Being the Estuary

What if you slept, and what if in your sleep you dreamed, and what if in your dreams you went to heaven and there you picked a strange and beautiful flower, and what if when you awoke you had the flower in your hand? Ah, what then?
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
- Edgar Allen Poe

It was the first clear day since Mom had come to visit me in the remote Northwest from Denver. I had been plugging San Juan Island's ethereal sunsets as though I were their agent; and tonight, she would be sold. Two days earlier, she had arrived on the ferry, along with hundreds of other Fourth of July passengers, dripping wet and shivering in their shorts and t-shirts. The evening in question, however, was warm enough for short sleeves. The clouds, now scattered throughout the faded-denim sky, resembled a disheveled spider web woven loosely around the earth. The darker blue ocean water filled in forever beneath the cliffside atop which we drove. Dotting the backdrop at every turn in the road were wildflowers of assorted colors, and green of a thousand shades.

I was proud to show her around this place. My summer internship at The Whale Museum in Friday Harbor, Washington marked an important rite in the materialization of my burgeoning adulthood; and my mother's visit was for its celebration. My parents had instilled in me the faith in myself necessary to make my dreams real beyond the fantastic. In this vein, reaching San Juan Island was an act of religious lucidity. The circumstances of my venture there had come together like the synchronistic fibers connecting night dreams and day dreams, and like the loose web of clouds that connected the atmosphere this night. My dreams were of whales. And in ways as subtly powerful as clouds, they declared the prescription of my purpose.

We curved on clunky Volvo wheels around the upper west side of the island, as the view of the waterway stretching across to Victoria hit us like a dam come loose. Our psyches flooded, water-logged. Mom shook her head and said, "My God". The song playing on the radio (from an album called Passion) reached a crescendo; notes collided into uniformity. And the sole verse's words went:

Across the river
Across the river
Across the river
I go

The road now seemed to be floating. To our left was Haro Strait, known to the island's residents as The Orca Highway. I pulled over and parked in a designated "scenic lookout" spot. Mom and I got out of the car and each took deep breaths, inhaling what was too elusive for consumption by words. As I tasted the interface where waking and sleeping states met, I reveled that this precise backdrop was the stage upon which whales had performed beautiful music on endless nights for this slumbering audience of one.

In the original dream, which had occurred eight months prior, I was conscious of being birthed from a dark and narrow channel, into the light at the end of it. I emerged to stand on a piece of dry land only big enough to surround my feet. Beyond the safety of firm ground was the never-ending movement of the sea. Lurking in its immediate shallows were ugly monsters, each representing fear in some aspect of its character. Each fear, with a menacing eye, held me suspended on the stagnant island of false security.

But beyond fear, lived whales. Nurturing as the Every Mother, they were the giant and gentle grace that fear could become, if only it believed in itself; if only it could evolve to go deeper than its solitary power would allow. The whales promised to hold me up to breathe, should I dive into the shallows of fear, and swim past the illusion, into the infinite depths of faith.

The dreams that followed that one were a progressive series. Several in the beginning seemed staged in real time. It was as though, as I proceeded through the channels of consciousness, from waking to deeply sleeping each night, I would emerge to stand on a piece of land overlooking a dark blue sea. I would stand, wait, and hope for whales to come near. I would stand all night long; patient, as though I knew their arrival was imminent. And faith never failed to bring what I needed. Large groups of orcas would finally come into view, taking my breath and replacing it with silent, ecstatic screams. They would pass, and I would wake up.

In the next phase of the dream progression, rather than waiting all night long, I could bring the whales' closeness to fruition with only the power of my will. I would direct my thoughts toward them, and the reaching out was relayed through the underwater channels of minds, all funneling into the estuary of one collective. This is where the whales and I would meet, as long as I believed it could happen.

Later on, as I became more efficient and devout a swimmer, my capacity for connection with the whales became greater. I could not only cause the whales to materialize before me, but further I could swim with them, as if I were one of them, for hours and hours until morning. We would dance together to midnight music with no words; and my assurance of a greater power went far deeper than the solitary confinement of monster prison.

* * *

During the course of the dreams unfolding, my waking life took place in college. I was a freshman at The Evergreen State College, a school famous for its lack of boundaries and fluid ethics of non-traditional academia. I had come from a background of traditional public schooling, where I had thrived in the ways of the system. The liberal ideals of Evergreen enchanted me, though, and sparked an interest that quickly became a fire, blazing my trail to the Pacific Northwest with a fervor I did not quite understand. I only knew I must go.

I left home at eighteen and moved to Washington State to acquire residency. A year later, I began my academic career at a school that asked not for a student's competitive drive to achieve grades, but rather for a belief in herself to swim the uncharted waters of her potential as a unique and creative thinker and doer. In my dreams, I had patience. In daily life at Evergreen, I had tremendous doubt in my personal abilities. I worried constantly that I was wasting time, failing to harness the power inherent in so much freedom. I wanted dry land. I wanted the lifeline of grades, and a list of prerequisites and requirements in plain, clear writing. I was terribly afraid to forgo the security of the island.

By the spring of my first year, I had applied to a "regular" university in Bellingham, Washington, and was ready to accept defeat by the alternative. But one day in May, my botany professor called me aside and gave me the name of another teacher she thought I should contact. She knew of my interest in the local orca population, as our program's theme was about a "sense of place" in the Northwest, and I had written about my own as it related to these whales whose presence gave Washington waters their mystic personality.

The professor's name was Craig Carlson. He taught various subjects, including creative writing, storytelling, and indigenous studies. He also lived on San Juan Island; meaning, he commuted two hours on the ferry and three hours by car to Olympia, which lay at the southernmost tip of the Puget Sound, three days a week to teach on campus. Craig himself was a mystic personality, and was long-time friends with Albert Shepard, curator of The Whale Museum. Professor Bowcut suggested I write an e-mail to Professor Carlson explaining my interest in whales, and see what kind of response I got. So I tapped out a few lines about the desire to actualize dreams in the school's computer lab. Not even a day later, I got a return e-mail from Craig requesting that I be in his office the following afternoon to discuss these matters in person.

After sitting in Craig's office for less than a minute, I realized that this man, indeed, had a persona that reached into some distant orbit. There were Coke cans chiseled into the shape of airplanes, dangling by dental floss from the ceiling. And toys…everywhere. Nothing in Craig's office was neat or tidy. An ingenious dreamer sat at this desk, I was certain. The fact that Craig had called me into a meeting after only the quick correspondence we had exchanged, made me think that he had a kind of foresight unknown to many. I trusted that I was sitting in this messy room for a perfectly sensible reason.

I stood to greet the man when he entered. We shook hands and locked gazes. His eyes were clear blue. And, like mine, were filled with ocean vision. He invited me to sit. Our conversation was short. He briefly referred to my e-mails. He asked me what my dream was. I told him my dream was to study whales, humans' relationship with the sea, and with the animals within themselves. Craig replied, "Can you live on San Juan Island this summer and work as an intern at The Whale Museum?" I said, "What on earth would I do instead?"

I sent my portfolio to Albert Shepard the following day. Craig gave his referral. And Albert accepted me as an intern for the summer quarter. I would live in the basement of the mayor's house, and pay $100.00 a month in rent. Just like that...

And the course of my academic and spiritual future was bound northward. I declined Bellingham's offer of acceptance, as I began to feel empowered by the freedom and opportunity available at Evergreen. I saw that when I was willing to take risks, and believed passionately in what I was doing, I was granted guidance by a greater force in the direction I should travel. The message here came with a consciousness heightened, and tuned in to the melodic voices of whales, saying "Follow us... to the island where the orcas sing!"

* * *

I arrived in the land of the surreal driving a car that adhered plainly to the universe's physical and mechanical laws. I drove; my vehicle in contact with the concrete road. Though however simply logical it all seemed, I had been here before, traveling without a ticket; moving without wheels or walking legs. Swimming with fictitious fins. Even the first time I had stood in this place, atop this rocky cliff where my mother now joined me, it had been an eerily familiar welcoming home.

I had come to this scenic pull-off spot nearly every night since my arrival on San Juan Island two weeks earlier. I had come to watch sunsets and pray for the sight of whales. So far, I had seen only a procession of sunsets, moving days into nights. But the possibility of whales moving along with sunsets kept me coming back, and strengthened my endurance for waiting. I secretly hoped harder that tonight would be the promised night, because I so wanted to share the experience with my Mom. After all, mom was the one who had wished sweet dreams upon me every bed time of my life. It seemed appropriate that she be with me for the awakening.

The fireball of sun ran ever so slowly, an orange-stained teardrop, down the cheek of sky. It made its way behind the mountains, ushering in the purple haze of late evening. It was nearing 9:00 pm, but still, there was enough light for reading. Mom and I found a couple of semi-smooth rocks as close to the waves as we could get before melting into their wake. We contributed to the quiet by barely breathing.

I reached into my backpack for a black spiral notebook. I wanted to share an account of one of my whale dreams with Mom. I had had this dream one week before leaving Olympia for San Juan Island, and was presently noticing a dense sense of sameness in the qualities of the dream and the evening in which we now sat. I opened up my disheveled notebook, bent on all corners from being crammed into my bag and handled ferociously during fits of remembrance from sleep. I flipped to the right page and began to read out loud.

Dream: June 17, 1998
I am walking on a deserted boardwalk and see a sign that reads "Whale watching here is free". I end up on a beach behind a building and see a mass of children in the water playing with several pods of wild whales and dolphins. Although I am astounded by this spectacle, I am ultimately holding out to see killer whales. I comb the water like a detective, sure not to miss an inch of this vast plane of reference. I am patient and careful with a slow moving gaze. I spot a pod coming to pass, swimming fast and jumping wildly. In the same breath, there is one giant male orca, moving separate from the group, and coming directly toward me. My wide eyes dart around to catch all of what is happening, but I become fixated on the male who is approaching the beach at high speed. Initially, the whale's shape is unnatural, like that of a man-made ship. Seaworthy, but not animal. As he approaches the beach, his form streamlines into the perfect curvature of the killer whale. The ground under my feet is no longer sandy, and the shoreline is no longer at foot level with me. The shape of everything in this dynamic has changed, and now the whale and I are on either side of a rock wall, he in the water, me on the land. He is swimming, I am running. We are traveling in congruent parallel lines at a perfect point of conversion between his life and mine.

I extend my left arm to reach the whale, whose giantness emerges from underwater and extends a dorsal fin six feet into the air. He spouts a loud breath and we are moving in sync with each other...fast. The entire length of his body passes under my fingertips. I feel him from rostrum to tail fluke as he gains speed. With the tactile connection of our skin, I feel electrical current color my blood silver. I am sent literally, physically, reeling from the contact. My body, fully extended, hurdles through the sky like a frisbee, spinning and vibrating in slow motion. I rotate in a downward spiral and reach the ground softly. The ground is no longer cement or sand, but cool grass. I lie on my stomach, my face turned to the side; my eyes draining shocked tears into the green. I feel myself winding down from the over stimulation of my every sensory nerve; my body twitches. Finally I stand up and begin walking up a staircase toward a little white building. I pass friends on my way up. I say to them, my voice endowed with the exuberance of lightning, "I just touched an orca...My dreams are coming true".

* * *

Dream: June 18, 1998
I was sitting on an island beach in the San Juans. Before me in the water was a floating platform which served as a "mobile research station". From here, researchers were conducting an experiment to test a hypothesis that stated: Because toothed whale vocalizations are closer in structure to music than they are to the syntax and semantics of human language, orcas should be in some way responsive to music. A group of scientists, including myself, were clad in tuxedos and formal black and white attire. The mobile research station doubled as a stage, set against a 360 degree backdrop of Pacific Northwest splendor. Each one of us took a seat in designated positions to form a symphony orchestra. Not only were each of us whale researchers, but talented classical musicians as well. We began to play a gallant requiem that echoed between the islands like a thunderstorm. We played until sweat poured from our brows. We played until our fingers hurt. We played in and out of history and future, losing the boundaries of time measured any other way than by the tempo of our instrumentation. We played until every note rushed exponentially faster to a raging crescendo, where all sound and every note of natural implementation met and exploded in a glorious, victorious eruption. In the instant of the music's peak, all instruments' sound stopped dead...Complete silence persisted for less than three seconds...and was broken again by the perfect arc of a giant orca, who, on cue, shot skyward from the water and splashed down hard, showering the research team. We all yelled and cheered, as though we had reigned triumphant over a team of disbelievers in the possibility and power of a scientific/creative union.

Following the symphony, the researchers decided to track their lines of reasoning further. Deeper. One scientist, wearing a full-body black wet-suit, positioned himself atop certain rocks or in between specific crevices, where he ascertained the orca would jump next, according to what melody he heard coming from the humans' end. The rest of us played music that corresponded to the man's positioning, and at given moments in the musical performance, the whale emerged from the predicted places and pick up the man in the wet suit, launching him gracefully into the air. Their dazzling interaction was reminiscent of the shows one might expect from SeaWorld, but infinitely more spectacular because this was a free-living whale, whose response to and cooperation with humans was of his own will and desire. The dance took place in his arena, where the walls of his pen were of natural rock and bore no restriction to his life of freedom. Also, it appeared as though scientists had found music to be a medium for communication between whales and humans, which would revolutionize notions about language, nature, and consciousness in ways of unimaginable caliber.

I had had countless whale dreams, but never until this one was I able to hear the whales vocalizing. This dream made their squeaks, whistles, and grunts audible. After listening to whale chatter without the aid of a hydrophone, I stood on the floating platform discussing the study with someone. We explored the notion that the whale had been responding to the music with the same mechanism it utilized for echolocation; a type of biological sonar some refer to as a whale's "sixth sense". I mentioned that the orca singing coincided with an old story in Greek mythology called "The Myth of Dionysus". Prior to this dream, I had never heard of the character Dionysus. As far as I remember I had never been exposed even to the name. The morning after the dream, I learned from a dictionary entry that Dionysus was the god of an orgiastic religion celebrating the power and fertility of nature. Furthermore, Dionysian worship supposedly involved a lot of wild behavior. A group of his worshippers, called Bacchants, typically displayed manic behavior, including orgiastic dancing and singing, and bizarrely paradoxical attitudes toward animals. The word "enthusiasm" was acquainted with Dionysus, in the traditional sense of the Greek word, imparting that the god Dionysus somehow entered into his worshippers and lent them supernatural strength. His female worshippers were naturally inclined to join in the god's ritual celebration, leaving behind their humdrum existence in cities and villages for the unbridled thrill of divine visitation in nature. I read one famous tale about Dionysus that seemed particularly appropriate considering the theme of the dream. The story is that Dionysus once booked passage on a ship, and was traveling in incognito, which was usually his way. The greedy pirates who sailed the ship wished to trap him and use him to their advantage. They were unsuccessful, however, because Dionysus had magical powers and used them to frighten his would-be captors, causing them to jump overboard. Once they hit the water, the pirates turned into dolphins and began to engage in sportive play all about the ship. Dionysus then traveled in peace, ushered by the now kind ship attendants; humans in the skin of dolphins.

In the last scene of the dream, I was riding in a small boat, drifting slowly through the San Juan Islands, coming toward San Juan itself. A woman on the boat whispered, "This is the island where the orcas sing". Just then, we sailed into a cove, where several orcas had convened. We stopped and tuned in to hear them.

Perhaps by involving ourselves in communication with the whales, I thought while analyzing the dream, we humans might learn a more ecstatic and compassionate way of life in general. It seemed ludicrous for me to pass off these important messages as "just dreams", whatever that meant.

I read and became lost in the dreams whose detail and content I, myself, could still hardly fathom. I marveled at the progressive realism of their storylines and imagery, especially as I remembered where I was sitting this moment. I reveled in the pool of juxtapositions that made life itself seem like one long dream, smattered with temporary awakenings, interjected to break up the monotony. I had just finished reading when I felt the slightest touch on my arm. Mom whispered with intense inflection in her voice,

"Liz, listen...the whales are here."

My immediate response was to pass off her comment as my mother's sensitive spot for synchronicity. I looked out at the water, and for a moment saw nothing but the usual fin-shaped waves that had fooled me in many a wishful moment. I kept quiet though, and watched so fixedly in the direction mom was pointing that I may have burned a hole through empty space. Suddenly, an adult male orca from J pod, named Ruffles, poked his six-foot tall dorsal fin through the water's surface and breathed loudly into the pure calm. A cloud of mist erupted softly from his blow hole. Water seeped into my head. I poured into the sea. And dreams were no longer asleep.

Mom and I stared, astounded and riddled with adrenalin. At first, and for several minutes, we saw only Ruffles, swimming back and forth near the rocks, most likely foraging a salmon dinner. After some time, another male, a juvenile, appeared near the adult. The two males stayed within approximately 30 feet of one another, according to my shore-side perception. They disappeared for 1 to 2 minutes at least, with the exception of longer, deeper dives which lasted between 3 and 6 minutes. They paced, though not nervously, from north to south and back, repeatedly covering the area 100 yards to the left and right of where Mom and I sat watching. After 15 or 20 minutes, quiet but for breaths, there were three, then four whales meandering before us. They traversed their world so perfectly; and so perfectly crossed over into ours. They made it one world; the world of the breath.

Kwoosh. To the left of us, a whale's breath. And following, a brief glimpse of the fin on its back. And he slides quietly back undercover.
All is quiet. Hearts pound audibly. My breath is slow and I can hear it, too. Waiting for the next breath. A minute passes.
Kwoosh. Another one to the right. And back underneath.
Quiet for two minutes. Blink. Blink. Stare. Waiting.
Kwoosh. Straight ahead. The first male breathes again. I shift my weight to the other foot, now standing. Swallow. Blink. Wait. Wait some more.
Kwoosh. Out there! There she is again...

Approximately half an hour passed with the four whales, marked unevenly by the rests between their breaths and the beats of our hearts. I sensed these few must have been ahead of the rest of J pod. Mom affirmed my thought by pointing southward, asking if I thought the apparent upset in the water appeared to be broken waves or breaching whales. Distant shapes and churning water turned to clear outlines of dorsal fins as the whales approached and came into clear focus.

I ran along the edge of the cliff, trying to get as close as possible to the interface without falling out of my shoes and into the dream. I got smaller as the fins got bigger. Mom soon caught up and stood by my side. We hung in the air over the barely-lit royal blue water. My feet clung to the rock while I soared. Where previously there had been four whales, now there were twelve.

Kwoosh. Left.
Kwooosh. Right.
And now twenty.
Kwooooosh. Left, right, out there; and there. There too!
Maybe twenty five. Where have they all come from? There must be thirty whales, right here. Right in front of us!
Kwoosh. Blink, blink; stumble. Kwoosh; hop. Step. step. Fumbling feet. Run. Run. Run. Kwoooosh. KwooshKwoooooshKwooshhh...
They're everywhere. I can't keep an accurate count anymore.

The whales and I moved in congruent parallel lines. "Mom...I whispered. My dreams are coming true."

And time ceased by intervals between inhales and exhales because there was no longer any dead space between breaths. The symphony of orcas, dressed in their stunning black and white, were instruments in their own bodies. They were giant and great enough to transmit the music of nature in all its formlessness and subtle perfection. The moon was big and crayon-yellow and hung low and bright in the night. Stars now spotted the backdrop canvas of sky with silvery white blobs of stars. Nature's spotlight shone on a patch of water before us where nearly thirty black and white whales had gathered, and were performing under no direction from us. We were merely spectators, blessed to witness this moment. To the whales, it was just another evening of living a whale's life. To mom and me, it held the most meaning one can glean from the experience of living a human's life.

Their bodies were percussive as they slapped giant tails and pectoral fins on the water's exterior. One female protruded half way above the water line in a spy hop, briefly scanning the shore. She shrieked a call into the air that mimicked an orchestra warming up in the pit. She exerted a high-pitched whistle-squeal-squeak-click; rare to be heard above water. I fell to my knees.

The typical faculties of consciousness were engaged, but not merely. The whales were too big for comprehension. They rocked with the rotation of flurried water molecules, diving and surfacing. They breathed and we breathed. And there was nothing but breathing. So simple I could not comprehend. The ins and outs. The visible clouds.

As far as reason could reason, our encounter was a random one. Though down to their mathematical foundation, even random events are not without logical roots. Perhaps we had all simply chosen the same place to be when the sun went down. Regardless of intellectual justification, it was an experience of immense realism. It was intimate and primal and personal. It was an anomalous feeling found in humanness, yet was more real than anything I had ever seen, smelled, tasted, heard, grasped with my own fingers, or known, by any combination of the aforementioned senses. It was more than I could have experienced by logic or faith alone. Only within the unity of the two could any of this make perfect sense.

The vague, remnant light of the moon was now the only light. The whales were ready to move on. We didn't want them to go. We didn't want to wake. But dreams are fluid and cannot be frozen in time. Whales swim continually through my head, and I couldn't dream of stifling their movement. For dreams cannot be captured; only treasured, with the intensity of a breathing, pulsing awareness. These brief encounters spent on the rocky edge between land and liquid fuse boundaries until they melt.

The distant outline of dorsal silhouettes undulated like protrusions on carousel horses, drawing the horizon line unstable as they passed across it going south. Their black and white sewed the seam between sea and sky. Day became night. Mom and I drove away in silence. The light went completely out, and I fell asleep to the circular, hollow chime of whales turning the tides with their lungs in my head. Repeating the secret of dreams until I fell asleep, fell in, and crossed over.