into the green

Spring has sprung in the Pacific North West and I loved how this trail looked like a green tunnel leading into the unknown ahead. These new leaves have just opened within the last few days and are glowing with new life green...

Today I was inspired to do just a short dance of gratitude for this spring day - wheeeee!

We continued our journey down the trail and broke out from the green and into the blue sky and sea environment, where we had the opportunity to witness a grey whale spouting and surfacing within a 100 yards from lighthouse point... so much grand beauty! We and several others kept 'wow-ing!' our exuberance every time it surfaced with so much inner joy, just for the fact that we were witnessing a creature so magnificent!

This site offers recent whale sightings in our area: Orca Network Sightings.

I was struck by how amazing it is that beings will come together from completely different places and at one precise moment we will share the same breathing space, so to speak, for a few moments. If we had have been 10 minutes later or earlier we would have missed this incredible encounter. There is something so magnificent about being so close to a wild being of that largess that makes your heart feel like it's breathing...

In retrospect it really did feel like this was a dance into the unknown marvels of the future, just minutes away... gratitude for Great Mystery... and sweet blessings to the grey whale on it's journey...

Okay - so the photo below doesn't really capture the whale too well at all, but I hope even this glimmer of it will amaze you in some way as to our precious interconnectedness with these beings? :~)

Well, perhaps this poem from one of my favorite poets will?? :~)

Humpbacks

There is, all around us,

this country

of original fire.

You know what I mean.

The sky, after all, stops at nothing so something

has to be holding

our bodies

in its rich and timeless stables or else

we would fly away.

Off Stellwagan

off the Cape,

the humbacks rise. Carrying their tonnage

of barnacles and joy

they leap through the water, they nuzzle back under it

like children

at play.

They sing, too.

And not for any reason

you can’t imagine.

Three of them

rise to the surface near the bow of the boat,

then dive

deeply, their huge scarred flukes

tipped to the air.

We wait, not knowing

just where it will happen; suddenly

they smash thorugh the surface, someone begins

shouting for joy and you realize

it is yourself as they surge

upward and you see for the first time

how huge they are, as they breach,

and dive, and breach again

through the shining blue flowers

of the split water and you see them

for some unbelievable

part of a moment against the sky —

like nothing you’ve ever imagined —

like the myth of the fifth morning galloping

out of darkness, pouring

heavenward, spinning; then

they crash back under those black silks

and we all fall back

together into that wet fire, you

know what I mean.

I know a captain who has seen them

playing with seaweed, swimming

through the green islands, tossing

the slippery branches into the air.

I know a whale that will come to the boat whenever

she can, and nudge it gently along the bow

with her long flipper.

I know several lives worth living.

Listen, whatever it is you try

to do with your life, nothing will ever dazzle you

like the dreams of your body,

its spirit

longing to fly while the dead-weight bones

toss their dark mane and hurry

back into the fields of glittering fire

where everything,

even the great whale,

throbs with song.

~ Mary Oliver ~ (American Primitive)

Thank you for viewing... it means a lot to me,

Lee

Music: Philip Glass

Filmed by Brooke

See my butoh mentor's inspiring blog here: Maureen 'Momo' Freehill