes it is other synchronicities that bring Dolphins to peoples awareness.
“I started to look for them, and my daughter showed me how to search on the internet for them and that’s how I found your trip. I liked the way you described your trips, the way you share the Legend with people. I wanted to know more about this Legend. So I came. Here I am, and I have just made a fool of myself in front of you...”
Wait Debbie, that’s not what you were just saying!”, I interjected. “You just said the Dolphin let you know it was alright to do just what you feel and not to care about what others think, right?”
She smiled and quietly said, “Oops. You’re right. I hope I can remember that. Is it OK for me to be crying while everyone is so happy?”
Of course it is! You are crying because you are happy, right? It is a lot to take in, all this Dolphin stuff, being out on this boat with strangers, and being brave enough to get in the water with these big Dolphins. You can cry, laugh, leap around, splash water and be as silly or serious as you want. That’s why we came all the way out here.” I smiled at her and she grinned back.
Do you know how important this is, what you are doing? I asked that already, didn’t I...? Well, I guess you do, or you wouldn’t be out here doing this. So many people have gotten stuck in their lives, so many of my friends are unhappy and don’t even know it. We have all done the workshops, the therapy, read all the books on Oprahs reading list. They are all good and have helped me, but this...this is different.”
It’s like she knew something about me I didn’t know, and she was entirely OK with what she saw. I wasn’t part of anything else, I was me. I was gawky, my tummy was upset, I felt out of sorts and didn’t even know why I was in the water this time. There she was, just looking right in my eyes, after I had been frustrated by not being able to show her my eyes. Can they read our thoughts? I think you said something about that the other night, didn’t you? Well, I felt like she was inside my head.”
You know, no teacher or workshop leader has ever looked at me like that. When I was little I had a picture of Jesus on my bedroom wall, beside my mirror. He looked at me wherever I was in the room. Well, the Dolphin looked at me with that same kind of look. I know she was seeing right into me. There was no hiding, and the best part is, I didn’t want to hide anything. I could tell she loved me.”
What am I saying? Could this be real? I mean, do Dolphins care about us? I think this one did, I think she saw me and loved me...”
Debbie looked at me through her tear filled eyes and smiled. I smiled back, shining my encouragement to her. She ducked her head and shook it back and forth.
I stood up and paused. She stayed looking down, over the side of the boat into the healing blue waters. She reached out and stroked my foot twice and patted it.
I knew I could leave her for a while now. She was OK. She had been touched by a Dolphin.
The afternoon was calm and sunny, and we saw Dolphins several times in the distance, but none came to ride our bows or play. We sat under an awning set up in front of the large cabin amidship. I had just launched into a part of the Legend that concerns the establishment of a new relationship after so many years of darkness, during the era of global Whaling. I was talking about the importance of Dr. John Lillys work, identifying the extraordinary brains of the Dolphin and his attempts to understand his own mind, when the captain let out a shout.
We leapt up and saw in the distance a swirling, splashing froth of water ahead. Birds were circling overhead, diving into the water. We could see fins slicing thru the water, and flukes tossed upward then disappearing quickly.
The captain shouts out, “It’s a feeding frenzy! They are feeding on a swarm of fish. We’ll watch from over here...”
We watched the melee for fifteen minutes before it began to change. I told the group that what we were seeing was a combination of several pods of Dolphins who had come together to take advantage of a ball of fish, a cloud of fish that were being herded into a tight formation and forced to stay in that round ball while Dolphins were taking turns diving through the ball, eating as they went.
We were fortunate to see this, and when it began to slow down, we witnessed something rare. A Dolphin surfaced with a fish in its mouth. It tossed the fish over the water to another Dolphin! Letting out a squeal, the first Dolphin dove again and brought up another fish, tossing at again, at least twenty five feet across the water to another Dolphin. Just as it was about to reach the second Dolphin, a fluke appeared and batted the fish away. It was as if we were watching a game of fishball, and one Dolphin had hit a single!
We all laughed as we saw fish beginning to fly in many directions, the Dolphins sated and playing with their food.
We all laughed, but someone reminded us that this was not such a fun game for the fish. Sobered, we stopped laughing, but I noticed several people sharing silly grins nonetheless.
As we neared the island where we moor for the night, the spectacular sunset held us speechless. Huge rays of pink light streamed across the sea from the cloud banks over the mainland, out of sight over the curve of the earth. The rays passed far overhead in the purple clouds, disappearing behind us to the east.
The sky was still bright and we saw three Dolphins swimming slowly along. They turned toward the boat and joined us. They seemed to be gliding along without any effort, flowing in the waves from our bows. Their eyes were closed sometimes as they rose beneath our adoring gaze, looking for all the world as if they were in a sensuous dream.
I asked the captain to stop. He hesitated because dark was coming, but I asked for twenty minutes. We could see our mooring spot from where we were, so he decided to allow it.
The Dolphins stayed with us, moving slowly in the calm, mirror-like water. We slipped into the water slowly, silently. Everyone seemed to know this was a very special moment.
As I sank beneath the surface I saw that the blue of the water was much darker, visibility was shortened. The gleaming white bottom sand was almost invisible below us.
We stayed in a group, hanging together in a circle twenty feet across. I watched the Dolphins approach us, quizzically. One moved quickly, arrowing upward. It approached the circle, rising to a point just below our feet. It flipped over and swam belly up in a circle, looking at us. The other two swam around the outside of the circle, and the first one rejoined them. An excited chatter came from the three of them as they circled us. We were stunned into silence, watching. I raised my arm and pointed down. The group acknowledged and we all sank under the water.
In the silence we watched them circle. They whistled, then they split up and swam in different directions. We floated to the surface, our snorkels just sticking up in the air, masks down. The darkness was gathering and we could just see them when they re-appeared, streaking toward the point between us all, ten feet below.
They came in fast, the water buzzing with electricity, their ultrasound zinging through us. They seemed to be on a collision course and we all held our breath. At the last instant, they swerved a tiny fraction of a degree and passed each other, like a star folding quickly inside out, three tangents arcing past each other, disappearing into the surrounding dark.
We waited for a few more minutes, but it was obvious they were not coming back. We could all feel it, so we swam back to the boat and climbed aboard.
Quietly, we expressed our astonishment. Questions arose and dissolved again as we contemplated this magical and mysterious display. What could it mean? Why did they do this under us?
After dinner, we gathered on the deck under the warm starlight. I suggested an early night and several people asked me to lead a meditation.
I offered a guided journey,
a quiet glide into the deep end of the mind.
With guided breathing and soft voice
I led us into the Ocean below,
to explore the one essence of us all,
the water of the world.
I gave the picture of a single body, dispersed into all living things. I spoke of the water that is one water, one consciousness everywhere. We watched in our minds as the one Water Being spread out over the world at the beginning of time, growing tree-like forms of rivers and streams, the trunks in the Ocean. Around the watersheds grew plants, static forms full of water, once the mystery of cell walls was mastered. Then animals came, also water expressing itself in forms that could move about. Then a new animal arrived, one that knew it was water, it was aware of its origins. This new animal was man. He forgot for a while his relationship to his own inner essence. But once he made his way to the shore and discovered others who were aware, yet who had returned to the waters long ago, he started to remember.
Once water was loved again, it became the central focus of a new way of living. Water became recognized as the living form of the Spirit that enlivens us, the universal element that binds us all.
We came to see ourselves as temporarily separated drops of water, walking, talking and now remembering.
The Water Being welcomed us back to the Ocean of life.
We all slept well that night. The early morning found us all watching the sun rise again, over the Ocean. We would ask the Dolphins for another day among them...
