Saturday, March 27, 2010

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

1 comment:

  1. oh, how lucky we are to have such magnificence available to our senses still as we live by/in the city. i cherish these creatures...i have never seen one in the sound yet...what a treat! thank you for the poem too....i felt it--and your sense of humor!

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