The image I am including with today's blog is from a dolphin encounter I had many years ago in the open ocean. It is a bit hard to make out but still carries the energy of that magical time. It brings to mind a most amazing summer of 2012 experience with the dolphins that I live with here. I will hereby share that story.  

Still under the blue moon influence, I went swimming with my friend F. on this particular day. I was talking with her about Jacques Mayol (now dead) who of everyone on the planet, seems to echo my sense most identically of why dolphins are important. F. and I were just relaxing in the amazing velvety ocean when I  spot dolphins in the distance so, spontaneously I just started calling to Jacques Mayol from the 'other side' to connect with these dolphins in some manner. The dolphins began swimming in our direction and kept coming as I continued to call out to Jacques Mayol. Next thing F. and I knew, we were in the middle of the pod's fishing effort of rounding up fish and thwacking them into the air with their tails. It was a tight ball of activity and we were surrounded.

 F. does not go underwater (an ear thing) but I dove down and the dolphins were on all sides. I swam with them using same swimming motion they use. I would come up and there they were, head above water looking right at us from all sides. We were in a strong current so, F. and I just let the current take us. The dolphins also went with the current so, for 20 minutes, we were being towed down beach in the middle of a dolphin jamboree with people lining the shore watching and wondering what they were witnessing. We got sonared repeatedly by the dolphins which, I am convinced, has a big impact on human neurology.

 The whole thing was surreal. I have lived here for 14 years, and never have I felt so completely accepted as an honorary member of the pod while in the water. The water here is so murky that I cannot swim under and see like I can in the water in the Caribbean with the spotted dolphins, so it is harder to connect with the dolphins under this water, but this time was different from ever before. I deeply suspected Jacques Mayol had something to do with the whole thing. (Read my tribute to him on website under 'Why Dolphiins') F. was laughing with joy as she saw fish raining down on my head from the dolphin next to me thwacking them. We were clearly in some alter universe in this experience.  

Finally, F. and I had to go to land or the current would take us out to sea. The dolphins did go out to sea (this all happened in the river where it empties into the sea . . . I live on the river). So, we are now walking back to my place and people who had watched on shore are asking us all kinds of questions as we are making our way back, so interested and curious and wanting to know more.   F. needed to go home to pay her gardener so he could leave, but she felt the need to go back in the water, so we did. We are just swimming and suddenly, I became aware of a huge invisible sphere around us. It was from way up high and was filled with this enormous love.. I started to ask F. if she could feel it but she burst into tears and this big sorrow came out of her from a wound in her heart she has held all her life. She could not stop it. All I knew was we were in the middle of the most profound love in the form of an invisible sphere. I hugged her and let the sea rock her. After a short while, I felt the sphere release. She then left to ride her bike home. She told me later, she could not stop crying all afternoon. Big release. I KNOW something about interacting with the dolphins created that sphere. It was just extraordinary. There is so much to learn about what is possible at the interface of the sea and the land and the creatures of both. So very much. We are just at the edge of that understanding.

Two days later, the sphere returned, and I actually saw it visually. I have not seen it since but know it is still available and will return when enough people are open enough to that incredible field of potent love. 

Many years ago, a cry for help got my attention on a windy March morning while I was on my front porch. I followed the sound to a neighbor's house. They were not home but up on their second story where their air conditioning unit was, I heard an amimal in distress. A man with a ladder appeared right on time and went up and found a  very young kitten with its head caught in part of the A-C unit. The kitten was alone so the man handed him over to me. The kitten was so small, I had to feed him with a hyperdermic needle. Percy has been with me ever since, except for a period of three weeks.

Several years ago Percy, an indoor/outdoor cat, disappeared. I did everything to find him but no sign. I was bereft at the loss for this cat was such a fur ball of wonderfulness. When I could stop grieving long enough, I could tune in and I felt he was still alive. I felt that strongly. Then one day, I was walking past my neighbor's house on way to kayaking and I saw a hawk sitting on rail next to place where I originally found Percy. The house was being renovated at that time (the owners were out of state) and in the day the workers would be there and then at night they would close up and leave. They were gone for the day,

When I saw the hawk, I was drawn to ask it "Where is Percy?" The hawk looked at me and then stretched his neck and tilted his head back. I looked up and saw nothing. He did it a second time, and then he flew off.

The very next day, I woke up feeling Percy's presence so strongly. I just knew, even though he had been gone for three weeks, he was alive. I went kayaking in late afternoon and had an extraordinary time with the dolphins. I felt so good for some reason. As I am walking back to my house next to where I saw the hawk, I heard a meow. I looked up and saw the upstairs door was open and there on the balcony was Percy. I was over the moon and scrambling to figure out how to get to him but he got down to me. The hawk had indicated that Percy was behind him (in the house) but I didn't get it. I had asked the workers if they had seen Percy and they indicated not. Apparently, all the noise they were making kept Percy hiding in the house, and then he would be locked in at night.

Two things. When you are separated from a loved one, you absolutely can tune into them, if your own emotions don't get in the way. There are many reports of this kind of thing. Trust yourself. The other thing is, Nature is full of answers to our questions. The more we link with her, the more we will know how to hear what she is telling us. This is the time to re-cultivate this ability. We all have it.

Percy continues to be a 'cat extraordinaire.'

Today there was a solar eclipse, only not one that was visible from the Northern hemisphere. I could feel it nonetheless as I know you probably could too if you paused to notice. Like a tingling kind of buzzy feeling that makes one a bit woozy and even giddy.
 
I have only experienced a total eclipse visually once and it was a long time ago. I was in Maine, out in the open countryside. There were cows in a distant field and long before the light changed, they began restlessly moving around and moo-ing. Gradually, the sky started changing color as the moon began its journey across the face of the sun. It was the eeriest of sensations, very dream like and very mind altering. I can only imagine back in the times of early human history what that experience would have engendered. . . .. profound awe and fear in some combination I am guessing. This would have long preceded scientific understanding of natural events so the spiritual sensitivities of the people would have taken up the slack. They would have felt at the mercy of forces much larger than themselves, but they also would have been able to feel they were interwoven as part of such a profound event.

Now, of course, we are full of knowledge and facts. Eclipses no longer terrify us but they also no longer put us into a state of awe, unless . . . you do a little time travel and watch one as early man did.
 
Even in this century, there are some similar to stone age tribes that still live on this planet. Some of them may potentially have been in the path of the eclipse today. I'm sitting here imagining their reactions, can almost feel their presence, and for some reason, it is making my heart feel very warm. It's that human oneness thing kicking in. What can you say. We are just so connected.
 

Tomorrow is election day in these United States. The whole world is watching to see what we decide. This errant thought came into my head a little while ago. What if trees could vote? Not sure where the thought came from but it brought up a cascade of thoughts about what that would mean. Trees are willing to take a stand. When they live long enough, their roots go deep so they are very grounded in the truth of their perspective. Staying in one place for so long, they are able to know their environment very very well. Through the passage of time, they have witnessed so many different phases of life in their environs so they can discern what the threats are. They get much information about other places on the planet from the birds that sit in their branches and chirp out the news. They commingle with the stars in the night sky and have deep and farreaching exchanges in the quietude. They know better than to try to accomplish anything by moving too quickly. They can dance and do, with the wind, so they are not static. They are self healing and even if lightening strikes them, they can heal that too, and then live on in a more enlightened state.

If trees could vote, I think it is safe to say, they would do so from a place of much awareness and much wisdom they have accrued over time while staying deeply in touch with their own depths and heights and commitment to doing one thing well . . .taking a personal stand. So, on election eve, I would like to request, if you have not already voted, that you channel your inner tree and hie thee to the voting poll and vote as your tree would have you do. That way, trees do get to vote! That is what I will be doing.

Hurricane Sandy is swirling away, and her outer bands are creating amazing cloud tendrils from the winds aloft  I find during storm season and all the more so during actual storm events, I look up at the sky frequently. The clouds seem to be like hieroglyphics, speaking in a picture language that my subconscious understands.
 
This photograph to the left immediately communicates to me the open mouth of a Baleen whale. Whales are the largest mammal on the planet, and the Baleen whales live off krill, one of the tiniest ocean dwellers. When I think of the irony of that, I register the equal significance of the great and the small, and the need for both. There is something incredibly humble about the master mammal living off "the small."

Why do we need whales, you might ask. Would we miss them if they were gone? Since most people rarely see them, how would that loss register? You might as well ask me how we would do without air, which we likewise don't see. Whales are ancient (I mean REALLY ancient) beings who carry an intelligence beyond what we imagine or comprehend. We know they are smart but somehow to Westerners, smart seems to usually correlete with producing things, so the true contribution of the whale is anything but obvious.

There was a time when they were a highly sought resource for oil for lamps, baleen for corsets and ambergris for perfume fixative. Currently, there are cultures wanting whale meat as a food source. Because, human nature being what it is, we do not want to consider a resource we are exploiting to be equal to us in intelligence and in the evolutionary role on the planet. Just as in cases of slavery, the enslaved ones, or the ones targeted for our use, must be seen as inferior. Whales can't be that smart, or they would not let themselves be caught, goes one argument. Maybe survival of its body isn't the whale's top value. Maybe it  knows there is something much bigger at stake.

I would like to offer a whole other view, and if you have ever looked in the eye of a whale and seen who is looking back at you, this view will not seem far fetched. I think whales are the primary stewards of our earth. They are the record keepers of much of her history, and they know she is a Being that can only thrive when all the elements that are part of her are in balance. Whales are "doing" so much more than we have any idea of. When the masses come to understand the role they play, it will break many hearts that we did not know who they were sooner. But no matter. The past is the past. We have NOW. Whales are still here. I have a request to make of each of you. Find a picture of the eye of a whale, and gaze into it, without an agenda, for as long as you can. Don't think. Just notice what happens in you as you do this. I would love to hear from you about this particular blog. I honestly feel whales are completely integral to life on this planet. The sooner a much higher percentage of people recognize this piece, the better. Time is of the essence. And thank you for reading this to the end.

How is it even possible to look at the sun balanced on the edge of the horizon, and not know you are looking at a consciousness that is looking back at you. This used to be called 'animism', when human attributes are given to parts of nature, but that is just an idea, a name, a theory. Looking at the sun is an experience that stuns and penetrates and haunts. The beauty grabs us and won't let go, but something else is going on. It is called . . communication. Consciousness speaking to consciousness. Awareness . When we hold still while sungazing, something in the area of our heart opens like flower petals as the solar flares have their way with us. Truly, there are no words for these experiences that do justice but I am using words just to point to the fact that something phenomenal is happening when we give the sun our full attention, which we can do at sunset and sunrise. 

Ancient cultures worshipped the sun and considered it a god, many of them. Now, to many, the sun represents a threat due to a thinner ozone layer and climate change. All the more reason, in my book, we accept that the sun is very much our friend and may be doing a little tough love right now to help humans remember we are responsible as caretakers in this most amazing of worlds we live in. The sun is fire, but it is also light, and as we wake up and become enlightened to our part in the whole of Nature, the 'light' part will protect us from the 'fire' part. All that needs to be burned away is our ignorance. A part from that, the fire of the sun is nothing less than an example of what great joy looks and feels like. Even if you are crawling in a parched desert and your life is hanging on by a thread, even then, it is possible for your awareness of who the sun really is to give you peace at the end of your life. A strange thought, I admit, but not one without merit.

Yesterday was launch day for my new website. As I am always doing with the least provocation, I did a ceremony to bless and sanctify what this website will make possible in the way of giving back. I went out to the water under my favorite cedar tree with a crystal family member (an elestial) to hold the blessing. I stood and looked out on this perfect day to a mirror still body of water in front of me that just glistened with sunlight. No sign of dolphins at that moment. I opened the ceremony with tuning forks of the same hertz as the Phi ratio (the spiral of life). Then I called in all welcome attendants and commenced to read the blessing I had written on paper to be crumpled and burned in my baby chimenia. The smoke coming out of chimney was used to bathe and suffuse the crystal with the intentions of the read blessings, now going out in the form of smoke. Then I trot off to the water, crystal in hand, to bathe it in Mama Ocean and offer it up to the sun which is dancing off the surfaces of those amazing angles on the face of the elestial. The only sea life around are some sea gulls walking in the surf, cocking their heads at me. Back to the tree I go and look out again at the water, still unbroken and smooth as far as the eye can see. I am just so happy. The ceremony is now ready to wrap up. I express gratitude and am ready to sound the tuning forks in closing when . . . a dolphin shot straight up into the air (just like in the picture). Nature speaks back, just like she always does. To see that beautiful silver body hurtling into the air when all there had been was stillness was like a celebratory whoop. And this is why I love to do ceremony!