We

The day was cool now. Earlier it had been warm and sunny. Also the waves were stronger here than in North Bay, my adrenaline registered. I made for the Dolphin Encounter boat, knowing they had seen someone or some pod.

            I cut across South Bay, and not long after, I was among them. Their backs arced all around me, swimming alongside me always from stern to bow, dipping under my paddles so close that I feared skimming their backs. But they are far too clever for that.

Sometimes as they passed they’d be completely submerged, but other times I’d see their backs and elegant, personal dorsal fins crest the surface of the waves. Still other times, they seemed to let their wonder overtake them, and as they swam past me their eyes peeked above the water’s surface, in our shared air. An invitation, an example.

        I think this was about the moment that I felt the urge to jump in among them. When I saw them share their faces with me. Already hearing the sounds of their spouts, imagining the very-live water with their bodies filling it, knowing the desire in my outstretched hands, paddle forgotten—I wanted to join their watery, wondering glee.

        The kayaks were soon close to a pod, floating among the grey, zipping neighbors while I tucked the paddle and untucked my legs. And then, I got wet—I plunged. At that point our moment-sharing began. We were starting to join one another in heart and body. It wasn’t until some seconds of human “eep” noises and very human splashing that we began to breathe in the same place.

        A spout-blow erupts behind me, and soon we are alongside one another, both looking. Both our hearts whirring, as the feelings in the water tell us. Here we are! Here we are in the same ocean, breathing the same air at the same time in the same place.

        As each dolphin streams by, we feel the untempered, unmediated immersion taking place. I forget the expansive cold of ocean on my unsheltered, unaccustomed skin, and we all seem to forget that there is anywhere else to be. We are two kinds of persons sharing a moment of mutual wonder, peering at each other, each exploring the sounds the other makes, attracted to one another’s movements. One blows a spoutful alongside me, and then we begin to circle together. We circle—one of us only spinning, the other of us encircling. We are together, incredulously so. Inhalation is less of a focus than exhalation in noises of exquisite bliss, human sounds incoherent to any verbal language.  I cannot speak for the dolphins, but as for my voice I express to my hosts my joy and gratitude for these moments. Their eyes invite, my eyes watch from above the water, albeit closer.

        But a jilting realization: the experience together was incomplete. I was still trying to be other, observing the crowd around me from a head above them, breathing and calling and seeing in my home medium. I had to breach the gap. They had shown me to dive, to put my face in their water, just as they had dived their face into the air for me. We had to meet on their terms in order for this to be a moment of true mutual self-giving.

        I breathed in. Tihei mauriora. And I dived down with eyes closed. With closed eyes, it seemed that my ears were also shut. This rendered my diving pointless, as I was closed to them. I was still thinking of “me” and “them.” They had been showing me from the start, that it was in the eyes, faces, to share a moment. No screens, no inorganic lenses, no filters, no plastic, no wires. In order to become “we” with them, I had to open my eyes.

       On the next dive, all eyes are open. There is someone there! Someone else is coming, too! And so quickly, how incredible. Look, this one is showing the bright white of smooth tummy. We both have those—those white, vulnerable tummies with belly buttons. Expressions of beauty and gratitude journey from heart to heart through the waves. Amazing how quickly we pass and are far from one another. Humbling how soon one of us needs air. Astounding how deftly one of us brings tail over face in a backflip. Grounding how slow and impotent one of us is in this ocean. Breath. Back under again, and resurges the joy. One of us thinks perhaps that it is selfish to keep our heart calling for more as we encircle, as we dance. What right, what grounds, has this one to ask for this wonder-love dance to continue? But—tihei mauriora. We share the breath of life, and we invited each other to this moment. We each are asking for the joy our hearts now share to keep traversing the waves. After all, our skill is not equal here. Some of us could leave one behind as soon as we wished.

The moment is ending. Once again I was in the kayak. As one of us sent out waves of thankfulness, and I realized it was me, my heart recognized what emotionally capable and social creatures they are. I sensed that our sharing was over. I then sent out love along with joy, focusing my core on expressing aroha…

       From now on, I was I and they were they again. I’ll only be adding between us more barriers: jacket, plastic of the kayak, van, roads, house. I must be on land, they must be in the water. But for that moment, we were we, together, on dolphins’ terms. For that one moment, I felt their closeness and strength. And I left changed, bettered, enriched; I left with clarity on what beauty is. I left less confused by or strange to these creatures. And that is a gift, a good gift, given by receivers and givers, persons with agency and sociality, imaging God in our interactions. What a dance, what a song—together.

**nota bene: tihei mauriora - behold the breath of life**