Joe’s Dolphin Story
It was June in the year of the Millennium and we were on holiday on the Greek Island of Skiathos. One particular morning we took a ferry cruise from the tiny storybook harbour. It was one of those ferries, which left in the morning and stopped at various other islands on the way for lunch, swims, and so forth. The ferry was large, modern and comfortable, and there may have been about 150 passengers. There was a blue sky, a hot sun, comfortable loungers on the deck, something cold clinking in the glass and a gentle breeze to cool us down.
About thirty minutes out to sea the word came over the Tannoy that a school of dolphin had been spotted off the port bow and that the captain would cut the engines to allow the ship to drift closer, so that we could get a closer look at them. Obviously used to this, the dolphins – some forty of them I reckon – swam close to the stern and began to go through a series of spectacular acrobatic maneuvers. It was obviously something that they were accustomed to.
They swooped, they dived they did back flips, spinning in the air, both as solo performances and indeed as a sort of “synchronized swimming”. Like a seasoned circus troupe they went through their routines to the oohs and aahs of the camera-clicking observers.
I left my wife, and wandered down to the stern of the boat. Why? I have no idea. I had seen some movement there perhaps and thought that another show was going on. I was alone, and leaned over the guardrail. There below me swimming gently was a single dolphin, some five or six feet in length. Swimming beside her with amiable tranquillity was a baby dolphin less than two foot in length. I now know that the baby could not have been more than ten days old. I was overcome with wonder, enthralled by the sheer beauty of it. There were no tricks, no flamboyant leaps, just a mother and child swimming peacefully.
On a total impulse I stretched my hands out and sent them Reiki -just in sheer gratitude for what they were. Almost immediately and with a force which rocked me on my feet came a reply. Initially and momentarily it was like an electric shock; then I was overwhelmed with a sense of unconditional love and sheer peace such as I have rarely experienced. I stood there, transfixed. And then, suddenly, I was weeping, tears of sheer joy. Now, those who know me will raise an eyebrow. This is not typical behaviour for me. I thrust my sunglasses down from my forehead, and tipped my straw Panama over my eyes.
Within minutes the dolphins, their show over headed back out to sea. The mother and child swung around and followed them. My wife joined me, full of talk about the unexpected show I had missed. Then she stopped. “Are you okay?” she said. I nodded, I could barely speak.
I told her the story, the memory of which would remain with me for a long time. Even writing this, I get a tiny flavour of that intense experience when my Reiki was picked up by the dolphins and returned to me a thousand fold.
It will remain for me, a benchmark of the possible.
Joe