The Most Beautiful Learning Experience on Unconditional Love

Demonstrated by a pod of wild dolphins.

Calm, clear, crisp waters. This morning was radiant with sunshine and happiness; kids catching ankle bitters with the low tide, runners, swimmers, skim boarders, standup paddle boarders, kayakers, a seal enjoying the kelp forest, and dolphins!

I saw one dolphin patrolling the outer buoys, but it quickly vanished into the horizon. I got off of my paddle board and dove into the cold waters. To my surprise and delight I heard a dolphin talking! I dove in again, and this time heard nothing. I climbed back onto my board and began to slowly paddle. The sound of a dolphin exhaling through its blowhole caught my attention. I stopped and quietly sat down to watch two fins as they skimmed the surface of the water. The summer sun was warm and sparkled on the their backs as they came up for air. I felt the presence of unconditional love.

Eleven years ago, I was on the Big Island visiting a dear friend. He guided my sisters, mom, and I to a bay one morning and said, “if the dolphins are jumping and playing, you are welcome to swim out to them and see if they want to interact.”

Sure enough, we walked down to the shore and there they were leaping into the air, spinning, splashing, having a hoot of a fun time! The joy was contagious!

I wadded into the water, slipped my flippers and goggles on, and proceeded to send a message to the dolphins:

“I am going to swim out toward you and if you want to play I’d love to too!”

The black shore quickly dropped off into an abyss of expansive deep blue, I was now in the open ocean. I was in a globe of liquid navy cobalt blue, 360 degrees surrounding. I kept swimming until I saw a large dark shadow. I paused and panicked inside.

“Is it a shark?”

I calmed my breath and stayed still. The born-and-raised Colorado mountain girl in me was afraid I entered too enthusiastically and naively. The very big shadow swam closer until I could make out fins and the light grey body of a dolphin. I was relieved. I was also shocked by the enormous size of this dolphin. While I could feel that I didn’t need to be afraid, I was definitely going to remain in place, gently treading water wondering how this wild dolphin was going to respond to me being in its home.

I would wait underwater, then come up to take a new breath, and dive back down again. While vertically suspended within this blue galaxy, the dolphin eased in closer to check me out, its presence felt enormous. I registered that this dolphin was greeting me, and telepathically saying

“follow me.”

The dolphin then turned around, and we continued to swim farther out to sea until I saw more dark shadows and a person playing with the dolphins! Although he was in human form, he seemed to be more dolphin than human. He was swimming in a way that looked as if they were all dancing together. He would create large bubbles, and the wild dolphins would zoom straight through them! He was making sounds that they seemed to adore and communicate with too. The man waved me closer. Now many more dolphins were checking me out. The man pulled out a tea leaf from his belt and gestured for me to watch. He stretched out his arm with the leaf gently held between his thumb and index finger. Within moments a dolphin sprinted up and snatched the leaf with its side fin. It then zoomed and juked around the other dolphins! This made it look like a game of keep away, or maybe even football, but with a leaf and no tackles. This same dolphin then swam over and passed the leaf off to me!!! I was blown away, delighted, overwhelmed with amazement, and knew this was my chance to play! So I reached for the floating tea leaf and held it out as I saw the man do, within moments another dolphin came by and grabbed the leaf with the top of its nose!! Outstanding! Marvelous! Utterly Phenomenal!!

My attention was diverted when suddenly three new wild dolphins approached. One looked at me and seemed to tell the other two “she is safe.” A mother accompanied by a tiny baby dolphin then swam right along next to me. I still to this day cannot fathom how to transfer this feeling onto the page... But my heart was swelling with divine joy, and with a sweet love I had never experienced in this life. I was, and still am, wonderstruck.

Finally a very large, the largest dolphin of them all, came straight up to me, and looked me right in the eyes. We remained like this— I have no idea for how long… But in that eye I saw another world. One filled with harmony and unconditional love. I knew immediately that this being was far more intelliegent and advanced than I. The human in me felt so small and unevolved, like I was a kindergartner on the first day of school, and here I was with a transcendent master of the universe. And yet, there was another part within myself that somehow met this dolphin with the same kindred intelligence of understanding and love.

And that was it, the dolphin departed. Others continued to play with the man in the sea, and I was left with salty tears in salty waters. My heart felt stretched out into infinity. I slowly swam back to shore, and sat on a lava rock to take it all in; assimilating, digesting, crying. I don’t know why I continued to shed tears, maybe I just needed to. Maybe when the heart opens wider, we feel so much more. I was blown away by the intelligence, and by what can only be called Pure Expansive Unconditional Love. What a moment of being, a moment of learning and remembering. “Wow,” I thought,

“if only we humans can grow and transform to embody such divine grace, kindness, welcoming, connection, and truth.”