Ho'oponopono Ceremony at The Cove in Taiji, Japan, with holy water from sacred springs around the world.
I love dolphins and am involved in a number of projects to help them. (Do the dolphins really need our help, or is it the other way around….)
Right now the annual dolphin hunting season has resumed in Japan, and emotions are running high for animal lovers around the world.
Its easy to be angry at someone who kills something you love, and having been to ‘The Cove’ and seen the waters run red with the blood of dolphins, I know firsthand the initial flush of rage and righteousness.
But this righteousness comes with a price…
This blog post is not just about dolphins…. as the dolphins dying in the cove have shown me, this is about our judgment of the actions of others, how quick we are to condemn those who break our hearts or our rules of how things should be…
The dolphins showed me something that I did not expect; they showed me compassion, compassion for all people, even those who kill them.
That’s a rather saintly attitude to me, even more evidence of their elevated spiritual stature. Yup, I place dolphins above humans when it comes to awareness, wisdom, playfulness and loving compassion. They inspire me, they are my heroes.
So much so that, last January, as I watched the dolphin hunters drive pods of dolphins into the cove for sale and for slaughter, I opened my heart to the pain and sadness and anger and let it break…
It hurt…
I cried, felt the riotous confusion of feelings we all feel when faced with the death of that which we love…
And in those moments of broken-heartedness, something happened…
As I gave myself fully to the pain and anger and sorrow, let them run havoc through me, tearing and hurting and destroying, I became aware of something else, something quiet and subtle in the background, something bigger than the destruction happening within and around me…
It was not a conscious act, it was not something I could summon or evoke, it was something that I could simply notice, and in the noticing, allow…
It was compassion, and its love encompassed me and the hunters and the dolphins, and it showed me that we are all actors upon the same stage. Different costumes for sure, but undeniably the same cast.
It showed me that we are all one, and the drama playing out before me was the blink of an eye in creation, each actor playing their part so fully they believed them to be true…
Except for the dolphins. They remembered, they knew the greater truth… That they and all of this is but a moment in infinity, and they are free and eternal as is all life…
I came to understand how the dolphins could both struggle to be free of the nets at the same time they surrender into the arms of the fishermen who kill them…
They know what we have forgotten…
Total aliveness, total compassion, complete surrender.
My humanness stood in awe, and in that moment I remembered that we are all eternal, all actors, spiritual beings having human (and dolphin) experiences…
The hatred melted in the warm flood of compassion, my righteousness along with it. Yes it still hurts to see the death of those I love, and my tears are just as real as before. But they are tempered with a greater knowing, a knowing that I once again thank my cetacean friends for helping reveal within me…
∞
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For info on our September 23 – 27th trip , Wild Dolphins, Yoga, Meditation & Joy
And our November 9 – 13th trip, Celebrating 11:11:11 with the Dolphins
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Joe Noonan, Dolphin Whisperer
An author, speaker, life coach and spiritual guide, Joe leads retreats around the world and facilitates self awareness programs for those on the path of awakening.
A guest on National Geographic, Fox TV and Oprah, Joe reflects back to people that this world is already a Heaven on Earth, and that the tools to find joy in the moment are around and within us. That harmony is inevitable and that innately we all just love each other and sometimes we forget — he is here to help us remember.
Planetary Partners advocates, educates and celebrates conscious co-creation on an individual, local and global level. We offer workshops, meditations, events and trips that awaken our divine connection with Nature.
“Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God” Tielhard de Chardin
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