"In my own life, I went to the water and was forever changed by the eye of the whale in which I saw and entire world. Peace is here, in accepting that smallness of our place in the world, in being as humble as the birds around us. This humble place is where we belong, according to the tribal view. Like the whales in the ocean gazing from the kelp beds and seeing the turning stars at night, when young people look at the clouds, the movement of an ant, the wings of a moth, or the leap of a fish---they are part of it.
But few people think of what is already missing, that there is a hole not only in the world, but also in the universe we used to call infinite, once believing it was without limit. This is true with the gray whales in the Atlantic. Do we now miss them? The Earth is yet an unknown mystery and we have barely begun to understand this." -- Linda Hogan
Brenda Peterson & Linda Hogan. "Sightings The Gray Whales' Mysterious Journey".
"Brother leviathan, sister whale, dwellers of the deep,
We greet you in the name of the human people
Who share this planet with you.
We stand in awe of your powerful beauty,
We take delight in your liquid dance,
We rejoice that another spring
has brought you to grace our coastal waters.
May the Creator, whose breath causes all things to be
Keep you on your journey home,
Sustain you through the summers and winters to come.
And make your very existence a song of praise and wonder..."
--Episcopal Priest, Jim Friederich's blessing during an at sea "interspecies ritual...improvisation...the blessing of the gray whales who pass every March on their way to Alaska". At the request of the Natural History Museum in Santa Barbara, California. Brenda Peterson & Linda Hogan. "Sightings The Gray Whales' Mysterious Journey".
