I don't know whether to say of visiting the Galapagos Islands that it was like stepping back in time, or stepping forward in time. Either way, it seemed to step out of time current in that, the wild animals had no fear of humans. Wild birds would land on our shoulders. You had to watch your step not to land on blue footed boobies, gooney birds, marine iguanas, seals or Sally Lightfoot crabs. Even the white tipped sharks I came upon while swimming seemed benign. They were taking a snooze in a rock cave with water currents circulating through their gills so they didn't have to stay in motion. Nothing about my presence alarmed them.

This land of so much peace and acceptance brings to mind Eden, or heaven on earth. We take for granted that wild things avoid us. There are exceptions, but they are rare. Here the exception was the rule. Humans were not suspect.

This state of affairs has been maintained because humans are only allowed to visit here in small numbers at a time and while being monitored. We are not given a chance to alarm these animals who have first claim for their environment. There is no where on earth that I am aware of that is a sanctuary to this degree. I am so grateful to have gotten to experience that a place like this really exists.

I fast forward to the muchly touted 'thousand years of peace on earth', the Golden Age to follow the long slow rise up out of the dark ages that humanity is inching through. My thought is that a large part of that anticipated peace will have to do with how humans behave with each other but also with the animal kingdom and the earth herself. I dream of levels of trust and respect. I dream of not needing to use animals for food, entertainment or any kind of a product and feeling privileged just to know them. I dream and I dream. I cannot stop dreaming. All things are possible when imagined enough. After all, someone dreamed the Galapagos Islands into reality. Let's see what else we can do.

Here you are, smack dab in the middle of your life, and YOU have to figure out what to do with it. Everyone has opinions about what you should do, how you should think, what makes you a good person, and what is life anyhow. Ultimately though, it is your job to make the best of it and outside help is often more confusing than helpful.

You are left to your own devices. You are in the boat of your body in the sea of life. You have the paddle of your skills and abilities, the clothing of the love you receive from others, but you have to choose where to paddle.

Fortunately, as we are choosing from the inside out, it becomes obvious, eventually, that we are anything but alone. In the inner sanctum of our being, we will find there is always at least one guide ready to offer assistance. This guide slides along just enough ahead of us to tell us, through our intuition, what we need to do in the next minute or two or ten. We will also discover that we are being watched over by parts of our soul that carry much more wisdom and perspective than our little personality selves, and that this oversoul is always there to be felt in times of need. The oversoul, or your High Self, of angels, or God Almighty (it matters not what you call it) is there to give comfort and courage, but not directions, at least not in the tradtional sense of spelling out exactly what to do.

When we feel the "Presence" of the oversoul and we heed the guidance of our intuition, a beautiful peace, like a calm sea, comes over us. These are the times we know we are privileged to be having a human experience, and these are the times we can see life as an adventure, and not something to be feared. We are always more prepared than we know. Live long enough, and you will laugh about how true that is.

That said, forward ho the paddles.

Dolphins and other animal beings seem to love the pointer finger touch. Such a simple thing, really, to touch someone but so eloquent. In that one touch, a whole range of things is expressed from "I see you" (think 'AVATAR') to "I like you" to "I love you mightily" to "I want to connect" to "thank you" for this privilege" and on and on.

My rules about connecting with dolphins is to do things on their terms, when they are ready. I spend my summer being around them both from in the water and from my kayak. What I have noticed is, when a dolphin is ready to connect, it is an actual feeling I get inside myself that lets me know that. Their body language also tells the story but, because of how much time I spend with them, it has become  clear to me when they are ready for contact.
 
Sometimes, when I touch them, they just hold still. They make the move first (I offer my finger) but then, different things follow. Usually by this time, I feel on their wave length so I know what is going on with them, and they absolutelly understand where I am coming from. I have long since figured out they like chasing my finger in the water when I make circular rings . . .that is a game. But the touching is something else. It is an exchange and it is always very thrilling to me  when that happens.

We humans are verbal. (So are dolphins, for that fact.) When we call friends or family on the phone just to catch up, that is a form of reaching out and touching someone (Ma Bell used that as a powerful advertising message for years until the phrase became iconic). After a phone call, somehow, the call ends and we go back to other things.The call could go on for minutes or hours but the end result is, we touched and were touched by someone else, and the exchange had meaning. We don't give it much thought, but without such reaching out, who knows what the impact would be. Not good as any elder in a nursing home can tell you.

So much of what I learn from dolphins boils things down to its essence. To touch a dolphin, feel the connection, feel this has meaning for them and feel the "afterglow" shows me in a nutshell, the power of what happens when any two, be they human or other, reach out to touch, especially when we have no agenda other than wanting to connect. Dolphins do this with each other constantly - just rub a fin on a passing dolphin, and we humans do some of this but likely not nearly as much as we need to feel like 'pod members' with all of the safety and satisfaction that implies.

This is the time of year for spreading cheer. A holiday card reaches out and touches, and so does an arm around a waist in a moment of spontaneous affection. Maybe fewer words and more touching is what we hunger for. What do you think? Let me know. 

Read the previous blog about "Worlds Dolphins Take Us Into". This painting was my daughter-in-law's response to this account when I emailed it to her this summer. This came through her to paint . . . a picture of my friend F.'s healing.

Stephanie also did all the artwork on my website. She is a talented artist who is opening to whatever is coming through her as her heart expands and expands. She is on the same journey we all are, and I dearly love the form it takes with her art.

As the Northeastern United States struggles to put the pieces back together after Hurricane Sandy's wind and waves left her imprint, I am reminded of an hour I spent several summers ago in the company of an aged bird whom I felt had much to share. He looked worse for the wear, and I knew his days were numbered, but I wanted to spend some time with him gleaning what I could about his years of flying and fishing and what all of that gave to him. I sat next to him and he was fine with that. He did not appear to be suffering. Just tired, and ready to go. Once again, an animal was teaching me about death and what a natural thing it is

 I knew this pelican had witnessed many of Nature's phenomena, including storms, very high winds, heat, cold, ocean swells of every calibre. He may have had to deal with hunger and sickness. He clearly had lived a long time for a pelican so I would say, he was successful as the wonderful life form he was. As a baby bird, he had managed to move past that tricky period where he had to learn how to successfully dive and catch his prey. Young pellies don't all make it past that stage. It is harder than it looks to nail a fish from high in the air.

Why am I remembering this wonderful time spent with a wise old bird on the edge of my being very aware of what people are going through up North in the wake of the storm? I think it has to do with the concept of wisdom itself that that bird represented to me, and how life is all about how you live it in the moment, how you respond, what you care about, how do you feel about others, how much do you flow with events, do you understand how everything is connected. How did I get all that from a pelican? That isn't even the half of it. I got that living in the wild is a slippery slope and, if you live long, that is ofttimes the exception and not the rule, but that length of days is not what is important. Did you love your life? Did you learn and grow? Did you ENJOY your every day experiences. If you can say yes to those things then, storms can have their way with you and you will not be deprived of the best life has to offer.

I remember it was hard to get up from sitting next to this bird, but there came a point in which I felt the need to give him some space. The transmission was complete. I walked away and did not see him again but he is with me always. He remains a reminder that life is a gift and that the wrappings of the gift can be strange, and not to be put off by that. We are lucky just to be able to have our experiences and choose how to receive them.

That particular pelican is gone but he lives on in all the other pelicans here. I never tire of watching them do their pelican thing. Every day that I watch them and soar with them is one more day the gift of life registers big time. I hope many of the coastal Northerners look up during these days and weeks ahead and catch a glimpse of a swooping pelican. That one glimpse could make their day.

Something happens to me when I follow the path of the sun while kayaking. I go into an altered state in which everything feels timeless and very very vivid. My nervous system opens wide and all defences drop.

Today, in that state, these two dolphins came up. They turned and swam right under my bow and as they did that, I could feel their field of awareness. I would say field of thought, but thought was not involved. It was just this knowing that they knew I had opened completely.
 
In actuality, they are the ones that trained me to do this. It is kind of interesting how you will frequently hear said of people who learn to connect with animals in the wild that it takes time and the animals (or 'beings' as I rather prefer) have to learn to trust you. I think what takes time is for us humans to learn how to drop our defences completely. Especially with dolphins, I feel they are just waiting for all humans to learn this. They are not impatient with us because they have a very full and rich life in the meantime, but I do distincly get that our destiny and theirs is entertwined for the purpose of helping us remember what safety and belonging feels like so that fear may just fly out the window and we can return to honoring all of which we are a part. Sometimes I imagine dolphins might say of different individuals "well, that one got it" and consider it a good day's work. For some reason, they never give up on us.

We all know what happens when you approach a crab head on. Zoom! It goes sideways in record time to get as far away from big bad you as possible. They do not want to become crab cakes.

So . . . when I encountered this cutie pie on the beach and he seemed to want to make some small talk with me, I was stunned. So I did my thing. I tuned into the "communicate with the critter" channel, and we did indeed have a very pleasant visit, including a little head massage.

My heart opened so wide to this little fellow. His lack of fear and giving me trust, just like it always does, deeply moved me. After a while, I gave him his space, and he went for a swim in the surf while casting one of his eyes on a stalk back in my direction as if to say "see ya." Made my day is what he did. Made my day.

Home again. Peru is one of those places I will always return to because I feel so "found" there, among the mountain "apus" (gods). On my most recent sojourn to Peru, I was re-visiting the profound place that is Machu Picchu and, there was hardly anyone else there as it had been raining hard, which it rarely did that time of year. I practically had the whole place to my self. The rain had stopped so I am  clambering over steep stones in a thick mist and just opening my senses to what is emanating from the land itself, with all it holds from another time. The irony is, I was alone, but that is the least alone I had felt in a long time. I felt every stone was talking to me, telling me its story. The mountains themselves were presiding over all exchange. The beauty visually of all I saw was stunning, but what I was most aware of was the auditory. I heard so much on so many levels.
One thing I heard was a bird chirp. No matter where I went, I heard it. I finally sourced it. This little bird was going everywhere I went. He, like I, was alone. He seemed so somehow aware of what he was doing. He was small but his presence was big.

I share all this as a reminder that, it is through our physical senses that so many doors open to 'the greater.' Our body is the means of coming into understanding of the extraordinary as it hides out in the ordinary. The energies of Machu Pichhu were there before the structures were built. I am convinced the reason they were built there had something to do with the impact of feeling the body's responses to the area. This sometimes is called Sacred Geometry. Whatever you call it, all of us are capable of using our bodies and our senses to know what is lurking behind the scenes as potential. Every time I am in Peru, that awareness returns to me full force. How do I know about such things? Let's just say, a little bird told me.

 It's been several years now since this happened but I share it as such an example of their being no limits to what is possible when boundaries to communication between species is opened wide. I was out kayaking in the ocean on a coldish day and I saw what looked like a drowned butterfly floating on the water. I plucked him out of the water and put him next to my body, not knowing if he was dead or alive. I paddled home and by now he was reviving from being close to body heat. I kept him overnight (grew quite fond of him and named him "Blake") and even brought him breakfast in bed the next morning (had to find a blossom). He seemed fine so I released him and he flew off. About four hours later, I was walking on the beach in a stiff wind,. One of the things that made what happened next unusual is that in general, on a cold and windy day, you will not see butterflies because, well, because it is cold and windy. Nonetheless, a butterfly landed on my shoulder and stayed there, in spite of the wind, for about 20 minutes. I passed a man walking on the beach, and just to make sure I was not imagining, I asked him if there was a butterfly tucked next to my neck. He looked and said there was. I have no doubt it was Blake returning to say thank you. Once I got away from the stiffer wind of the beach and was heading home, Blake took off. 

Nothing in me doubts that there was a true communion going on. I have many stories like this, which I will be sharing because I know how important it is that our hearts learn to open and meld with all critters, no matter what form they take, and that when we do open in such a way, the most improbable things happen. It's not just that I am 'an animal lover.' I am a lover of humans becoming all we can be, and until and unless we re-join our connections with the natural world, of which we are very much a part, we will suffer limitation. The veil between all parts of nature and humans is thinner than ever for those ready to become St. Francis of Assissi's in training. There is so much joy to be had in these connections.