DREAMSCAPE: Whales & Wisdom
Sounds sent in the spaces between.
I recounted a dream just yesterday
While lying in bed, FaceTiming with a friend.
For days, we had been waiting to discuss whales.
He had sent me an article about scientists
Trying to make first contact
With these magnificent beasts, big and buoyant
Who live in the depths of the sea.
My favorite place to be:
With the water.
Apparently, some humans
Are learning how to speak whale.
And wondering if we could,
What we would say to them.
Some want to ask questions to extract information:
What is it like to live under the sea?
What can we learn from these
bodies burdened by boats and pollution,
trash and the obsession with capital and cash?
Then, these same scientists go on to question
The intelligence of these age old creatures
Who have existed millions more years than them.
Did I tell you?
Humans would “probably”
Send a woman
To make first contact.
Because whales are matriarchal.
In all of history,
A woman “may be” chosen first
Out of pure necessity.
Then, a female scientist wondered:
How could we help the whales?
Are our ships too loud?
Can we soften their sounds for you?
She communicated concern
That our first attempts at contact
Could hurt our huge friends,
Our companions in the ocean.
The author’s questions followed:
What would be our ethical responsibility
To answer?
If the whales asked us to quiet the sea,
Would we actually?
—
Once, I had a dream about them.
Whales that is.
Well, it started as a night terror,
But then changed.
Just like my life.
I was treading water
In a large, dark tank
Enclosed in a dome,
And aware that the whales
Were with me.
Orcas, the black and white ones
who some call “killers,”
Swam beneath my body.
Shaking with terror,
I was but a baby
To these beautiful beasts.
Tiny, breakable
An unsatiating meal
Of mostly bones,
And flesh,
And memory.
The whales swam closer to me,
As fear flooded my body.
Their round noses all
Steadily approached
My small frame
Simultaneously.
Then one went for it.
It nuzzled me with its nose.
Like a nose check.
Like the ones I do
With my one and half year old nephew.
To soothe him, to distract him,
To redirect his attention.
By putting my nose so
Close to his nose
Until it just bumps it.
Then smiling big
While saying “nose check!”
Don’t you see? It’s a game.
And the whales wanted
To play with me.
One by one,
They approached my body
With their slippery bits
And softly bumped me.
—
I arose from this dream
Feeling at peace.
The teachings communicated
To me through metaphor.
As if a dome had formed
Above my head,
And within it
Terrors grew with the mysteries of
A future filled with watery grief,
In the space between
What could’ve been,
No should’ve been
A safe history.
Always treading water.
Always nearly drowning.
The animals I expected to be
Killers turned out to be family.
Teaching me to play
Like I do with
That sweet baby.
While the past
Sat heavy in my
Embodied memory
Of a family:
Those expected to be safe,
Who instead, took everything from me.
—
It’s interesting to think
That we humans are
Claiming to make “first” contact
with whales by
Studying their sounds.
While for centuries
These heavy and hopeful historical beasts
Have been guiding us
In our sleep
Into playful mystery.
—
My friend and I both
Enjoyed the end of
the article best.
The truth that from our space station
Humans sent sounds on a golden record
Into the cosmos of many things,
including whales.
Just in case
Someone is living,
Listening.
That they know:
That whales are with us.
While we are just learning
To be with them.