The Wayward Whales

I waited for them by the open window. I was sure they would pass. All the television reporters said they would. The only trouble was, as the night grew dark, I couldn’t see what was above water, let alone beneath it.

Finally, I gave into a few hours of sleep, waking up at 3 a.m. to take up, again, my watchful vigil. The wayward whales, as they called them, who found their way from the Bay to the Sacramento River were never seen again. The whole world had been tuned into their journey, helping them as best they could with antibiotics and banging pipes, trying desperately to get them to turn around and go back to their saltwater home of the sea.

Finally, it had worked. They were on their way back out to the ocean, stopping as night fell, as they often did (or so the reporters said) to play and eat, before starting up their journey back to the sea again. I like all the others tuned in hoping for a final glimpse before they went home. But, in spite of my commitment and willingness to buck sleep for the event, I wasn’t successful. Somehow, the experts predicted, the mother and baby Humpback whale slipped under the Golden Gate Bridge and went home unseen by humans.

What struck me most about the sequence of events was how deeply people cared about the fate of these two creatures. People came out in droves—people who might not have called themselves environmentalists or even animal lovers. We were all tuned in, especially those of us in the San Francisco Bay area where this was all happening. We all wanted a happy ending, a good news story. We all wanted to spread the sunshine of their recovery to each other.

It wasn’t the first time I had kept watch for a wayward whale. A few years before, actually the spring I began my blog, while living on the Delaware River in New Jersey, another whale—this one a beluga—had made its way from saltwater to freshwater. (See April 13th 2005 blog entry on http://www.soulwisdom.blogspot.com/)

What leads creatures like whales and humans to venture away from the pack, to explore new territories, to intersect their lives stories with those of a different species? Is it to receive help? To ask for healing? To give help? To impart messages of hope and joy—like that seen in the eyes of those, like I, glued to the water, praying for their recovery? Or is it simply an unplanned accident of getting off course?

After just having returned from an extended trip back to New Jersey, the home my husband, son and I left just one year ago to “go west” to California, I’ve been thinking a lot of the concept of home lately. I think we each need many things from our homes—comfort, caring from loved ones, a sense of community, safety, security, and also nurturance of our inner yearnings—yearnings for something more, yearning to explore our own potential, yearning for growth.

Sometimes the familiar, the safe, the saltwater we were born into is all we need to fulfill our yearnings for a true sense of home. Other times, we need to venture into unfamiliar waters, however different or uncomfortable they feel at times, to test our own inner boundaries and truly discover who we are and what we deem most sacred.

Experts say, when we stop looking “out there” to feed our soul and realize that we have a home within that is as real of a place as any we have been, true comfort sets in. I have to admit, my internal home is a place I don’t visit as often as I’d like. More often, I am wandering, seeking, reaching out—hopeful, sometimes joyful, sometimes sad. During those brief moments of true happiness when I do visit the home within, however, all my seeking ends.

Safe travels, whales (and anyone else who, like me, is searching for an inward sense of home). I hope you find it. I hope you are well.