Last week our family had the rare opportunity to enjoy a sunset boat outing just off the coast of Cabo, Mexico. We were enjoying a long Thanksgiving weekend with my wife’s family, and apparently we were not the only ones with the boat idea. Dozens of boats combed the waters alongside ours.
Some family-friend outings, some big-time party boats, and some who signed up for a pirate ship extravaganza - a boating experience that we noticed had, at various points, the juggling of live fire, men scaling up and down thick netting, and pre-recorded cannon fire noise interspersed with threats about walking the plank.
“Whale!” The voice of our boat captain interrupted my pirate ship fascination as he pointed to an area about 75 yards away in the opposite direction.
(Zoomed-in, and not the same via the photo, but still - you’re looking at the backside of a real live humpback whale)
“Another one! Actually,” he exclaimed, “There are three!”
Indeed. Three whales were bobbing up and down in the water directly in front of us. Sometimes they even waved a fin above water. Amazing!
Other boats in the water also knew this was something fairly special, and quite quickly no fewer than ten boats had surrounded their area. The young and old, the partiers and the pirates, the tourists and the locals - awestruck together.
(Pirates ship not included in this photo, but you get the idea)
“We sometimes see whales, but three is quite a treat!” the captain said. “Probably a mother, father, and baby.”
Eventually, a few of the boats got too close, which prompted the whales to show us their tails as they descended into the deep. Slowly, the various boats began scattering again. We began moving on ourselves when suddenly our boat captain’s arms began waving madly.
“Whale! Whale!” This time he was shouting. Not only were the whales back. They were leaping out of the water!
Over and over and over with such raw strength that it was as if the laws of gravity had changed entirely and weight flew skyward as naturally as it did downward. Or as if their whale weight was not baggage to overcome but instead every ounce of it was the very thing fueling the momentum.
Or… I don’t know.
How do you find words for watching whales do a dance of total, uninhibited freedom? For three whole minutes.
(So blurry. Only the first quarter of a body. But again, you have some mild semblance of what we were seeing).
“Never,” the veteran boat captain said. “Never have I seen that.”
—
Many of us spend our days swimming under the radar. And sometimes that is perfectly fine. We just want to focus on the next thing, the next to-do, the next meal.
Occasionally, we risk something above water. We raise the fin of a new idea, courageous words, or a fresh openness toward possibility. We let ourselves feel the cool unknown brush across us, and maybe it proves more inviting than we had anticipated.
Eventually, though, we begin feeling our heavy baggage once more - our insecurities, our vulnerabilities, our fears. And we cannot help but note the looming boats that seem to surround us whenever we risk too much exposure above the water line.
The baggage and the boats prove a powerful combo, and it becomes quite natural to sink quickly and quietly back downward.
No need to stir the waters.
Too painful.
Too much to lose.
Too much could go wrong.
But then sometimes…
Sometimes we are given the gift of profound, irreducible love. It may be but one voice, one person, one Presence in our life… but held in Love’s reality, we gain this sense that even the very worst possibilities of our next steps are so much smaller than the largess of what holds us.
And in that sort of water, we feel the freedom to leap.
And so we do.
We throw open our unique…
gifts,
energy,
creativity,
imagination,
heart,
mind,
body
…with the kind of courage that used to make no sense. But, of course, love always changes the laws of gravity.
Where we once hid, we now rise.
Where we once felt shame, we know belonging.
Where we once knew great insecurity, we know peace.
Perhaps most confounding of all, we discover…
That what we used to think of as our baggage, pain, or failure is actually the locus of our greatest strength.
That somehow in love’s strange calculus, it is precisely by risking the honest exposure of our vulnerabilities and fears that we begin to dance upon the water.
That what we once thought of as ‘baggage’ proves joy’s fuel.
It’s almost as unbelievable as whales doing ballet on the Pacific over Thanksgiving. And every bit as true.
—
A couple of minutes after the three whales had finished their Pacific ballet, all of us on the boat sat around basically saying on repeat, “I can’t believe we saw that.”
And then, quite suddenly, our comments were interrupted by waves crashing quite powerfully into the side of our boat. One after another after another…
No, it wasn’t life-threatening, but it was definitely a jolt of wake-up energy, and we found ourselves needing to hold onto nearby railings to avoid falling.
“What is that?!” I asked.
“The whales.” The boat captain smiled.
He explained that all of the whale leaps had created deep waves in the water. Now two minutes later, the powerful waves were finally reaching us - and making readily known just how mighty the dance had been.
—
Some of us spend our days endlessly distracted by the latest fire-wielding entertainment.
Others of us are drowning in the tsunami of world events before which we feel helpless and terrified.
Still others of us let the baggage of our past, our fears, and our wounds keep us down, removed, and out of the way.
And then some leap.
Over and over and over in a dance of total, uninhibited freedom they offer the full weight of their singular gifts, joy, creativity, and intelligence.
Never easy and ever without risk, but always, always such an offering has a deep ripple effect. Often, it’s largely unknown to the one who leaps, but it’s viscerally real to everyone around them and even beyond them.
I don’t know which group you find yourself in today, but here’s the blessing I offer to you:
May every fiber of your being know the joy of a genuine leap. Over and over.
May young and old, pirates and partiers, those near and those quite far - may all alike know the waves of your unique joy shaking things alive.
(by the way, this is likely the single best way to impact the world tsunami)
And may all your leaping become a gift of love to another who follows your courage and finds the wherewithal to join in this rarely-seen Dance.
Because, truly, what a profoundly moving, memorable thing when one does, in fact, see whales dancing.1
Another way to state the ‘whale-dancing’ sentiment? I’m not sure it’s been done more concisely and insightfully than was done by Howard Thurman in the mid-20th century: “Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
Beautiful reminder to dance. Thanks!
Breaking the concrete of daily “concrete” things we have to do and lifting out of the water instead if sinking. I have experienced whales so close alongside the boat we coul touch them and they danced alongside us for an hour in the Haida Guai. (Queen Charlotte islands). You almost understate the experience. Thank you for reminding me of that time in my life when I lived a wee outside the box.
This one should go on the site.