Singing Storms to Silence
Leaping
Dancing on wave tips
Joyous and Free
Swift Messengers
upon the Waves,
Lo, They come!
Singing of…
“Laughter!”
Glimmering
Blue and Silver with
foaming flowers trailing after
“We will teach you
how to navigate
the Waters of Life
Listen!
Every sound has its meaning.
Map how you move
through this Life.
Feel the answer in your bones,
along your skin
Then you too may Dance
upon the most
Storm-tossed Waves
Heal with Music and Sound
Guide yourself by the echoes
from both
Future
and Past
Breathe…
for Breath is Music
a Doorway
into the World
where Dreams Abound
With a breath,
a sound
a song
a sigh
Heralds of Poseidon or Bacchus,
We guard that Door
and invite you through
Surrender
we will guide you
in all that you do
Listen!
Soar upon the Deep Silence
the endless
Transformation of Creation
You will find
that your freedom
unconditional love
your healing
have already begun.
Explore the deep Seas
of Empathy and Wisdom
by sailing Dreams
Unfolding and Vast
We will take you to Shores
that you never Dreamt
might break in waves
over your humble Reality
The child within cradled
in Creator's eternal love
Home at last."
For those new to the game, each poem is inspired by a Teacher found in Nature; a star, stone, animal, plant etc that holds lessons of Wisdom for us. Can you guess who is singing today? Congrats to Desert Dreamer, Jan Neavill Hersh and Windi (Jaguarwombyn) for naming these Teachers!
“At the height of laughter, the universe is flung into a kaleidoscope of new possibilities. " Jean Houston
“For breath is life, and if you breathe well you will live long on earth.” Sanskrit Proverb
“There is more to life than increasing its speed.” Mahatma Gandhi
Dolphins are Cetaceans, a group of aquatic mammals which includes Whales and Porpoises. Their young are born live underwater, and then guided to the surface by the mother and/or pod members for their first breath. They guide themselves through vast and treacherous waters by song. They leap and glide with agility and joy through the Waters, they play, they laugh and they have even learned some of our language. I’ve always wondered what we might overhear if anyone ever took the time to learn their language!
This adept Teacher will help you improve communication skills whether you want to understand and communicate better with yourself,r someone else, or simply with the World and All Our Relations. This Teacher, being one of the four guardians of Dreamtime, is also a great one for Dreams, and Navigation. If you feel lost at Sea, there are few guides as adept in deep or treacherous waters as the Cetaceans!
Dolphins are gregarious, laughter loving messengers who have been noted throughout our history for their intelligence and many acts of kindness. Countless humans have been rescued from rough waters by Dolphins, and they have even been known to share their knowledge of a good school of fish with fishermen. You can’t get much friendlier than a shared lunch at Sea!
Perhaps the very best time to call upon Dolphin is when we are having difficulty hearing or connecting to the heartbeat of our World which we know intuitively, even when we fight that secret tide within us. When we feel most cut off, most overwhelmed by thoughts and emotions, or out of sync with the World, loyal Dolphin will teach us how to listen to our selves, to others, and the World. Dolphin gently shows us how to navigate our lives back to where we want, and most especially, need to be.
Dolphin is especially concerned with our mental, emotional and spiritual selves. Dreamtime is the perfect way to connect to this Teacher as we are at our most receptive, and potentially our most confident, while asleep. Lucid dreaming and dream journals are especially important to those called by the deep Dreaming Cetaceans, and Dolphin often acts as the Herald of Whale, who carries all of Dolphin’s lessons plus the Wisdom of the Sea. Dolphin may even show up in our dreams as a Herald of another Teacher entirely, as a co-operative effort to get our attention more firmly focused on the message we are about to receive. If Dolphin is the wandering Bard of Life’s Waters, than Whale is the Teacher of Bards and a Master Singer in her own right.
Anyone having difficulty with their sleep patterns, in addition to any medical attention necessary, should take steps to connect to these mighty Healers. Dolphin, Whale, and the beautiful Sea Turtle are three of the most skilled Navigators, most intuitive, nurturing, and creative guides I have ever experienced. The more severe your issues with Sleep and the world of Dreams, the more likely these Teachers are to be of help to you. As always though, approach with Respect and Love when asking any of Our Relations for help. Darting gaily through our deepest inner waters, Dolphin connects us to our own Sub-conscious, latent gifts, and the laughing playfulness of our inner child.
“The dream is the small hidden door in the deepest and most intimate sanctum of the soul, which opens to that primeval cosmic night that was soul long before there was conscious ego and will be soul far beyond what a conscious ego could ever reach.” Carl Jung
Dolphins are air-breathing mammals who live entirely in water. Breath, as one may imagine, is an especially vital topic and unique experience to Cetaceans. Dolphin teaches us to access and manage different aspects of our lives through our use of Breath. Yoga, which teaches us how to breathe properly, and other vocal training are not only recommended by Dolphin, they are highly useful too!
I am thankful that I learned Yoga and began practicing Meditation at such a young age, even though I’m not as consistent or as successful at it now as I was then. To this day, when I am at my most stressed I am likely to turn to these lessons to cope. Whether it takes the form of simply regulating ones breathing, verbal expression, singing, crying, laughing, or taking the time for good music to impact upon you, felt along the the skin as well as within the heart. All of these methods are healing, and have their time and place.
Intuition, like breathing, should be instinctive. One of the easiest, perhaps the most natural way to access or build our intuitive abilities is through Dream work. Ones approach to Dreams is going to be guided by your beliefs, but I do recommend some serious study on the matter of Dreaming in general, and specifically Lucid Dreaming, to those called by any of the Cetaceans.
Any other methods of developing your intuition are going to be wholly defined by your beliefs and choices. You could try something as simple as meditating, guessing “red” or “black” with a deck of cards or similar devices, but ultimately it comes down to being centered and grounded within your self, trusting yourself, paying attention to the World around you, and learning to interpret the many signals you are bombarded with all the time.
More often than not, we need to step back from our busy schedules, and take the time to appreciate simple yet powerful things in our life like Silence, Breath and Sound. As I write this, it is a quiet rainy afternoon and no one else is home besides our three sleeping dogs. Not wanting to clutter up all that beautiful solitude even with lovely music, I took time today to just listen to a summer storm, the gentle snores of the dogs punctuated with dream noises, the interweaving of bird songs with the small daily noises of humanity, and my own breathing.
I quickly grew so calm that Music was a welcome refresher! I certainly didn’t want to surrender one moment of this gorgeous heart-thumping perfection of silence and solitude for the ephemeral delights of Dreaming though. There are many times when I wish I could simply retreat into the woods for a week or two of filling my days up with appreciation for Sun, Wind, Silence and Solitude, and my nights with Dreaming, as I find it very rejuvenating.
“When the breath wanders the mind also is unsteady. But when the breath is calmed the mind too will be still, and the yogi achieves long life. Therefore, one should learn to control the breath.” Svatmarama, Hatha Yoga Pradipika
“Inhale, and God approaches you. Hold the inhalation, and God remains with you. Exhale, and you approach God. Hold the exhalation, and surrender to God.” Krishnamacharya
Dolphins are amazingly sensitive and intelligent creatures. There are many programs now that provide therapy time between Dolphins and certain individuals like Autistic children, Downs syndrome, depression, and cancer patients, that have met with great success. There have actually been cases too of a family with no particular issues participating in some sort of “dolphin swim” only to find that the experience brought about some pretty amazing results. I find it fascinating, for example, that Dolphins have spontaneously alerted unsuspecting people to tumors or other life-threatening medical conditions.
Being masters in detection through the use of sound, Dolphins can tell if a woman is pregnant, if a bone was broken in previous years, or if a person needs special care and attention due to some other condition like arrested mental development. In fact, researchers likely do not fully understand yet all that a Dolphin “reads” from us or even affects us when we slide into the water next to them and they examine us with their echolocation organ, the melon, located within their heads. Nor are we capable, yet, of asking and communicating directly with the dolphins although it has been proven that they have a complex language of their own.
What we can do is observe and draw conclusions. When, for example, an Autistic child is put into the water with Dolphins, he or she is examined by the dolphins both physically and with their melon, and then any observer can see how gently the dolphins instantly begin to interact with the child. There are around 40 species of Dolphins alone, within the Cetacean family. Such behavior coupled with the countless accounts of spontaneous dolphin kindness, aid during dangerous conditions, and general friendliness make it impossible for me to deny their status as sentient beings. Perhaps it is their very complexity that promotes Dolphins as symbols of freedom, creativity, the constant changes experienced throughout a lifetime, the thirst for learning, and most importantly the ability to meet adversity with a cheerful and willing heart.
Just as there is no life for us without breath, there is no spiritual evolution nor creativity without adversity. Humanity has butchered hundreds of Dolphins either purposefully or through disregard and carelessness. Yet, they do not seem to hold that against an individual in need who happens across their path. Wild or contained by human care, Dolphins are amazing Teachers with a tremendous amount of generosity and kindness. Perhaps my favorite lesson from Dolphin is deceptively simple.
Dolphins show us that Life is filled with dangers and hardships, but we won’t gain any happiness by dwelling on these aspects. We must be willing to let go of our baggage and our conception of “time usefully employed”, and begin simply to accept that sometimes doing nothing but enjoying the moment we are in, engaging enthusiastically in some form of play, simply to be is all that is really required of us. No matter the severity of the hardships we are facing, when we maintain calm, happy and loving demeanor (even if we don’t particularly feel those emotions at the time) we are lessening the hardships we face, and lightening the burdens of those around us as well.
Sometimes, even though nothing tangible has been achieved, this aspect of Dolphin wisdom may be all that can carry us through the worst in life. No one can make us feel anything, good or bad, without our consent. It’s not always easy to accept this truth, but that doesn’t make it less true. When someone has wronged us, of course we are going to feel hurt and angered. That does not mean we have to act out of hurt or anger though.
It is always far better to allow such destructive emotions to be expressed and then set aside before we make any decisions or take any actions. This will take time, awareness, patience, many failures and a great deal of compassion for others and for our selves. The gentle song of the Dolphin can help guide us back to a more caring and wiser course. We cannot ask for a better example to follow, than these kind finned cousins. What a marvelous World it might be when we finally begin to learn from and truly interact with All Our Relations.
Although Dolphins do not have any olfactory nerves or lobes and are believed to posses no sense of smell, they do have acute hearing, excellent vision, sensitive touch, streamlined bodies built for speed in water, and their ability to echo-locate to act as tools to their intellect. They are capable of learning some complex and amazing routines, and have even been known to protect human swimmers from sharks by keeping the swimmer within their circle.
Social creatures, they travel in pods of up to a dozen individuals and have been known to teach their young how to use tools! Off of the coast of Australia, researchers discovered dolphins who broke off sponges and then used them to protect their snouts while they foraged for food. This knowledge was being passed from mother to daughter, and researchers are not sure yet why the males seem unable to adopt this skill. Dolphin people also tend to be sensitive, physically and metaphysically, to their surroundings. While this can be a tremendous asset, it can also drive you crazy if you don’t recognize the signals you are receiving.
For example, if a sensitive Dolphin person enters a room filled with family members who are fighting with each other, it is impossible for them not to feel all those destructive emotions whatever they might be; fear, anger, resentment, despair, etc. The trick then is to recognize that these emotions are not yours, and having achieved that awareness to then make the best decisions possible based upon sound reasoning and a compassionate heart regardless of what others in the situation may feel, say, or do.
To take it a step further, Dolphin recognizes that we are All family even if we aren’t all lucky enough to be finned and playful like the Cetaceans. To treat all the World, not just blood family nor humans alone as if they deserve consideration, respect, love and kindness is no easy task in life either. It takes a great deal of courage to be that open to the World, to potential hurt, for you cannot be an individual capable of such generous true emotion without feeling the many hurts and ills of the World around you.
Healing, Change, Unconditional Love and Universal Harmony, Wisdom, Creativity, Compassion, Sensitivity, Spiritual Insight, Balance, Freedom, the importance of Sound and the expression of Joy are all Dolphin lessons. These fascinating Creature Teachers have a truly astounding wealth of wisdom to impart to us. Dolphins and Whales were one of the first Creature Teachers that captivated me, and I continue to learn from them in unexpected ways as the years pass.
Dolphins appear in our literature, films, and other cultural expressions.
My particular favorite is Diane Duane’s marvelous book, Deep Wizardry, and I highly recommend it as an excellent way to stir your own connections to the Sea, Dolphins, Whales, and Sharks. I hope someday to experience swimming with the Dolphins myself, but I cannot recommend connecting to these Teachers too often, however you can and in whatever way available to you. How does the empathetic Dolphin appear in your life?
“You may seek companionship and warmth, for example, but if your unconscious intention is to keep people at a distance, the experiences of separation and pain will surface again and again until you come to understand that you, yourself, are creating them. Eventually, you will choose to create harmony and love. You will choose to draw to you the highest-frequency currents that each situation has to offer. Eventually, you will come to understanding that love heals everything, and love is all there is.
The journey may take many lifetimes, but you will complete it. It is impossible not to complete it. It is not a question of if but of when. Every situation that you create serves this purpose. Every experience that you encounter serves this purpose. " Gary Zukav “The Seat of the Soul”
“If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live.” Lin Yutang
Key Concepts: Soul, Navigation/Exploration/Travel, Dreamtime – specifically reaching Dreamtime through meditative breathing, Healing, Compassion/Universal Love, Wisdom/Knowledge/Spiritual Insight, Song/Music/Sound especially as a healing force, Freedom, Breath of Life, Sensitivity, Creation/Creativity, Harmony, Balance, Communication, Trust in Creator, Fellowship, Fortune, Resurrection, Guidance, Leadership, Fertility/Sexuality, Two-spirited wisdom/Duality, Weather wisdom, Transcendence
Associated With: Neptune/Poseidon , Mannon Mac Lir, Lir, Delphin, Apollo, Aphrodite, Eros/Cupid, Nehalennia, Cernunnos, Astarte, Ishtar, Isis, Epona, Minerva, Dionysus/Bacchus, lunar and solar energies, male and female energies
Potential Balancing Energies: Fish like Mackerel or Salmon , Water , Whales, Sharks, Kelp, Krill, Crustaceans like Shrimp, Seastars ,Squids, Otters , Seals, Mollusks like Oyster , Horse , Deer , Bison/Buffalo , Cattle, Birds like Swan , Hummingbird, Pelican or Seagull, Delphinius star group, Sea Turtle , Trees like Pine , Cottonwood or Willow , stones like Larimar, Aquamarine, Dalmatian Jasper, or Pearl
