Five of us went to dinner at 5:00 p.m. We had never all been to dinner together and some of us had only just met and this made the conversation open and curious. We all stayed at the same campground and were attending the same film festival. Most everyone had an RV, in fact we were the only site with tents on it, which was against the rules but no one told us that until we were packing up to leave.
We camped under a spruce tree where a heron lived.
One morning there was a spontaneous silent disco, in this case, two dancers and one DJ. It was about 8:15 in the morning and the sky over the ocean was still pink.
After thinking it over during the night, one person thought it was out of her comfort zone but then she felt she needed out of her comfort zone.
She decided to just go for it.
She wondered aloud, will this be woo-woo? (yes!).
We put on our headphones and walked down to the beach.
I did some swoops and tai chi-ish bobs and leanings and some disco adjacent wiggles and stopped and looked to my left and right and watched the other dancer wade into the surf a little ways.
And suddenly something happened.
Huge slick shiny black backs and fins stuck out of water- Orcas, two adult females and a calve were cruising by. They seemed very close.
We were amazed.
They weren’t there, then they were totally there, and then they were gone.
I got on the paddle board later and went out and pet sea kelp. When in the water, it feels different, smooth and green, transparent and floaty. I pulled it through my fingers. It was slippery in the cold water.
I stood up on the board but it wasn’t my board, it was a better one, more responsive in a way that I thought might have me fall in, which I didn’t want to do because cold and orcas.
“Don’t move like fear makes you move” I thought of that line from Rumi. I didn’t fall.
On another day, I met a new river, to me, the Elwha. They took the dams out a few years ago to help the salmon. The major push behind dam removal is the voice of tribes, important to note. We were in S’Klallam territory.
This dam removal project is the largest one so far.
I liked being in the presence of this river and I felt I had to get in it, no not swimming, it was very cold, the coldest! But I knelt and leaned over and the photos look like I was praying to it and I realized that is exactly what I was doing by scooping it up to my face/neck/ chest/head like a purification, a baptism.
My face was red from sun and wind.
Near the river, we passed through an alder forest. This place rang an unstruck sound within. I loved the alder forest. Beavers also love an alder forest.
Texts of my dog came through when I was in cell range. She is in the arms of someone I don’t know. She is visiting with a dog I’ve never met. She is playing with her beaver toy on the living room rug. She looked happy.
We told stories in the car. We talked about the philosophical question of how many people should you save in the train yard with throwing the switch. How do you make that choice. This was related to how to save animals and ecosystems.
Restoration takes persistent patience.
This was the song that played when the orcas appeared.
Read this for part one of this journey!
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