The ocean can be a dark and perilous place, but much less so when you have a friend.
Over the weekend, crew members aboard a whale watching vessel off the coast of Long Island spotted an all-too-common sight -- a humpback whale that had become hopelessly entangled in fishing line, unable to swim. As they moved in for a closer look, they soon discovered that the whale, although desperately trapped, was at least not alone. The buddy-system, it seems, was in force.
Christine Callaghan, a guide with Pirate's Cove Whale Watch, says that what she saw unfold was "unforgettable."
The two humpbacks, named Foggy and Grommet, are frequent visitors to the area, but the extent of their friendship wasn't known until that day. Callaghan writes that Foggy "had rope wrapped around her head and across her blowholes, and as we carefully approached, we could see that she also had a loop of rope across her peduncle (the narrow part of her tail, just ahead of the flukes), dragging a mass of old lobster traps beneath her."
Although the other whale could swim away, it never left Foggy's side. Instead, Grommet could be seen lifting out of the water as if to plead for help from the approaching humans.
"I will challenge anyone who claims that humans are the only intelligent, empathetic animals," says Callaghan.
Even after a disentanglement crew arrived to assess Foggy, Grommet continued to linger close by, observing their progress. Then, the rescuers cut the ropes, freeing the humpback from her grim predicament.
“Now comes the truly amazing thing… the instant the rope came off Foggy’s head, Grommet dove, and then burst from the water in a spectacular breach," Callaghan writes.
“Tell me that wasn't a celebration."
The two whales were last seen swimming together, side by side, out into the open ocean.
via  treehugger.com

Valentina is Grateful

Michael Fishbach, co-founder of The Great Whale Conservancy (GWC), narrates his encounter with a young humpback whale entangled in local fishing nets.

At first, the animal appeared to be dead, yet Fishbach investigated and quickly discovered that the poor creature was tangled in a fishing net.

The humans had to act fast; what began as a tragedy soon became a thrilling rescue as Fishbach and his crew labored to free the young whale.

The entire encounter was caught on videotape and later narrated by Fishbach himself.

Watch as the whale named Valentina by her rescuers goes from near death to freedom, then rewards her saviours with dozens of magnificent full-body breeches and tail flips.

Indeed, this video has the power to inspire action on behalf of other beings. In ways big and small, each of us can be the one who helps another.

from: http://wakeup-world.com/2011/07/17/whale-shows-amazing-appreciation-after-being-freed-from-fishing-nets/

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,  
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice
Is also great

And would suffice.

- Robert Frost

Bliss is still possible

"...when you fall in love, you can't imagine anything but bliss.  It feels so free to fall in love.  You run ahead, arms wide open, and all the unloving parts of yourself get left behind.  You wave goodbye and rush thrillingly into your perfect future.  That's the moment of tasting the bliss, shall we say.  Its energy can only last so long, however.  As your sight clears and you realize that you must live in the everyday world, bliss is still possible.  To have it, you must return to all those stranded parts of yourself that you left in the dust.  Oh, how you wish that you didn't have to look at them again!  All that ugliness.  So much shame and guilt and humiliation that you never deserved the first time.  Some stragglers are whiney and weak, like bedraggled orphans.  Some are puffed up with self-righteousness and pride like cheap con men.  There is anger and rage, anxiety and dread-- I couldn't name the countless bits of your normal self that haven't been uplifted by love.

But unpleasant as they are, if you go back and give them love, they add to your bliss.  The journey of the return brings reconciliation.  It brings a ripening.  It brings acceptance of who you are.  Because love isn't saying Come to me when you are good enough and I will cherish you forever.  It's saying, Bring me everything you are, and I will make it worthy to be loved.  The journey of return is what makes you real, and once it's done, you remain real forever."
-Deepak Chopra from The Daughters of Joy: An Adventure of the Heart

Jane Goodall's Intimate connection with Chimpanzee Wounda

The sensory misers will inherit the earth

The sensory misers will inherit the earth, but first they will make it not worth living on. When you consider something like death, after which we may well go out like a candle flame, then it probably won’t matter if we try too hard, are awkward sometimes, care for one another too deeply, are excessively curious about nature, are too open to experience, enjoy a nonstop expense of the senses in an effort to know life intimately and lovingly.
-Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses 

Enchantment

We can't enchant the world, which makes its own magic; but we can enchant ourselves by paying deep attention.
― Diane Ackerman, An Alchemy of Mind: The Marvel and Mystery of the Brain

Love is the glue

Love is the glue that keeps things from falling apart.  Love makes you feel immortal because you stop being fooled by time.  When you love, you suddenly remember what is.
-Deepak Chopra from The Daughters of Joy: An Adventure of the Heart

Jojo and Rick

I just finished reading Jane Goodall's book My Life with the Chimpanzees with my children.  We loved the book, and highly recommend it.  There are so many beautiful stories and moments in this book, and I'd like to share one that I loved because it so clearly shows the profound intimate connection that can be formed between human and a non-human animals.

Rick Swope is a truck driver.  Once every year he takes his family, his wife and three little girls, to the zoo.  In this zoo lives a chimpanzee called Jojo.

Jojo was born in Africa.  When he was about two years old his mother was shot and he was sent to North America to a zoo.  For some years he lived with a little female called Susie, but then the zoo director sold her to another zoo and Jojo was left alone.  This was very cruel, although maybe the director didn't understand.

For the next eight years or so Jojo lived in a small cell with steel bars and a cement floor.  Then the zoo raised lots of money to build a huge enclosure.  They bought nineteen other chimps.  They introduced them all to one another, and then they let them out into their new home.  The chimps couldn't escape because there was a moat filled with water around the enclosure.  Chimps don't swim.

After a while, a fight broke out.  One of the new males challenged Jojo.  Well, Jojo didn't know anything about fighting.  How could he?  He lived all those years alone.  In his fear he rushed into the moat.  He didn't know anything about water, either, except as something to drink, from a cup.

In his fright, he scrambled over the safety barrier that had been put there to stop chimps drowning in the deep water beyond.  He disappeared under the surface, came up gasping for breath, and vanished again.  Twice more he surfaced, and then he was gone.  There were only some decreasing ripples on the surface of the moat.

On the other side of the water was a little group of people, including a keeper.  He knew Jojo weighed 130 pounds.  He knew male chimps can be dangerous.  He just stood and watched.  But luckily for Jojo, that was the day for Rick Swope to be at the zoo.

Rick jumped in.  The keeper tried to stop him, but Rick pulled away.  He swam about in the murky water, feeling for Jojo, then managed to heave the limp, heavy body onto his shoulder.  Somehow he scrambled over the safety barrier.  He pushed Jojo onto the bank and turned to go back to his wife and kids.  They were really scared.

Suddenly Rick's family and the keeper began yelling at him to hurry.  Why?  Because charging down the bank toward Rick were four of the big adult males.  Hair bristling.  Teeth gleaming as they screamed.  Rick was a stranger-- perhaps the four males thought he was hurting Jojo.

Rick paused.  He saw the four males looking enormous as they charged down toward him. He also saw that Jojo was sliding back into the water.  The bank was too steep.

For a moment Rick stood there.  He looked back at his frightened family.  He looked up at the four males.  He looked down at Jojo vanishing into the moat, and he went back to Jojo.

He pushed him up out of the water again and stayed there to stop him from sliding back.  The four males did nothing.  They stopped and watched.  After a few minutes Jojo raised his head, and some water came from his mouth.  He staggered to his feet, took a few steps, and lay to rest where the ground was level.

Rick saved Jojo's life.  The whole incident was captured on tape by a woman who happened to have a video camera with her.  That evening her piece of film was shown on the networks across North America.  The director of my institute saw it and called Rick.

"That was a very brave thing you did, Mr Swope.  You knew it was dangerous-- everyone was telling you so.  Whatever made you do it?"

"Well," said Rick,  "I happened to look into Jojo's eyes, and it was like looking into the eyes of a man.  And the message was: Won't anybody help me?"

This beautiful story reminds me, again, how very deeply we can connect to other animals if we are aware and open ourselves to the messages around us.  And so often, it is with amazing and profound consequence.

Metaphor isn't just decorative language

Metaphor isn't just decorative language. If it were, it wouldn't scare us so much. . . . Colorful language threatens some people, who associate it, I think, with a kind of eroticism (playing with language in public = playing with yourself), and with extra expense (having to sense or feel more). I don't share that opinion. Why reduce life to a monotone? Is that truer to the experience of being alive? I don't think so. It robs us of life's many textures. Language provides an abundance of words to keep us company on our travels. But we're losing words at a reckless pace, the national vocabulary is shrinking. Most Americans use only several hundred words or so. Frugality has its place, but not in the larder of language. We rely on words to help us detail how we feel, what we once felt, what we can feel. When the blood drains out of language, one's experience of life weakens and grows pale. It's not simply a dumbing down, but a numbing.
― Diane Ackerman, An Alchemy of Mind: The Marvel and Mystery of the Brain

How and why to improve our sense of smell

 

The sensory experience of smell modifies our behavior and influences our actions and emotions, often  without us even being aware of it.  Eighty percent of the taste of food is derived by the sense of smell.  Human bonding is highly influenced by the sense of smell.  Our own smell is influenced by our psychophysiological state, and thus communicates to others the inner states of our beings.  Psychologists have long-known smell and memory are linked in multiple ways.  The sense of smell, in fact, is closely associated with the emotions.  Recall a time when a waft of a fragrance has taken you back in time and place where lies your strong association with the particular smell, and you are flooded with a particular associated emotion.  In fact, the condition known as anosmia, the inability to perceive smell, makes people more vulnerable to disease, including  infections.  

One can enhance the experience of the sense of smell by once or twice daily very gently massaging the inner nasal cavity with a small bit of sesame oil.   Here’s how to do it:

1.       Wash hands thoroughly.

2.       Gently blow your nose well.

3.       Put two drops of organic cold pressed sesame oil from a dropper bottle into your palm.

4.       Dip your little finger in the oil and rub the inside of the mucus membrane with that oil.

5.       Sniff in the oil once or twice. 

This lubricates the receptors in the nose and makes for a more heightened sense of awareness through smell.  We all inhale as much as two and a half tablespoons of irritants every day. This includes the man-made irritants like car exhaust fumes and perfumes, as well as the natural offenders like pollens, mold spores, animal dander, air-borne particles and dust. These irritants often get trapped in your nasal mucus membranes, and can cause nasal infections and often dull our sense of smell.

Sesame oil has antibiotic and anti-inflammatory properties, it also works as a barrier between your nasal passage and unwanted microbes. By applying sesame oil in your nasal passages, you help prevent these irritants from clogging up your nasal passage in the first place.

After about four weeks of nasal lubrication, you may find that you don’t want to stop. That’s a clear sign that your body is benefiting. Also you might notice:

• You start to feel less dryness and crusting in your nose.
• You have less congestion in your nasal passages.
• You may be less sensitive to pollutants and pollen.
• Your sense of smell is enhanced.
•  Your breathing is easier.
•  You are able to enjoy deeper sleep and feel more refreshed in the morning.

Minnie Remembers

God,
My hands are old.
I've never said that out loud before
but they are.
I was so proud of them once.
They were soft
like the velvet smoothness of a firm, ripe peach.
Now the softness is more like worn-out sheets 
or withered leaves.
When did these slender, graceful hands
become gnarled, shrunken claws?
When, God?
They lie here in my lap,
naked reminders of this worn-out
body that has served me too well!

How long has it been since someone touched me
Twenty years?
Twenty years I have been a widow.
Respected.
Smiled at.
But never touched.
Never held so close that loneliness
was blotted out.

I remember how my mother used to hold me,
God.
When I was hurt in spirit or flesh,
she would gather me close,
stroke my silky hair
and caress my back with her warm hands.
O God, I'm so lonely!

I remember the first boy who ever kissed me.
We were both  so new at that!
The taste of young lips and popcorn,
the feeling inside of mysteries to come.

I remember Hank and the babies.
How else can I remember them but together?
Out of the fumbling, awkward attempts of new
lovers came the babies.
And as they grew, so did our love.
And, God, Hank didn't seem to mind
if my body thickened and faded a little.
He still loved it.  And touched it.
And we didn't mind if we were no longer beautiful.
And the children hugged me a lot.
O God, I'm lonely!

God, why didn't we raise the kids to be silly
and affectionate as well as
dignified and proper?
You see, they do their duty.
They drive up in their fine cars;
they come to my room to pay their respects.
They chatter brightly, and reminisce.
But they don't touch me.
They call me "Mom" or "Mother"
or "Grandma."

Never Minnie
My mother called me Minnie.
So did my friends.
Hank called me Minnie, too.
But they're gone.
And so is Minnie.
Only Grandma is here.
And God!  She's lonely!

-Donna Swanson from Images, Women in Transition

It is our senses that frame the body of our reality

"The ability of the Western man to relate to his fellowman has lagged far behind his ability to relate to consumer goods and the unnecessary necessities which hold him in thrall-- possessed by his possessions.  He can reach out to other planets, but too often he cannot reach out to his fellowman.  His personal frontiers seldom, if at all, permit the passage of a deeply felt communication across them.  The human dimension is constricted and constrained.  Through what other media, indeed, than our senses can we enter into that healthy tissue of human contacts, the universe of human existence.  We seem to be unaware that it is our senses that frame the body of our reality."
-Ashley Montagu from the preface to the third edition of Touching: The Human Significance of the Skin

To begin to understand the gorgeous fever that is consciousness

"To begin to understand the gorgeous fever that is consciousness, we must try to understand the senses-- how they evolved, how they can be extended, what their limits are, to which ones we have attached taboos, and what they can teach us about the ravishing world we have the privilege to inhabit."
-Diane Ackerman from A Natural History of the Senses

Touch

"All animals respond to being touched, stroked, poked in some way, and, in any case, life itself could not have evolved at all without touch-- that is, without chemicals touching one another and forming liasons.  In the absence of touching and being touched, people of all ages can sicken and grow touch-starved.  In fetuses, touch is the first sense to develop, and in newborns it's automatic before the eyes open or the baby begins to make sense of the world.  Soon after we're born, though we can't see or speak, we instinctively begin touching.  Touch cells in the lips make nursing possible, clutch mechanisms in the hands begin to reach out for warmth.  Among other things, touch teaches us the difference between I and other, that there can be someone outside of ourselves, the mother.  Mothers and infants do an enormous amount of touching.  The first emotional comfort touching and being touched by our mother, remains the ultimate memory of selfless love, which stays with us life long."

-Diane Ackerman from "A Natural History of the Senses