Dolphin & Orca Meditation
Written in Seattle, WA as a meditative reflection of “Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals” by Alexis Pauline Gumbs (Author), available from AK Press
D
eep inside of soul, there is a rhythm connected to my own heartbeat.
For as long as I can remember, it has been trapped there, waiting for recognition; somewhere in the ether, and also, deep inside of my chest. It vibrates on a very specific frequency, and it reminds me of something like sonar or echolocation.
This voice was not something I did, or that I earned. It was given to me, by my Creator. This voice is meant to be intrinsically free; in this voice lays the power of life and death and ultimate freedom, and message of every lesson that I (we — the heart collective) have ever learned. In this voice and these speech patterns, there is latent wisdom of the ancestors and our natural, native tongue.
It is important that we, as Earth Angels, recognize this gift of our native rhythm and mother tongue. It is lifeblood. Much has been given that we are even able to have that, and much has been restored that we are so naturally able to connect with it. It is also important that we recognize this — this — speech pathology, for lack of a better word, was given and intended to us so that we may be free; it was given so that we might creatively express ourselves, and in doing so, become much more like that of our original lifeform (Creator Self). selah
This naturally gifted, Given voice, is not supposed to be trapped there; it is much like the voice that is given to the Angels. It is very much to be considered, a gift. When we rise up and express ourselves, it is a given that others in our presence and under the “sound” of our voice and our interconnected poetry cannot help but to Become, freedom.
This is the All that connects us to the One.
It is like a voice for the voiceless. Like the dolphins, My Eye sees by the sounds of frequencies connected to the bouncing-offs of my voice it carries with us — yes, this gift is very deeply interconnected and intwined with the frequencies; My voice is One.
Sometimes, we reach the perceived boundaries. We go into the deepest depths where the waters is frigid and cold, and I don’t know what we expect, but because we are mammals and defined by our warm blood, I guess cold is what we expect. To be human, this means confined movement, lack of trust, of dignity, of spinal chord arrhythmia, and of a lack of self-respect. Oh yeah, and Aloneness.
I guess to me the icy dark deeps is intrinsically connected to the Aloneness.
But then I think of bats.
Also mammals, these warm-blooded creatures are our brethren — mammalians with wings. When I close my eyes and breathe deep, I can connect to them with breath. I see their hair and blood-filled veins, and the warmth of circulation vibrates through their bodies as they bare teeth and connect with breath. They are trance. Intrinsic. Entrancic. Enchantment (but if we strip away the fairy tale magic and leave us with the raw, available life that is left).
What wonders it could do for our deeply entrenched depression if we could learn to love like the bats. The aural wonders trained and raised by no masters, deep calm in darkness, living their lives in these caverns. Deeply individuals, they cannot help but connect to the core, vibrating out like blankets and tapestries across webs of darkness and dung piles, stalactite columns suspended from the ceiling, formed drip by drip like limestone crystals of great magnitude, and all of this is just my imagining. What wonders and betrayals become these creatures when they are left alone their in the dark? What wandering eyes of humans have left nothing but the burial grounds of these deep bats’ ancestors, buried beneath the rubble piles and the ashes our torches have left as we strained to see with beady eyes and desperateness the lessons of our forefathers, lost to time and secrets buried in order to restore and restrain and self-protect — this planet — our guides — We are not worthy of their wisdom. And yet-
There are no longer stars in our/their eyes, we can look deep when we close our minds, shut our mouths, and rest our eyes, reaching out no need to shout, but just to let it all come floating down in nothing but a whisper. Letting the hairs in our ears become our guides, our steers, listen for the angels and the demons we have projected onto these life forms for centuries.
“We are restless”. “We are blood lust.” “We are the monsters you have made us.” “We are thirsty.” And yet, we eat mosquitos and dine on the bugs you curse under black velvet skies of stars and protect your backyards while you fear us and pray for the light to return, that we may go back dormant until you rest and rise from your bed, never really knowing or asking or ACKNOWLEDGING the Power of the Night. This too, is Blackness. This too, is a refusal to honor or ascribe to the Self-Worth that has long been denied, and to Whom you refuse to give recognition or ancestors or answers. This too, is White.
Long recognized privilege that has gone unpunished, long wordy poetry that has yet to recognize, this isn’t about us (white man), we yearn to recognize the greatness buried beneath the fenceposts at the edge of our beds, we refuse, we won’t acknowledge this entire settlement nay civilization that was built upon the burial grounds of black and red and yellow men, we won’t acknowledge that when the Sun sets, it begets an unprecedented Darkness goes deeper than skin. We won’t ask that big question… we suppress the proposal, No we won’t just yet walk back into the realm or region of marriage or rehearsal or reunion of kin.
We can’t just cry on shuddered shoulders, we are (white men) afraid of what retribution might await you (me) when we open the floodgates to blood curls and cries and screams of mutual recognition of the pain we have caused in just one lifetime lived as human existence. Excruciating wisdom we carry just beneath the surface and yet it flows in the rhythms of our veins heart beats pumping this information that we cannot deny is causing us sickness until we awake-kin and acknowledge that we and all things, all rhythms and all heartbeats and all hairs and species and even the caverns we carry are interconnected.
Until we rise up to reckon with the Cognizance of Oneness, there will really be nothing but breadcrumbs left; scattered pieces of my own body, left as staling bread, maybe even the bats will feed on this, so my lone piece of isolation will become intrinsic, linked back through the messages we carry in our digestive system, back into bloodlines and recognizance, that I might become encoded in some foreign bloodlines microbiota and eaten souls, reincarnate as dung piles, back into the collective mess, nothing is wasted- not even souls. Not even this.
Us beats our wings as blindly messages are carried off from our chest, this arrythmia finally carried far and wide enough to become re-enfolded through the calming wisdom of time and echolocation, each souls’ heart gently changing the narrative, and ever so slightly rearranging it, so that this information carries in it, a bit more information each time it goes and grows, until it finally reaches it- the original heartbeat- as Nature intended it.
Re-enfolded.
Next time you wonder into a Cavern of Deep Wisdom and Spirit Connection with a bat, ask it-
“Hello, friend. May I connect with your resonance?”
“What is the message you carry?”
“What might I learn from it?”
Spirit Wisdom answers,
“We are the Deep Sea Navigators. We are the Feelers. We are the Earth’s poets. We are the borers, the circumnavigators, the ones whom you always carry with us. We are the Eyes that go below the surface. We are the ones who go where no one else can go.”
“We are the ones who dig deep, whose eyes are always just below the horizon line and dip below the surface, that we may mine and carry and show the message that goes below the perceived/percepted boundary lines of the Soul.”
“We are the Ones whom your Soul well knows.”
“We are both the Beauty, the Eye, and the Beholder. We are all interwoven, intrinsically linked in our soul, intertwined, enterfolded.”
“We are both Beauty, the Spine, the Light Column Candleholder, and the Beast. We are the Earth’s Rhythms, the long Laylines, and the Poets. We are everything and everywhere and everybody, and we are/can hold/can contain All of it. Omnipotent. We are Timeless.”
(There is more. There is so much more… but I don’t think I, the writer, can contain or have the energy for it).
In this lesson, there is but One Greatest Acknowledgement:
For us to Behold, we have to First, Look for It.
Which is to also share this message-
Speak first, for you know your heart’s the poet- but then,
Pause
Look for it. Long for it.
But first, Acknowledge it.
You know your heart’s a compass. You know this land’s a map. We are not omit this circle created by the Earth’s electromagnetism.
There is something here that is Asking for it. This thing is ancient wisdom, knowledge, and you have long been ready for it. We are prepared, but we have not been ASKING FOR IT.
What is the thing latent, deep within you, that is asking you to acknowledge it? To recognize it?
What is it that feels trapped beneath your skin, this voice for the voiceless? It has long been connected to your kin. It is connected to the Voices of Angels. It is your Song. It is Your Earth’s Song. We are ready, here, connected, and asking you to please, join us, in Singing it. ((Unearthing it)). ((Breaking it up above ground, and back onto/into the surface layer)) ((Becoming IT).
We are asking you to help us in re-coordinating it; it reconnecting it up and down the Earth’s regenerated Spinal Column; We are here, we are trapped in it, but also here, in you now, asking you for your help in Unearthing it; When you sing, we can finally recredit, reconnect, reignite- RE UNITE — Coming back home into Oneness, connectedness, into intergenerational Home and Secret and Family, Deep Togetherness. Recognizance. Re-awareness. Redirection of kin and skin and hope and human and star family, and deep deep deep togetherness.
Forever and forever.
Peace, love, family, Togetherness.
Akin. Amen. Omen.