What Whales Can Teach Us
The Secret Riches of our Lives
PART I -
These giant beauties at the top of the food chain that are hiding deep in our seas have secrets to tell.
The first time I saw this photo by Brian Skerry my eyes widened.
It still astounds me.
Did you know that some whales are the size of 33 elephants? How is it even possible that thousands of somethings so large can live near us and escape our notice?
I guess that’s not entirely true or they wouldn’t be nearly extinct. We’ve noticed these beautiful giants and they’ve definitely noticed us.
Before we get to the whales, I’d like to confess this Substack today is as much for me as anyone. My husband just moved down to the basement after he tested positive for covid on Thursday and life this week is reminding me of how true John Lennon’s “Beautiful boy” lyrics really are…
“Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans.”
John Lennon~ Lyrics from Beautiful Boy
My plans have changed a few times this week, but at least I was able to write something for you that I enjoyed researching. My intention is for this piece is for us to take inspire action, not to be preachy, but if you stop halfway, you may miss the best part at the end so I’ve divided it into two parts that can be read over two sittings.
I confess, I’ve been feeling a bit of grief in my life or a deepening of sorts.
It’s such a powerful emotion, it commands attention and it seems to take over our minds and make us incapable of doing much else.
Grief is a natural process. It can be triggered by many things. The loss of a loved one, a job, a break-up, our health, the loss our home, a pet, our environment or even the conflicts in the world is a part of life but I don’t enjoy this particular feeling.
I understand why most of us avoid it if we can and how it takes its sweet time with us.
Today you’ll learn the beautiful way that whales grieve.
There is a Spanish proverb that “the only heart worth having is a broken heart” . The idea behind it is that we have to allow our hearts to be broken open. The key is not in it being broken, but rather in it being open because when it opens we can become a vessel for greater love in the world.
There is something else that grief does that I noticed this week too.
Grief has miraculous mobilizing potential.
It inspires us to take action. To do what we can, from where we are, with what we have.
I confess that writing and researching this piece brought me a surprising amount of ecological grief. It feels sometimes like all we’re doing in the news is either totally ignoring climate change to focus on war, elections or on our economy and when we do cover it it feels like we are charting our demise. It’s nearly impossible not to feel overwhelmed by what we’re told that we’ll need to face if we don’t meet the 2030 deadline.
Because we’re not meeting it at the moment.
There is very little on how to make the necessary changes or anything being mandated for us to work together to meet the deadlines and so far. The phasing out and eradication of single use plastic grocery bags is amazing, but it doesn’t seem to me like much else has changed all that drastically.
I remember being skeptical about it at first, but we adapted.
We’re fine.
And yet we have 6 years to meet some very significant and defined minimum emission deadlines and climate scientists have made it clear what we need to do and the reports are in but none of us are feeling very inconvenienced or being asked to change our ways at all.
I can’t speak for other countries, but Canada is failing.
The Trudeau government is not track to meet Canada’s emissions reduction target for 2030. Aaccording to a new Federal audit, this November 7th, 2023 report, Environment commissioner Jerry DeMarco laid the blame on a range of failings by the government, including an inability to quickly advance critical elements of the government’s 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan.
So it seems we are resisting change at every level, but Jerry is wrong about one thing…ALL of us that need to take the blame for this.
It’s clear to me from this report that with only 6 years to go, we can’t rely solely on our Government to pass legislation or enforce the necessary changes to make the minimum.
A part of my Ministry and what I share in 2024 will be to help get us here in the Field and in my own community back on track to hit those targets.
Please take your time reading this over the next two weeks and let some of the whale’s wisdom and insights soak into your mind and inspire you to think bigger. I pray that they work their magic on all of us and help us make the necessary changes or simply take up one of the challenges I’ve offered at the end of my posts this year.
Let us also allow ourselves to compassionately acknowledge that we are habitual beings that are emotionally attached to our old ways.
Let’s simply start there today.
If we get started down this path we’ll find out how to move past our resistance, but we first need to see it for what it is and one of the largest species on earth can help move and inspire us to stop doubting ourselves and answer the call to do what needs doing.
Let’s take a quick peek back at our relationship with whales historically.
For 50 million years the whales have lived peacefully in all of our oceans.
Then we came onto the scene and things changed. For the sake of time, let’s skip forward to the 1700s and take a quick snapshot.
When a whale got beached it would provide coastal dwellers with a windfall of resources. They used oil for candles and lanterns, consumed meat and repurposed bones to structure corsets, collars, and hoop skirts because uuum….we need to look good, right? (Even if we couldn’t breath:)
Now it may seem absurd to us today, but I think it’s safe to assume that they were just trying to look decent to fit in and attract a compatible mate with their tiny waists and impressive cleavage. The truth is, that if any of them could only see what we do in the name of beauty today, they’d probably faint. We’ve taken things to a new level by cutting ourselves open, being implanted, injected, dyed and consciously poisoning our entire closed water system. Which is more insane?
I also don’t want to pick on Sarah Blakely because she seems like a lovely person in every way, but let’s take a quick closer look at one popular new synthetic in the last 100 years created by DuPont that we all wear. Sara innocently invented something modern and synthetic that acts just like the whale bone wearing women in the 1700’s made us seem slimmer to others. We love it.
We made her a billionaire, but sadly her chemically inspired Spanx are unsustainable. We wear them (along with every other spandex brand like lululemon) and most of us daily I believe most of us are unaware that they come from petroleum-based raw materials that are energy-intensive, exacerbate the climate crisis, and cause environmental pollution. To make matters worse, the micro-plastics released from washing spandex fabrics pose health risks to wildlife and humans.
Sigh. It’s time for us to reconsider bringing back organic cotton, hemp, linen and wool. We don’t even think of it because we’re not taught but did you know that when you drink the water from your tap anywhere around the world, you are ingesting about a credit card size worth of plastics every day?
And it’s not just in our drinking water… plastics in shellfish, beer and salt are the consumables with the highest recorded levels of plastic.
What do you suppose is happening to ALL marine life?
“The findings should serve as a wake-up call to governments. Not only are plastics polluting our oceans and waterways and killing marine life - it's in all of us and we can't escape consuming plastics," he said in a statement. Global action is urgent and essential to tackling this crisis."
Marco Lambertini - WWF’s International Director
In order for us to make the necessary changes, first our perceptions need changing.
I’ll volunteer to be first in line here and come clean.
We still have THREE gas guzzling SUVs in our driveway, I not only have several pairs of lululemon and Spanx in my drawers I still use single use plastics, plastic bags and I’ve also behaved ridiculously for the sake of my vanity with toxic synthetic nails and polish and I’ve over-consumed and wasted products, toiletries and paper in every way imaginable. I also do waaaaay too much laundry and have three of everything.
I can’t undo what I’ve done, but I see the harm now and I’m ready to take 100% responsibility and change my ways.
I’m not sure how exactly to do that yet, but this year I’ll be writing a few pieces on my research and progress and if you’re interested, I will share as I go.
We may not like to dwell on what we’re doing wrong, but can we at least stop pretending we don’t know anymore? We all know about how demand and supply and a growth economy works.
When I grew up there were only four fashion season and now I understand that there are 52 micro fashion seasons? Good grief. All this to say that the supply of whale-based products and the commercial whaling industry was born in response to the increasing demand just like everything today.
We vote with our dollars.
By the time whaling was banned internationally in 1986, many species were near extinction.
Some of them still are now.
There is something about the photo above by Brian Skerry that has stuck in my mind for years. The sheer size, beauty and maybe the curiosity that seems to be coming FROM the whale.
I went to see Brian speak at a National Geographic event in Toronto about a decade ago and he explained that during this particular photo shoot, he was standing on the ocean floor off New Zealand when a bus-sized whale came in close to gently inspect his assistant, who was standing just a few feet away. "My heart was beating out of my chest," Skerry said. But he got the shot and the photo of that encounter went viral.
His photos in National Geographic have touched my soul and made me fall in love with the creatures in our oceans. He’s inspired me to care and want to do more to help our whole ecosystem because you’ll see in Part II the critical role they play in all of our wellbeing.
PART II -What the longest living creatures on our planet have to teach us about living better together.
We have a surprising amount of similarities with whales.
Like us, they are warm-blooded mammals and despite living in the water, whales breathe air.
They live in community, and learn from their elders and peers just like us.
They love making music as much as we do. They are acoustic geniuses and the other worldly sounds emanating from the sea floor are used to communicate with one another. They respond to novelty and change their tunes like pop stars on the Top 40 Charts.
Humpback males sing songs that sweep the entire South Pacific. Their haunting unique songs remind us of the importance of sending a clear, comprehensive message to one another (and how broken telephone happens).
Believe it or not, they ALL sing mostly the same catchy tunes as their songs spread 6,000 miles across the whole ocean basin like a social network of sound. Whales from Tahiti communicate with Whales from Eastern Australia in a water wide web.
Roger Payne famously recorded whale sounds in 1970. If you’re curious to hear some of their haunting sonic sounds…you can listen here.
Do you wonder if they get annoyed when there is too much “waterplay” of the same tune? I wonder because no other known species of animals create original songs that change over time with cross-cultural influences like whales and humans.
When the Beatles changed their sweet pop sound in 1968 when George Harrison met Ravi Shankar and fell in love with sitar music which opened an Indian influence to their songs. Whales also cross migrate and are able to communicate and shift their sounds and hunting habits for seasons like our human fashion trends and diet fads.
Whales share and learn social behaviours from one another the way we do and it plays a vital role in their ability to survive.
Like us, they are open to new friends but they seem to prefer to hang out with whales from the same area code with a similar dialect.
They DO, however, one thing better MUCH than we do… they have an unbiased attitude.
They are open. Non-dualistic. They are connected and uncomplicated.
Fully conscious and aware. Undivided.
THEY are like ancient sages and elders. Open ego-less awareness in service to the whole.
Resting with what is.
All that happens without views and opinions clouding it just pure openness, intelligence, warmth.
They share the ocean resources peacefully. Warmth, compassion, caring and empathy is what they practice.
The only time they struggle or become aggressive is related to our human behaviours depleting the ocean resources or interfering with their feeding strategies and migratory patterns affecting their ancient and natural movements.
They seem to be vessels of love. They problem solve peacefully. They even breastfeed each others calves when needed. They have learned and shared the best of what they do for free with other dialects and different pods. Not to get something from them, simply to give.
They don’t have turf or feel the need to protect or own parts of the ocean. They all have the same claim to the ocean’s resources as they are “one” with it.
If they know others are coming to the area to feed from the calls being made, and they have fed they will move along and allow others to come and feed.
There is no fear or lack.
They have fluid complex societies and preferences, but they make it work.
They don’t build walls or war devices to annihilate one another when there is a disagreement or shortage of food. The reality is that ocean life is filled with threats predators and their lives are busy and challenged to find food and they encounter stressful situations. They exercise grace in turbulence and they have been known to help other species, even humans in danger.
They are fun creatures and they make time to play every day.
Brian Skerry observed and photographed this young female whale playing with rocks in a similar way that we observed a three year old girl in Costa Rica over the Christmas holidays sitting on the ground and playing with rocks on the beach at the table beside us.
Whales have even been observed wearing kelp on their heads like wigs or tiaras and they establish lifelong social relationships in the same way our children play dress up and have life long friends.
They broadcast their unique identity with a call in the same way that we have a name.
They can be picky eaters like our kids and they develop cultural food preferences.
They showcase their special parenting techniques with one another.
They pass down family traditions.
They rely on one another and are protected to heal or regain equilibrium when needed.
They travel in life long female led social units. They have an incredible capacity to learn and adapt just like we do.
The sperm whale has the world’s largest brain and they put it to good use finding new more intelligent ways to adapt. There is an interesting story in the 1990’s of whales figuring out how to strip cod off the lines from an Alaskan fishing vessels using vibrations on their lines to pop the fish off into their mouths.
They show love, compassion, empathy and they grieve. They close their eyes in delight in each other’s company. They rub up against each other and bite each other affectionately while listening to Marvin Gaye. Kidding about Marvin, but the rest is true.
In 2018 I can remember being especially moved by an article about a killer whale who was observed openly mourning the death of her newborn that died shortly after birth by pushing the carcass with her snout for 17 days.
It seems like no matter what species, grief takes the time it takes and when we are ready to let go, we will. No need to rush through our sad moments or losses of any kind.
This mama whale is demonstrating how to grieve and mourn openly.
Whales trust their natural environment will provide. They don’t stockpile fish or food for themselves.
They’re not afraid of the dark or the unknown. In fact, it’s so dark underwater that they have very limited underwater sight and their entire relationships can be forged through sound. Beluga in the Canadian Arctic can spend the whole winter in total darkness.
They are not worried about their body or their age. They unapologetically take up space. In fact, if anything they celebrate alone or together when one of them is freed from a fisherman’s net (the same way we do when we take off our high heels, bras and our nylons or spanx at the end of the night…woot! :)
They enjoy wandering to new places AND they also like to go back to where they originally came from to visit.
Wales accept themselves as they are and find their own unique voice. They seem to be so much like us (minus the ego).
They tend to focus on the greater good, not their separate selves or needs.
They move in a figure 8 flow in an upward and downward motion. They feed in the deep but they rise up to the surface to excrete fecal plumes. Their poop is used as fertilizer at the surface to feed the plankton.
They are needed in our ecosystem. Like trees, they play an important role when it comes to climate change mitigation.
Scientists have estimated that one whale’s ability to capture carbon from the atmosphere is equal to that of thousands of trees. Their movements bring nutrient up from the depths where the sun cannot reach the phytoplankton which brings them necessary light, nitrogen and iron in a perfect dance with nature. Each great whale can sequester up to 33 tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere due to their sheer size.
Whales cover some serious distance. They have some of the longest migrations of any mammal on Earth and do it entirely on their own steam.
They are no-trace campers. Along these oceanic journeys, or "blue corridors," whales fertilize the marine ecosystems they move through and support the marine life inhabiting them and leave the faraway places they visit better than they found them.
Their movements help feed other fish at every level of the food chain. They nourish and sustain the very species that they depend on in a continuous exchange of giving and receiving.
They have no carbon “fin-print”.
They move gracefully and effortlessly through the water not damaging the ocean floor, coral, marine environment or any other species in their way.
Best of all, the whole time they are unapologetically authentically themselves.
Both solitary and communal.
They come up for air once in a while and when they do we all love to watch them express the pure embodied joy of being by breaching and tail slapping energetically in a life-affirming dance on the surface of the water in the same way we dance our hearts out at weddings, new moon ceremonies and in our kitchens.
Like spiritual masters they are tapped into an aware part of their consciousness that never sleeps. They need to breathe and sleep but they do it with only half of their brain, the other half is regulating breathing and body functions.
Always awake and aware.
Mysterious, magnificent and intelligent, the whale is a sacred and remarkable animal. It’s no wonder that it appears in numerous tales and legends around the world.
They symbolize wisdom, longevity and love.
They silently demonstrate how to live peacefully and have done so for over 50 million years.
Sadly Homosapiens have been here only 200,000 years are already at war with one another.
It seems like they are going the way of many other peaceful prophets that have come before them. It’s difficult to even say how many are left.
The International Whaling Commission is probably the best census we have worldwide on abundance estimates and our efforts to preserve them seem to be working with some and not others.
According to the World Wildlife Federation, Six out of the thirteen great whale species are classified as endangered or vulnerable, even after decades of protection. An estimated minimum of 300,000 whales and dolphins are killed each year as a result of fisheries bycatch, while others succumb to a myriad of threats including shipping collisions, underwater noise and habitat loss.
Whales seem to demonstrate the teachings of Jesus and Buddha and the golden rule better than humans without being told. It’s innate in them. How to love and care for their brothers, how to live and let live.
Metaphysically, we may not all realize it yet, but our own brains and bodies, and consequently our minds and consciousness, emerge out of Nature. We are not separate from Nature looking out onto Nature, but we are Nature looking at itself.
What we do to whales, we do to ourselves.
What we do to the oceans, we do to ourselves.
I recently heard an elder say that we are living in a sorting time.
We are being asked to make decisions without all of the answers or any guarantees.
There are so many uncertainties and mysteries to what we will face collectively with our weather and the impact we are all having on all of life in the next decade that it will know no political boundaries.
It will affect us all and I imagine things like sea-levels rising are the least of our worries. Food shortages, refugee emergencies, climate wars and economic devastation could be our new reality in the next decade.
It feels like it’s all hands on deck now.
Doing nothing and not changing is its own decision now. There is no neutrality any more. We can’t feign overwhelm, claim we’re too busy or mind our own business because it’s ALL of our business.
And every soul on earth has a say.
Can we transcend our individual egos and come together like the different species of whales do?
I believe we can because we must protect the earth with our creative imaginations and find radical new ways of existing together.
“Our need will be the real creator”.
Plato
(Which became the English proverb, “Necessity is the mother of invention”)
Are we each willing to make the necessary changes in our families, homes and lifestyle habits to recognize that we are only one species in an ecosystem out of balance?
I believe we are.
Or can we all just go on with business as usual, the old belief systems and worry about taking care of ourselves and our own families? Do our own thing and leave others and other species to fend for themselves.
Each Soul gets to decide but we can no longer deny that we are co-creating the reality we are existing in.
Nature/Source/God/Love and the effects of that love is the only True story there is for us.
Forests, water, plants, animals, stars, planets. Love.
That’s it.
The rest is made up by us and needs to change. Einstein said it best when he called all we’ve perceived in time as space as “optical delusions of our consciousness”. We’ve imagined them. Created them and the stress and wars that go with them...
Borders, mortgages, stock markets, religions, political parties, money, time. They have served us in the past, but our systems no longer fit with the earth or the cosmos.
We’ve made those laws and constructs and we’ve given them meaning.
What can we do now?
Today let’s simply be willing to be open minded to the new solutions being offered to us as they come our way.
I’m saying this as much for myself as I am for you.
We can change together.
One day at a time.
Adapt as needed so all species can survive.
Let’s be willing to use our gifts and be guided to do what we can to help.
Stop criticizing the efforts that are underway or for reasons NOT to change.
Let’s listen to their song and choose the wisdom of the whales.
Let’s choose love and do something new with our families FOR the environment this year and not just seek to be entertained.
About half of the world will be electing new leaders in 2024. Let’s take initiative now to educate ourselves on all of the political candidates. Most countries have a green party of some sort which is usually based on the principles of green politics, such as social justice, environmentalism and nonviolence. Our solutions will not likely come from the two major parties that have represented us historically and have caused the problems we’re facing.
Maybe the ultimate question we should ask before we vote this year is who would the whales back?
Let’s vote for them.
We can vote even if we’re afraid of the change that will be asked of us, of not having what we have now, but that is just not the case. The only way that we won’t have what we have now is if we DON’T change.
New ways of being really does mean new sectors, new science, a new (not a growth) economy, new jobs, better health, longer lives.
We gain in every way AND best of all, the whales get to stay.
I vote for that.
Cheer’s to today’s fluke tailed teachers, to greener beginnings and to the REAL secret riches of all of our lives.
LOVE.
A new beginning is ripening. Let’s remain open and vulnerable to what is different and bless the space between us all.
As my favourite Irish poet and philosopher once said:
“Perhaps the art of harvesting the secret riches of our lives is best achieved when we place profound trust in the act of beginning. Risk might be our greatest ally. To live a truly creative life, we always need to cast a critical look at where we presently are, attempting always to discern where we have become stagnant and where new beginning might be ripening. There can be no growth if we do not remain open and vulnerable to what is new and different. I have never seen anyone take a risk for growth that was not rewarded a thousand times over.”
―John O'Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings
With love,
Rev Nona
ps. Let’s start off gently this year with one thing we can ALL easily do and build each month…
Decide right now to stop using to go coffee cups.
Did you know that Tim Hortons in Canada goes through 2 billion of them annually? About 1 billion of those are probably from my family. ha. Kidding, sort of! Worldwide we go through about 16 billion paper cups for coffee, which means 6.5 million trees being cut down for our “to go” coffees. Does this not seem offside and unnecessary to you? If we can bring our own shopping bags we can bring our own coffee cups. 4 billion gallons of water go to waste in their production and so does enough energy to power 54,000 homes for a year. Let’s stop making excuses and bring our own cups or right now grab a handfull and store them in our vehicles instead of the kitchen cupboard.
What else will you and your family do?
Please share your ideas it in the comments below to help inspire others.
Here is one final action challenge that 100% of us can do especially this winter if you are planning a trip to somewhere sunny….
****BONUS ACTION CHALLENGE for YOU and your fam****
I’m sorry to say it, but one thing we can all do is stay away from these beauties and encourage others if they are not aware of the implications for the wellbeing of the whales of going on a whale watching expedition.
I confess I love the idea of seeing them in the wild, taking action videos of them breaching, seeing them swim beside the boat freely. We’re told by the tour companies that we are carefully keeping a safe distance, not really disturbing them….what’s the harm?
According to marine biologists and recent research, a lot I’m afraid.
If you’ve seen orcas or any whales in the wild, chances are you were not alone.
Each summer, the orcas are mobbed like celebrities, with an average of 20 boats tracking them at any given moment. Unfortunately, all that attention is making it difficult for them to feed and they are literally starving. Last fall, the Federal Government committed to giving the whales a break, promising robust measures by spring to reduce threats from vessel traffic.
Unfortunately the whale watching industry is fighting back. No one disputes that whale-watching represents a threat to the orcas. Vessel noise masks the echolocation signals they use to find food and the presence of boats distracts them from feeding. One study showed the orcas loose up to 25 per cent of their foraging time when vessels are around. That loss might not be sustainable in an age of plenty. With the decline of Chinook salmon, their primary food source, it is completely untenable.
The best thing we can do is to simply let them be.
See you in two weeks!!
This is awesome. No more take out cups for me! Look forward to moving out of the basement soon:-).