Detoxify You

Start with right now. That’s what I hear whenever I feel a swell of overwhelm at the notion of writing, containing, capturing this rapturing in words, and I know it’s them, guiding. They speak to me in compact sentences that slide through the fluid layers of my consciousness with a precision owed to the pointed simplicity of the vocabulary, the whales’ prowess, and my own yielding. The two-to-five word phrases always come with whole downloads attached. These downloads are wordless knowings that I perceive, then have to maneuver through a sort of interpretive kaleidoscope in order to share. So right now they are saying start with right now, no matter that it’s been a whole year of radio silence on the blog (what is time??) and I’m feeling like I have to spew a million miracles into one post to make up for that extended period of largely wordless wonderment. It’s ok, though. Right now, I am breathing, and that’s a miracle matching the whalespeak in my head and the song of the sea in surround sound outside it.

It’s the tail end of that season when the whales TURNT UP, everywhere—here in Bahia especially. Baleia (whale) has been the word on everyone’s tongue in the Salvador metropolitan region and the Litoral Norte (north coast) where they  showed up and showed out en masse in a way no one can remember having seen before. I’m not quite foolish or arrogant enough to believe that I’m responsible for this whale visibility movement; whatever part I’m playing in it is most surely being orchestrated by them and the ancestors. I am certain, though, that this work with them is somehow integral to what’s been happening. Their message at the end of last year’s season was basically, “next year, it’s on.” It resonates that the 2021 season was when I started to really focus on recording my exchanges with them underwater as a result of being able to buy the required equipment (shout out to V and www.vday.org for the affirming grant that brought that dream into 3-D reality). They insist on being heard as well as seen; they want it known that they are talking (in part) directly to us, the human people of Earth.

Since I’m the whale lady in people’s minds, folks are always sharing whale news, anecdotes, images, etc., with me, and this season has been full of reports of whale sightings near the shore, at the beaches in the city, breaching whales, close encounters, and humpback babies everywhere here in Bahia. Posts from around the world speak to the increase in close whale encounters in other waters as well, and to me it’s so clear that they’re ramping up their efforts to support human people in understanding some things that are needing to be processed by larger numbers of us. We possess the power to tip the scales in favor of our collective quantum elevation to the status of miracle workers; this is something the whales want us to know right now. As Indigenous people, healers, witches and wild dreamers everywhere been knowing, we are capable of defying the prescribed limitations of science, including the science of climate change (what I now, per the whales, refer to as Earth change). Meaning that we can, for example, mitigate, repair, and reverse many of the conditions that have been making the planet an increasingly less viable habitat for countless species in miniscule fractions of the time that has been projected for such processes (like, say, the breakdown of petroleum-based plastics in natural environments). Contrary to being a suggestion that we should ignore climate science, the idea is to embrace it while continuously stretching our understanding of and deepening our connection to our own capacity to effect change on multiple levels, which is why Whale Whispering and Emergent Strategy go hand-in-hand. It’s a joy to know that there are so many pockets of magical humans conjuring together for social justice and Earth healing; the work of my dear sister Dr. G Love and Soulshifting comes to mind here. This has been an ongoing theme in the project, hence the importance of singing to the waters collectively for their healing, but this year there is a specific emphasis on miracles that is accompanying the mounting urgency in the tone of the whales’ singing and gestures. It’s about truly exploring the reaches of our capacity in its endless elasticity. So, keep recycling, protecting forests, leaning into solar and wind power, regulating commercial fishing, scaling back oil and oil-derived products, ousting petrochemical plants from poor Black communities, rejecting treaty-breaking drilling and pipelines on Indigenous lands, electing politicians who support truly green agendas, etc.--and tap the enchantment that the whales transmit when they dance, dive, sing and breach as inspiration to stir any latent magic into activation.

∞

I started writing this piece about two months ago, in longhand (as usual) in a journal where other notes and half-written blog entries await my return. I was in too deep with the spell, with the ocean, with the whales, to focus the way I have to focus when I do this type of writing, and I knew I would have to go back and complete the blog work retroactively. It’s taken me so long to write it in part because I kept trying to frame the whales’ loudest and (for me) most resonant of this season’s messages as something directed to the general public—or whoever happens to find their way to this blog—and certainly everyone who does will take from it what is useful for them, if anything. But I’ve written and rewritten it several times and it just wasn’t ringing sincere, and when I started getting sick again a few days ago, for the third or fourth time this season, all the lights switched on: this message was one the whales had directed first and foremost to me personally, and the only valid way of sharing would be through the lens of my personal relationship to it, because that is what unlocks its true meaning. The bitterness rising with a thick mucus in the back of my throat is the telltale sign, I now know, and as I write through the fatigue, nausea and tightness in my chest rounding out these symptoms that have repeatedly resulted in negative Covid tests, I finally see it for what it is. And the whales’ guidance reverberates throughout every cell in my body: Detoxify you.

When this message first came through, it was just what I needed to really get back into my stride with my self-care program, which as I’ve mentioned before is focused on, among other things, womb wellness and addressing the roots attached to the fibroid tumors that have been a long-term issue for me.  I started working with a wonderful massage therapist who was/is supporting me with getting at and moving the blockage in my abdomen as I made dietary changes, committed to a more extensive exercise program and stayed hydrated while wailing out ancestral woes over the ocean with the whales’ accompaniment, and slowly but surely, the fibroids have been shrinking noticeably. A few weeks ago, I sat down in front of the computer to complete and finally post this entry—after announcing on Facebook that my social media was about to be flooded with all things Whale Whispering. I understood that it was important that this be the first message shared after such a long absence from the blog…then realized that I couldn’t finish it from the space I was in. Just as I was choosing a bunch of new videos and pictures to share, the phone with almost all of my photos and footage from this season fell and stopped working; it has yet to get fixed as the part that’s needed is still being chased down. That served as a wake-up call for me to acknowledge that in the time since writing the first few paragraphs, I had done some serious relapsing with regard to what I was putting into my body, resulting in the return of chronic inflammation and some other immune system responses, and had let myself slide back into a toxic relationship dynamic that has been one of the core issues affecting my core for years. I had to be honest with myself about that before I could do this post justice. In order to share the guidance the way it is asking to be shared, I’m required to let the truth of my grappling with it be a part of the sharing, because showing, exposing my challenges inside of this healing/vibration-raising journey to being an increasingly viable instrument for the whales’ and ancestors’ messages is necessary for this truth-telling to ring true.

I’m back to wrangling myself from the sugar demon’s clutches, scaling gluten and dairy way back, long morning walks after sunrise meditation, spiritual baths, and inner child work, all of which have helped me get clear enough to finally understand what the whales and my body have been saying. I’ve been experiencing oil spill-related symptoms off-and-on for months and am only now truly waking up to the reality and significance of this mind-blowing fact. Why did it take so long for it to finally sink in? I’ve spent hours in the ocean almost every day for months; I am a whole canary in the coalmine out here, and it’s time to sing like I’ve never sung before.

The whales were telling me what to do before the oil even started showing up on the shore in the weeks after my arrival…Detoxify you… I definitely noted the increased intensity of their expressions—I even connected it to the oil once I began seeing it, and had the thought when I first started experiencing symptoms that they could be related to the oil, but somehow that thought left the forefront of my consciousness as the symptoms came and went a few times and the oil appeared to have run its course. I chalked them up to the flus/viruses that tend to circulate during seasonal changes here and kept it moving. I think in part because it doesn’t look like the more overtly alarming spills that I witnessed/was exposed to over the course of my many years as a Louisiana resident, it was easier to drift back into the lull of feeling like the water was fine once the tar-like globules of coagulated oil that everyone had been stepping on and over on the beach seemed to be showing up less and less. The water has consistently been a gorgeous, tropical dream-come-true-blue, but I was walking on the beach a few days ago when I sensed the bitter taste returning, and I looked down and saw that there was oil swirling in the eddies of water at the shoreline and a brown sludge covering a long swath of the coral that so generously provides Praia do Forte’s famous tide pools. I started coughing right then and right then I knew. I should have known for certain before. I understood that the whales were calling people’s attention to the oil spill, and I have been talking and asking about it since it first appeared, because there has been no official response or clean-up that I’ve been able to see, and no uproar from locals demanding a response. Since weeks had gone by without any new signs of the oil, it seemed like the worst had passed. But now I’m understanding that the oil circles and cycles around like everything in the sea…The whales were telling me from jump: filter this crap out of your system, and ring the alarm.

Until a few days ago, I wasn’t getting a clear answer from anyone about the source of the spill and couldn’t find anything about it in my online searches, which is surreal to me. When the signs of the spill were at their most intense, I heard people commenting and complaining about the oil, but that was the extent of it. I just heard that it has apparently been traveling down the coast from Venezuela, where the operator of a ship decided it was a good idea to release the vessel’s used fuel into the sea rather than call the coastal authorities to safely drain it and transport it back to shore (to where??). Now that it has reappeared, again no clean-up and no uproar. I can’t wrap my mind around the fact that a place that has such exquisite beaches and is so dependent on tourism could let this slide. Lula’s election is a bright spot on the horizon in terms of the prospect of serious attention to environmental/climate issues with a particular focus on the Amazon, hallelujah. There was a more extensive oil spill here a few years ago and an official clean-up did happen, though by all accounts it wasn’t nearly enough, and things have apparently deteriorated to the point where it’s basically normalized for people to be walking around with black smudges on the soles of their feet whenever they go to the beach. Bonkers. Now that the whales have distanced themselves from shore, I’m turning my focus to performing more for the last few weeks of this sojourn. Every time I take the stage will be an opportunity to call folks’ attention to this spill, the health hazard it represents, and to encourage folks to call the governmental offices with jurisdiction over issues related to the environment and public health and demand an organized response. I will also be teaching them all the “Omi-O Chant,” the song the whales gave me to heal the waters. And yes, I’m making the appropriate appointments to check into the symptoms further.

∞

This post is extra-long, and it occurs to me that maybe I should have divided it up, but it feels important to share as a trajectory, and I wanted to bring this forth in the context of the emphasis on miracles because when systems fail, we reserve the right to wield magic to handle up on what needs handling, like a wretched oil spill and its fallout. (We reserve that right at all times irregardless of systems, but I’m talking about this here right now). The specificity of this particular message from the whales is around turning our collective attention to miracles as an aspect of the solution-oriented thinking needed for these times. Miracles are within our reach; each one of us is a potential channel for the energy that brings about the spontaneous remission of a cancer, or brings an apparently dead medicinal plant back to life, or summons or stops the rain. With fewer physical blockages and less energetic clutter, what else can we do? If we have concern about and advocate for the eradication of the toxins being spilled, dumped, spewed and leached into the environment around us, we are called remember the ecosystems of our own bodies, integral to/expressions of that natural environment…

Supporting and sustaining the healers and dreamers who are already on the miracle-making path is critical—as it has always been. The whales are working to wake us up to this and so much more; their current songs are full of concern for what will happen if we stay stuck in the nightmare of believing in the lie of our limitations. At least here in Brazil, they’ve taken to whacking their tails against the water while the top half of their torsos are suspended below the surface (yet another feat of miraculous agility for such a massive creature) with much greater frequency than I’ve ever seen in my years of observing them. Like, Snap out of it—you can do this. But you have to have a clear connection to the force within you…Detoxify you.

I have a sense that most of you who have found your way to Whale Whispering can hang with all this talk of miracles, but for those who are struggling with the idea, with the word, I encourage you to question why. Who or what convinced you that you’re not capable of miracles, or that miracles don’t exist, or that you should be skeptical of them? What does that word indicate for you, where does your mind travel when you hear/read/speak it, and what reality would you co-create if you trusted in your capacity to miracle-make? Harriet Tubman, a whole, actual superhero who existed in 3-D reality in the state where I live in the U.S., astral traveled to see the safe path forward from above on nights when she was leading others north to freedom. Her ability to do this and all kinds of other miracle work was sparked by a life-threatening blow to the head—is that what you require? I’m taking the whales’ advice while reveling in the miracle of being able to receive it. Here is a snippet of their singing from this season, for those who are willing and able to listen. The image in the video is by Dr. Marcos Rossi Santos.

∞

Here again, on the day when I will actually post this. I was editing, tweaking it early this morning and thought I would come back in from my beach break to insert the videos and pictures and then be done, but the water spirits had other plans. I’ve spent the past few days scoping out all the local beaches, observing the oil’s moves in relation to the tides, taking note of where it’s concentrated, and have seen that it’s hitting mostly in the exact area where I had been spending most of my time in the water. This morning I went to another beach a few miles away that was clean and clear, and made my way back into the water for the first time in several days. It was super salty with no hint of oil, and as still as the air on a dense July night in New Orleans when there’s no storm in the vicinity. I was singing to Yemonja from way out in Tatuapara Bay, and she told me that the post wasn’t complete, that I needed to write about the little healing miracle I had this week in order to paint the full picture, and I told her I would.

The morning after I became clear about what was going on (earlier this week), I woke up with a throbbing headache (so rare for me), mucus gurgling in my chest tasting so bitter, so bitter, and nausea that made me want to just lie down flat on a cold floor until it passed. I was dizzy and weak, but I felt the sea calling and I knew that if I did not take control of the situation, the oil sickness would lodge itself deep within my body and be a mess to get rid of, and I have a show tonight—I was determined that I would be well enough to sing by today. So I dragged myself to the beach, my sunrise meditation spot, and I prayed and rebuked the sickness. As I went into meditation I declared to myself that by the time I finished the symptoms would be gone and I would continue to improve as the week progressed. I can call it a miracle because I was feeling disgusting and miserable but I managed to sit there and breathe and tune into Source, and when I got up an hour later the headache and dizziness were gone, the nausea had receded, I was breathing more clearly and the worst was definitively over.

As I was singing my gratitude into the ocean this morning, a school of large fish leaped up out of the water about 30 feet in front of me and bounded across the surface in alternating groups like they were in a relay race. They disappeared and then a few seconds later danced across the water some more, covering a sizeable area, and I was so delighted with Yemonja’s response to my song. It occurred to me that there was a bigger fish chasing them to make them leap that way—like they were being chased—and at some point, after they disappeared for good I felt a presence, a swish in the water near me as I continued to sing. I noted it but didn’t see anything so just kept singing and savoring the delight of the visual if the fishes’ dance across the placid surface of the sea in the golden light of the new day. On my way back home, I ran into Ana Benta, a member of the roving band of neighborhood children who shine at the core of my local fan base, surprised that she had managed to get home and already be headed back down to the beach in the time since I had seen her by the water when I first went out. She was starry-eyed as she came upon me, and told me she had seen the dolphin swimming around me and it was so beautiful to watch. When my own eyes grew wide, she asked me if I had seen the dolphin…I told her no and she repeated that it had swam right next to me, around me, appeared to swim under me (that was when I felt its swish)… And I came home with one more miracle to squeeze into this post. It’s not necessary to see every instance of the magic at work in our lives. It’s enough to be open to it and trusting of it, knowing that when it is called for it shows up, and if we ourselves don’t observe it but are supposed to know about it, that information will find its way to us. Can I get a witness?

Yes I can.