Our brain has two hemispheres, each with different but inter-connected functions. The right hemisphere of our brain is more spatial and visual, while the left hemisphere of our brain is more linear and verbal. It could be said that the living brain of this planet also has two hemispheres. The neurons of one hemisphere are composed of human beings, while the neurons of the other hemisphere are composed of cetacean beings, dolphins and whales. It is time for the two hemispheres to work together, both in our individual lives and in the life of the planet.

We have now had about a million years to explore what it means to be conscious and aware, while the cetaceans had highly evolved brains almost thirty million years ago. Some dismiss the claims that the people of the sea are conscious beings. But in truth their brains are proportionately larger and more complex than ours are, and they do not need such complex brains to survive. Sharks have walnut-sized brains and they do just fine for themselves. We think of sentience in terms of material culture, and call the parts of ourselves that we do not like “base” or “animal.” But we are not separate from the other animals and in cultures on every part of the planet shamans and healers have recognized our kinship with the animals and worked with animal guides to bind themselves to Earth energy in order to deepen their perceptions. The word peace comes from the root “to bind together.” It is time for us to bind together with the cetaceans. What wisdom do they carry, who have not turned their great brains toward material culture? They do not have houses, clothes, jobs to go to. Until we began to hunt them and pollute the waters, their life was rich and simple and their minds were turned toward beingness, toward life itself.

We speak about abundance, and hunger for it. Yet it’s easy to get caught in wanting Things to make up for the true abundance we most deeply yearn for – abundance of the heart. The cetaceans can be our guides in this area. They live in harmony with nature, and nature supplies them with their needs, when we don’t get in the way. We still live on a finite planet. The lesson of simplicity is still important. But what is abundant, what can be abundant when we open ourselves up to it – is love, joy, delight in being alive. Who can watch a dolphin leaping toward the sun and not participate in its joy? Who can see a whale spouting, breaching, and not themselves lift up in triumph? It’s become popular to go and swim with dolphins. But we do not have to be with them physically to bind with them spiritually. We can swim with them freely in the sea of consciousness, and we can do this wherever we are.

Breath is life, and you can use your breath to bring you closer to the cetaceans. Get comfortable, on your bed, on the floor, or in your bathtub. If you have a tape of waves, you may want to play it softly in the background. Lying on your back, bring your knees up and let them lean against each other. Now close your eyes and tune into your breath. Feel the rise and fall of your abdomen. Be in your breath, let it happen without your controlling it. Feel your abdomen rise as you inhale, and sink as you exhale. Feel this movement that begins in your abdomen carry itself up into your ribcage, and then reverse itself. Let your pelvis rock too, tilting back as you inhale, lifting up as you exhale.
Your breath is a wave, carrying you on its surface, lifting you and lowering you again. Your breath is a wave in your body, washing through you, breathing you. As your float on this wave of breath, open your mind and all your senses and feel coming toward you the presence of a cetacean being. Millions of disembodied whales and dolphins are present in spirit, waiting for us to connect with them. As this presence comes closer and surrounds you, you may be able to tell whether or not it’s a whale or dolphin, may be able to tell what kind of cetacean it is. Slowly and lovingly feel this sea friend coming toward you, joining you, enfolding you and your awareness. Carried by waves of breath, feel the way that your two forms of mind spiral together, swim together, and then leap toward the sky, joyful, fully alive in every cell of your body. And be open to any messages it has for you, which may come in words, images, or in feelings.
Do this again and again until the feeling of cetaceanness is strong within you. The more often you do this, the clearer your sea friend will become. Feel its joy, its songs. Let your own voice reach out too in humming, toning, or in words. Before our ships polluted the oceans of this planet with noise, the songs of the humpback whales would echo from one end of an ocean to the other. It is in song beamed out into the waters that all of cetacean culture lives. If you are tired, depressed, unwell, open up to your cetacean companion, and let your friend beam its joy into your mind and body, swim with you, heal you. Speak to it and feel its songs press into your mind. In meeting the people of the sea this way, we meet a deeper part of ourselves too.

We humans have the capacity to destroy this world and all that lives upon it. The wisdom the cetaceans wish to share with us is about how to live fully spiritual lives in our bodies, in the world, in communion with nature. For so long we have separated matter and spirit, seeing the first as base, a prison for the soul, as something to escape from. We have come to hate our bodies, fear nature, and have worked unconsciously to destroy the land, the air, and the waters of this planet. But destruction is not possible to a species that lives joyfully in the world. If you truly love, respect and feel alive in your body – you cannot harm anyone else. If you know that life on this planet is a gift of Spirit affirming itself in form – you cannot pollute, pillage, or wage war. The cetaceans know this. They live in joy and they are waiting for us to reach out to them. Every time that a human being and a cetacean being connect, in anyway at all, all the neurons in the planet’s living brain shimmer with new possibilities, bringing closer the time of planetary healing and transformation.