The Interview
Barbra Anderson interviewed me while on the humpback whale trip last February about the work I do. Watch the video here.
Barbra Anderson interviewed me while on the humpback whale trip last February about the work I do. Watch the video here.
Trying to communicate love isn’t always easy. The word has so many different meanings. For some, it means sex. For others it may mean possession. Others might think of love as obligation. Everyone has a personal spin on what it means resultant of their own experience of relationship.
When you tell someone you love them, their filters of personal experience can possibly change what your intention was. And then things get messy and people might respond as if you are the one who originally taught them about love in relationship. Painful experiences can follow us throughout our lives and we expect love to bring the gut-wrenching punch we first felt when someone we loved acted in an unloving way. It can be confusing.
Dion Fortune, one of my favorite writers, wrote this, “The personality must be healed so the power can come through clear.” This has been my quest for decades now…heal my personality flaws so that I can be a clearer channel for love. This isn’t easy. It’s not a path for the faint of heart. We must be willing to open ourselves completely and make horrible fools of ourselves when, in our openness, we stumble. But if we have the courage to be that open, to be that vulnerable and to feel so deeply to clear our personality flaws, then only good will result.
When I say, I love you, think of the chimpanzee hugging Jane Goodall when he is released after she rescued him (see video above). That’s just pure love without expectation or labels. It’s the nameless experience of unconditional positive regard…light manifested through action. The monkey isn’t asking Jane for anything. He is simply allowing an energy of pure love to move through his open heart with nothing attached, nothing expected.
Romantic love doesn’t interest me nor does possession of anyone or expectation of anyone. I want to live in the space of open-hearted communication and communion with the world. To those that mean the most to me I wish to be able to clearly show love without it being misconstrued as something it’s not. We can’t control how others receive the love we express so the only thing I know to do is to keep loving…purely, without expectation and with my whole heart.
I think animals are such channels for love because they don’t live in the past. They simply allow their open hearts to bring forth the magic of light manifested through action. When I watched mother humpback whales and their calves interact this past February it was crystal clear that love was guiding them. It was the most exquisite expression of love I’ve ever seen.
Perhaps this is why I have always appreciated animals so much. We understand each other without thinking about it or wondering what it means….I love you….and you….and you….and you…….I love you.
As I floated weightless with humpback whales below, I had never felt more present. Extended quiet moments floating in the peaceful sea offered an expansion of time as my mind opened to their minds.
I am forever changed, my DNA rewired into something different than before I entered whale time.
Gratitude expanded within my heart and I knew in those moments the true meaning of receiving…the gift…of the present.
I floated above the 45 foot long mother and calf in complete awe. It was my first humpback whale trip. And it was an in-water encounter. There was inner questioning…How will I react? What will I feel? Will I be afraid?
After witnessing the gentle cuddling and caressing of the baby by her very large mother, I floated in complete peace. I remember thinking as I floated in saltwater blue, So this is what deep peace feels like.
There have been amazing experiences I have somehow been lucky enough to have in my life…but humpback whale peace….it still lives within me. Every. Single. Day.