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A Lady Monk and the Humpback Child
In the Pacific Ocean off the island of Maui it’s possible to find both inner peace and absolute fear. You might face your worst nightmare or receive a great gift, and both could happen only seconds apart. There is mystery, magic, and a higher kind of truth to be found in the stories of anyone who has spent much time in these waters...
I slipped off my board and floated in the ocean off the north shore. In the early morning light, a dawn patrol search for waves had led me paddling out past the breaking surf into a patch of calm, clear water. It was a morning to savor, as the rising sun beamed golden rays through squall clouds in the east, forming a perfect double rainbow that arched above the West Maui Mountains.
That moment changed quickly when the form of a large gray beast rose to the surface not twenty feet away. i immediately went into shock - a pure adrenaline-overload paralysis, every muscle frozen, every orifice shrinking as my body instinctively tried to become smaller without moving. A primal, silent scream of “SHARK!” echoed through my head, followed by some serious high-speed praying.
Fortunately the creature in the surf on that particular day wasn’t even a fish, much less the huge tiger shark that had leaped into my imagination. As I stared in horror at the dark shape in the water beside me, a large bewhiskered head rose up and looked back at me from deep, black-pooled eyes.
It was a rare Hawaiian monk seal, seldom seen in Maui waters during the last century. An incredible wave of relief began to ripple through me that she seemed to sense, nodding her head once as if to reassure me. We stared at each other, two earthling mammals floating twenty feet apart, yet seperated by eons of evolution.
She held memories of an ancient past so strongly in her mind that I could sense them; I could feel her deep understanding of the circle of life. The longer I held her gaze, the more my sense of time and space expanded until I caught a brief glimpse of something infinite, something holy.
It was enough to convince me that, of the two of us, she was the superior being. She knew her place in the universe and was at peace with it; I was bewildered by mine, and still am.
Breaking the moment with a quiet dignity, she slipped silently beneath the swell, passing below me as she headed down the coast. I was left with an unforgettable memory of those moments we floated alone together, looking through locked eyes into each other’s soul.
My new lady friend hung around in the bay for a short while, popping up in several places to have a look at the other humans riding waves that day. It may be that she likes people - she came up on the beach during surf competitions twice that fall season, causing a minor commotion among the spectators and getting her picture in the newspaper.
When I paddle out through the breakers now I always look for her, hoping to be given that gift one more time. It hasn’t happened yet. It doesn’t matter if it never happens again. She created a sacred place for me that morning, in a small patch of ocean where I can always feel her presence.
Oh, and one other thing - I’m not afraid of sharks, anymore...
Three times the whale calf breached, as it moved towards the boy. Each leap had brought it nearly full out of the water with its head pointed directly at the boy as he crouched at the railing. He stayed focused on the water, watching silently as the young humpback splashed down for the final time less than fourty feet from the stern of the boat.
To those who were watching, it seemed that the whale knew just what it was doing. Mother and child had been rolling around on the surface for nearly an hour, slapping fins and flukes against the water just a few hundred feet to starboard. As they passed behind the boat, the calf turned back and began to breach, three times in one minute, bringing it right to the stern.
Each leap ended with a resounding backflop, displaying a brilliant black-and-white striped belly. The calf dove under the boat after its last jump and surfaced off the port bow, then swam off with Momma trailing in the depths.
As they moved away the captain started the engines and turned the boat back to the harbor. The boy, restless earlier and anxious to go home, was quietly content now. He seemed fulfilled in the belief that he had made a new friend on his adventure that day.
Did the whale calf know about the boy? Could it sense the presence of that small human being, was it connecting with a child of the same relative age? Frivolous questions, perhaps, were it not for an unprecedented event that occurred in the waters off Kauai just one week before.
A whale calf there approached a tour boat, breaching and putting on quite a show. The vessel had stopped engines and was waiting for the calf to move away when the youngster suddenly leaped over the low stern, landing in the boat before sliding back into the water. Unfortunately, a woman’s knee was broken during the whale’s attempt to come aboard, but that wasn’t the little cetacean’s fault - the exuberant ignorance of youth excuses many things.
The calf off the coast of Maui this day wasn’t quite that bold, but it came close enough to impress everyone on board. Just three years old, the boy may lose the conscious memory of that moment quickly - but the image of a magnificent animal suspended at the peak of its jump will live in his subconscious mind for the rest of his days.
The calf, with whale thoughts unknown and unknowable, may never realize the impact it had on the boy, or on all the passengers who were given a close, brief look at an ancient form of life on Mother Earth. Or perhaps it does; perhaps whale and boy made a connection that morning, one that will come to fruition in time.
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