The Whale's Song

I’ve been pondering quite a bit, lately, my spirituality. I’m turning Buddhist without any conscious effort on my part. This transformation, this “conversion,” if you will, feels as if dark clouds are parting (as dark clouds are wont to do). I’ve simply come to understand. Very little thought has been involved. It has been a growing awareness…an acceptance…an enlightenment.

I’ve wanted to write about this…this growing certainty within me, but I am easily distracted (Oh, look! A squirrel!). I find it difficult to express my thoughts about my spirituality because reveries, such as the one that follows, keep sidetracking me.

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Several years ago, I came across a science journal article about the work of a young cetologist studying pods of whales migrating along the Pacific coast.

I’ve forgotten all the details, but not the essence, of the article. This young academic spent years recording the vocalizations of discrete pods of whales. He then digitized, folded, spindled and mutilated years and years of audio recordings of whale vocalizations.

What he discovered was this: It appears that the vocalizations are something akin to songs…or an oral history. Each pod seems to sing its unique song, with a new “verse” added each year. That’s right. Whales sing their “tribe’s” story…year after year…millennium after millennium.

The very idea blows my mind.

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The preacher hurls fire and brimstone from the pulpit. The imam rocks the mosque. The televangelist thrusts his hand towards me…palm up. All claim to know the “Mind of God.”

Spare me.

Don’t you dare tell me you understand the Mind of God before you sing me the whale’s song. Teach me the verses. Explain to me what a whale dreams, what the whale feels as he glides miles deep within the sunless, frigid sea. Sing to me the whale’s song. Reveal to me the mind of the leviathan. Then, and only then, will I kneel at your feet to learn the Mind of God.

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