Shiva

A Captive Whale's Oddessy

Shiva the Orca whale floated quietly in his temporary tank watching the serious-faced humans with their cameras and clipboards scurrying around. Some of them were hanging banners reading, "Bye Bye Shiva!" All of their excitement could not match his. He knew that he was now close to the very place that he had been captured when he was just a young whale boy, and that tomorrow morning, he would be released back into the cold, wild waters from which he was taken, six years ago.

The move away from his home at the Aquarium had been so difficult. This time he had to be transported in a tank for one filled with cool salt water. Lynne was right next to him sending him soothing pictures in her mind of a happy reunion with his patiently waiting Orca family members, who after more than six years, had never given up hope of his return. They had kept in constant contact with him by sending messages of love back and forth from their hearts to his and back again. These love letters in the form of thought patterns had kept him going, day after day year after year.

Shiva relaxed in the afternoon shade and decided to spend his last hours in captivity thinking about his life up to this day.

The Capture

He had felt adventuresome that cool and foggy morning and strayed almost a mile away from his mother, Isha, and the safety of the pod, something he had had never done in his two years of life. It seemed like a fun thing to do since his mother was temporarily pre-occupied nursing his baby sister Archana. He was just being a happy whale boy; not listening to his family that seemed to be always communicating to each other with their clicks and whistles. He was separate from the group singing only to himself, and slapping his tail loudly on the surface, chasing some delicious salmon into the shallow water of a cove.

He had been splashing so loudly that he did not even hear the humans. His joyride was stopped suddenly by a deafening noise. Over the foreign, metallic rumble, he could hear the frantic call of his mother shrieking a sharp tone that froze him. A new sensation penetrated his whole body. It was called fear; he had never felt fear. He held his breath in terror and waited for instructions from her. Vibrations from explosive thunder surrounded the cove. There were human voices coming out of the fog at him, about him. He tried to bolt out of the shallows, but something had been dropped over the whole entrance, blocking his only escape. He swam at it, but only bounced off. He backed up and rammed the net with his nose tearing at it with his teeth, but made no headway; there were so many layers of thick rope that he couldn’t find the end of it. Soon he saw his captors, and he knew he was theirs.

Whale mother and ruler of the pod, followed closely by little Archana, were the first to get to the barrier. They dove down to touch him through the nets. The rest of the pod was a few yards behind, pleading with him. "Shiva! Jump to us!" they screamed, propelling their bodies high in the air to help persuade him that he could still clear the nets. But the piercing squeals and powerful gymnastic displays were in vain. By the time he gathered up enough courage to try and fly past the many layers of netting, several boats came from the fog. The humans in metal boats were beating the sides with bars above and below the water line to frighten and herd him away from the entrance. The confused young whale turned around and around before realizing that there was nowhere to run. There was nothing he could do but race back and forth in the small shallow area that he had left until he was completely exhausted.

When the metal cage was lowered close to him, a diver entered the water to lead him into it. This was the bitter and sweet moment when he met his first human. It was both horrible and wonderful. She jumped in and swam right up to his face. He didn’t move when she put her hands on his nose, looked into his right eye, and told him "I am Lynne, your friend. Hold on to me and everything will be all right. Nobody is going to hurt you precious one, not as long as I am breathing!" He sonared her and sensed a deep sadness in her heart; she obviously had not wanted this capture to be successful. He had never known a human before, but he was certain that this was one of the good ones that his mother had told him about. Then something happened to calm his fear. Lynne leaned her blonde head on his and closed her eyes. She held her crystal pendant between their bodies. He closed his eyes too and saw the images that she was sending. He thought this was quite natural since this was one of the ways his family communicated. He saw the two of them together, swimming and playing with lots of excited human children all around. Although he still did not understand where he was being taken, he quickly decided that as long as Lynne was with there, that yes, perhaps everything would be all right.

He took that moment to transmit thought messages to his mother and family. He could hear them pounding the water outside the nets. While he was still submerged he could hear their high pitched, agitated screaming and clicking. He called back to them weakly, letting them know he had been given no other choice except to surrender and that he was unhurt.

Each member of his family pod called out to him separately, then altogether in a chaotic roar. Since every dolphin and whale has their own signature sound, he could tell who was saying what. Baby Archana’s squeal was confused and desperate for understanding. He could feel all of their helplessness, their shock at the audacity of the humans to take one of their own from home and loved ones, just because they can.

An hour after Shiva and the capture machinery was gone the sunset burned through the fog and exposed a reddish gold sky, lighting up the places where the boats had been hiding before. The nets had been collected and the inlet seemed almost normal again. But cutting the silence were the harshly rhythmic blows from the Orca family, still traveling every inch of the cove. The creatures below the surface heard the mournful calls of the grieving family. It was not enough that their fine boy had sent messages of being unhurt. He was just a youngster, and he was taken from their lives. They just didn’t know how to get him back, and they hadn’t heard his underwater call for hours. They continued searching through the night and for days after that. People living in the area say that the pod haunted Black Water Cove for many years, even up to the present. Sometimes neighboring pods could also be seen joining together to grieve for the lost whale boy.

His Life as a Star Attraction

Daydreaming of what was to happen tomorrow, Shiva was still floating on his side, gazing sweetly at his Lynne with one eye. He closed both eyes and wondered what his Orca mother would think about his human mom. Memories were still racing through his mind. He thought of his four dolphin friends that shared the compound at the Aquarium, and his Orca pal, Yanna, who had died so young in the tank. The night they lost Yanna, Shiva felt Lynne’s heart breaking. He heard big tears hit her little cheeks. She was crying and screaming a vow to the full moon. "This is not right! Orcas must be near their families! I will fight to my own death to return Shiva back to his pod before he gives up and dies too!" Yanna died because whales and dolphins never last very long in those little pools; eighty years is a common lifespan for many in the wild. Yet most of the captive Orcas had only lasted seven to ten years in captivity before becoming terminally ill.

He hoped his darling dolphin family; Terry, Mikki, Moon and Luna would be all right. But he knew they most certainly would miss him everyday, just as they had all missed Yanna. This was different though. The dolphins had understood that Shiva was leaving them to go home to his mother and family, and that was all right. On their first night together at the Aquarium, they told him that they had agreed to stay their whole lives to teach the humans to appreciate the ocean creatures and Mother Ocean herself, and that they would continue to help the planet through the goodness of Lynne.

That night the dolphins poured out love to the mourning Orca when he conveyed how he had been taken. Terry the dolphin had been captured in a similar way, yet much more violent and heartbreaking. When she was a six- month old calf, her pod had been followed, surrounded and netted. Many dolphins in her family had been drowned in the heavy net during the kidnapping including big brother, sister, and of course her mother who had fought with all her strength to free her family. The water was red with blood. When most of them were tangled and dragged under by the weight of the net and sank to the bottom screaming right before her crying eyes. There was no Lynne there to help her. In fact, when Lynne came to work at the Aquarium shortly afterwards, management lied to her about how they acquired dolphins. Because Lynne could communicate telpathically with the cetaceans, it was not long before she confronted the Park owner in person; courageously determined to change the way he thought about the emotional state of the animals in his cages.

A pang of sorrow moved over Shiva remembering breaks between performances. Yanna and he would connect fin to fin nuzzling up to the metal gate that separated them from their darling family members. They would roll over on their backs, exposing huge bright white bellies, watching and listening to the dolphins upside down just for fun. After some practice, they were able to communicate with the same clicks and whistles imitating them by answering back in dolph-english. These exaggerated sounds delighted the dolphins, which inspired them to wiggle wildly, jumping and flipping in synch, acting as the entertainment for the whales watching the show like the humans do. At first there were only three dolphins showing off, but not long after Luna the baby calf was born to Moon, she began joining the daily aerobics in a very adorable baby-way. Most grown-up humans thought it was such strange behavior for Bottlenose dolphins and Killer whales to constantly snuggle so close together. But children naturally understood that they had simply formed a new loving little sea family, and that the whales would certainly never want to eat their own relatives!

Shiva wondered if he would miss being an Aquarium star attraction.

There was never a question about what movements Lynne wanted performers to do, even if it was for the first time. She used what other people call animal communication skills. She told Shiva, Yanna and the dolphins that any human could talk to animals, if they would only try. All it meant is that she would quiet down her chattering brain and lips then use pictures in her mind and heart like show and tell. When she wanted them to jump and touch the ball hanging high above the tank, she would simply see it happening in her head and send it out. The other humans must have known how to do this, but they did not know that they knew! It was much more difficult to understand what they wanted. There was always so much other stuff going through their heads, it looked like static over a television screen.

During the first few years, nighttime was the worst when it came to loneliness, especially during the full moon. Shiva would lay on the bottom of his tank and wail the songs his family had sung together, then thrash around wildly, awakening the whole park. The other creatures took the opportunity to express their hearts; sea lions barked, wolves howled, tigers paced the length of their cages shrieking in the brightness of pure moonlight. Lynne would come running out of her quarters to hug him because she could feel his pain in her own heart. Each time she soothed him, she swore that someday she would get him back where he belonged and that she would stay with him every day until then.

Most nights she would bring out her bedding and set it up next to the tanks so that whales, woman and dolphins could gaze up at the stars together. Lynne pointed out all the constellations and made wishes when they saw shooting stars. Shiva’s favorite sparkling designs in the night sky were the Big Dipper and of course, Sirius and Orion. His mother had told him that the stars that formed Orion’s belt were very special, and that the stars in Sirius had a long history of connections with dolphins and whales. Even the natives of Africa that for eons had never seen the oceans or had telescopes knew of their existence. Oftentimes during the privacy of the late nights, everyone would do what Lynne called meditating, or appreciating their part in "All that is". As soon as they saw her sitting cross-legged, whales and dolphins poked their noses up out of the water, pointing tails down so that they were vertical too. Together they would fill themselves with love for the Earth. They could expand the love in their hearts to cover the whole Aquarium, and then let it flow through all the lands and the oceans. After they felt it happen, they asked for a blanket of peace to be placed upon this planet where they shared their lives. It was during these special intimate hours that Lynne and Shiva communicated with his pod back in Canada, sending messages of hope across the miles that separated him from his original home.

He thought about the Aquarium and the countless shows that he had done over the years. Performing was okay most of the time, except that sometimes a whale just does not to want to show off. On those days, much to the dismay of the Park boss, Shiva was allowed to just "be". Most of the time he kept his courage up and performed for Lynne, and not the extra treats, because the fish they were fed did not taste like the ones at home. In fact, they were dead, smelly and slimy, not fresh and juicy. But jumping high over the crowd for Lynne and getting stinking treats was his life that he grew to love as he had grown to love her. The uplifting vibration of the young human children screaming with joy when he kissed them and especially when he splashed and soaked them with water made him warm inside too. It reminded him of the happy times when he was just a wild little calf himself.

The night after his very first successful performance, he and Lynne had one of their many talks. She broke down and wept on his cheek when she said

she had been against capturing him in the first place. She had loudly insisted over and over again that it was a cruel idea to whale-nap another Orca, but the owners of the Park didn’t listen. She decided to stay in order to look after the creatures. Lynne told him that when he got back home, he would be remembering the hundreds of thousands of children that had come to see him. She sent him pictures of their learning respect and admiration for our Mother Ocean and all her creatures, taught by his courage and heart of gold. "Teach the children, then the children will teach their parents to love and treat this planet like the living sacred gift that it is. After all, the future of the Earth and every life upon it will very soon be in their hands. I will never give up hope that what people have done to destroy the balance of nature could still be turned around. The years you spend here loving the children, showing them your purpose and dignity are very important to the survival of the Earth." Shiva completely understood this within every molecule in his enormous body, so he gave the job his all.

Shiva’s favorite times were during the winter. The aquarium was only open on the weekends, so Lynne would arrange private showings for those she thought of as her "Special Little Angels". She arranged visitations for children that otherwise would have no hope to ever meet cetaceans (dolphins and whales). It was a secret for everyone involved that these private visits took place. Her boss was shocked upon walking in on the first little dolphin/whale party. He scolded her sharply in front of everybody, claiming that the insurance company would never cover a child falling into an Orca tank. She could cause the Aquarium to be shut down, where would she and her whales and dolphins live after that? She wondered if he really thought that the whales would hurt a human child? It had proven to be so healing to have these little forgotten ones and sea mammals together, that Lynne was compelled to disobey time after time. Waiting until after everyone else had left the Aquarium, she would take her van and go pick up children from one of the orphanages, government homes, or hospitals. They eagerly sat all around the edge of the tank so Shiva and Yanna could visit each one privately. There was touching, petting, and whenever the whale tongue came out of a well-toothed mouth to lick them, wild giggling would become the music.

As soon as the dolphins heard the children were coming they raced to line up at the gate, peering over the top, begging to be able to participate too. With all of the children sitting around the dolphin tank, a private gymnastics show would automatically begin. Very special youngsters that were brought from the children’s home by Lynne’s friend were generally unable to see, speak or hear. During their visits, dolphins would rise up out of the water and lay their head or chest on the little one’s lap. Sometimes several minutes would go by with the dolphin obviously in charge, but the child did not move during the healing. It was not unusual for the dolphins to jump up and stand on their tail in the water until they were even with the little patient’s head. Lynne knew for a fact that they were sending out sonar waves right into their brain. This must have felt really good, because the children would then want to hug the dolphins; even the ones without sight found the side of the tank and held out their arms until they felt silky wet skin at their fingertips.

Over the years, due to popular demand Lynne taught her special children to talk to animals. Her sign language and spoken words rang throughout the pools. First of all, start by asking permission to communicate! Practice by feeling centered in your heart and then form pictures in your mind. Okay…. videos in your mind and then send it out to creatures. Since most of you are not allowed to have pets, send messages to the birds on the windowsill, the squirrels in the trees, send them as far as you like, even to the families of Shiva and Yanna in the far away seas! Then be very quiet inside, you need to simply trust what you hear them saying or feeling.

Happy times reminded Shiva of all children, human, whale, dolphins alike. He felt comforted as he remembered how often many of the super Orca families would meet in one small area and join together in a big party. Sometimes there were over fifty of them. With so many to play baby whale games, the busy youngsters would begin to wear out quickly. Sometimes they would become too boisterous, darting away from the group, which would cause shrill warnings to be shot out by the babysitters signaling them to come back toward the pod for safety. It was natural that all the whales adopted the new calves as their own; he guessed it was because calf-sitting was so much fun. But, perhaps it had something to do with what Lynne had conveyed about the little ones being the future; yes, the calves are the future of the family.

His memory flashed back to just after his second birthday when his little sister was born. A few days before she was ready to arrive, the whole family and even some aunties from neighboring pods were hovering and buzzing with anticipation. They all busied themselves sizing up the stages of late pregnancy, nuzzling Isha, checking her and the baby’s progress with sonar up until the big moment of birth occurred. Then they all formed a protective circle making sure that Isha was able to help Archana breathe her first breath. Isha submerged beneath the clumsy baby calf, pushing her little body up gradually to the surface. After that, it was constant nursing for the little one, gaining lots of weight every day from her proud mom’s rich milk. How he longed to see his little sister again, how big would she be after six years, big enough to soon be carrying her own calf?

Lynne sat on the edge of the tank with tears in her eyes feeding Shiva by hand as she had done since he was a young whale boy. The big day was tomorrow, only hours before the saddest farewell she would ever know. "Well the happy day is almost here big boy. I just want you to know that I love you more than any whale in the world! More than any human too!" she sniffed between blowing her nose and reaching for fish. She massaged the top of his head and down to his huge black dorsal fin. "Your family will remind you how to catch fish that moves, and I think the push of the currents and tides will cause your dorsal fin to stand straight up again. Being in such a small pool made it flop over." After the last defrosted fish was placed in his huge mouth she wrapped her arms around his head and sobbed. "I want to say I am sorry that you were taken away from everyone that you loved as a youngster, but then we would have never met, the "Special Little Angels" would have never learned from you, and I would have never known this kind of unconditional love. Our years together will be with me every day for the rest of my life; I truly love you, and I always will. They looked up to the meteor shower in the starry sky together for the last time. The full moon reflected a shimmery white off Shiva’s chest and chin. "Thank you for helping me take our darling Shiva home. Please protect him all his days," Lynne whispered to the heavens.

 Morning of Release Day

Lynne woke up, stiff from laying by Shiva’s tank in the dampness of the night. She would have had it no other way. She leaned over and touched his head and whispered. " You have been my son for six years. Now you are going back to your real family in the sea, and again I am sad but happy too. Tell them how much I love you; tell them I love them too and thank them for all the beautiful messages over the years.

"Why don’t you thank them yourself?" was Shiva’s reply with a picture of a woman amidst a pod of Orcas, the same image that had haunted Lynne’s thoughts for weeks.

People and electronics recording the release event surrounded the land-side of the tank. There were no boats allowed in the cove, Lynne had seen to that; insisting that boats would disturb the reunion with the wild Orcas. The authorities pleasantly surprised her by agreeing not to have a film crew out in the water.

Lynne giggled while zipping up her wetsuit and pulling on her fins and mask. She knew the water was going to be quite cold, so she took a moment to put on her gloves, smiling and waving to the huge cheering crowd of humans on the pier. She dove to the bottom of the tank and winked at Shiva whose nose was poised toward freedom. She opened the latch; the gray metal gate swung open with only a light shove. She surfaced to take a big breath and shot a careless look at several people wearing badges standing nervously next to the water. Unlocking the gate was supposed to have been her last official task. But instead of getting out of the water, Lynne submerged and lined up her eye with Shiva’s, singing loudly out of her snorkel, "Okay Orca boy, now take me to meet your big mama!"

Locking both hands around Shiva’s droopy dorsal fin as she had done so many times before, she laid her petite body flat down on his back with one foot on each side to help stabilize him upright in the water. Without the help of a strong dorsal fin, he might tend to tip from side to side. With his gift of sonar, Shiva noted that the water already was wonderfully deep, something he had not felt in so many years. All night long he had heard his family, and now he wanted to rush out of the tank like a wild torpedo, but instead he was careful not to go too fast, possibly losing his precious cargo.

Underwater they could hear his family coming closer and closer. However, when Lynne raised her head and looked behind them, the red-faced, angry people waving clipboards on the shore yelling at her to come back were shrinking smaller and smaller. The officials threw their hats at the ground and spun in agitated confusion, screaming that she was "just plain crazy"! Catch me if you dare she laughed, knowing they had no boats. Smirking at the authority figures she whole-heartedly turned her back on their rules and submerged with her whale. A woman does what she has to do, and she had to meet those whales in person, every one of them! She held on tightly to the big bent over dorsal fin, still singing her signature sound, letting her body be pulled briskly through the cool water to the wildness that awaited them.

Her aching heart found a way to ache more and beat harder when huge black shadows appeared beneath the surface of the murky water. A performance erupted, happy whales twisting and bending forward and back, landing hard causing big wakes on the surface. Fins, flukes and massive black and white bodies were flying over her head and carefully landing on the other side. Each one swirled around Shiva, nudging him sweetly with their noses and pectoral fins. They took turns butting heads and sliding themselves parallel into in a full body hug.

It was obvious which whale was the pod leader. Lynne melted seeing the great whale mother, Isha holding her mouth on Shiva’s cheek sweetly, as a mother would kiss her long lost child. She floated eye to eye, caressing him with her big round pectoral fins. Archana, now magnificently full grown slipped up between them and spun like a top. The three Orcas turned and looked straight at Lynne. They came toward her becoming vertical in the water. Lynne felt a tremendous rush of love saying "Thank you for my son" coming from the mother whale’s eye via her heart. "Let me thank you, mother and sister whales, for keeping the faith!" gurgled Lynne. The rest of the grateful pod encircled them in a dance of joy. She joined them, in their ballet, diving deep then turning belly up and spiraling slowly to the surface, losing her human self, becoming one of them.

Lynn had been underwater for quite a long time. Her face, the only exposed skin felt as if it was turning blue from the cold water. The wind and evening tide had begun to forcefully drag her away from land and out into the main channel. The pod was still surrounding her, but Lynne felt weak from the cold and wondered what to do. She didn’t really want to return to land anyway, what was there for her now? The answer to her inner question came as an image in her mind of Terry, Mikki, Moon and Luna caressing her favorite children, the "Special Little Angels". "I won’t leave the kids; any of the kids or the planet," she thought. I will feel closer to the pod if I go back and continue to educate those who will listen about the magic of the ocean. I will just have to continue God’s work on land.

The pod sonared their human friend finding her physical stamina to be almost gone, and her body temperature too low from dancing with them in the cold water for untold hours. They all understood that human forms are the only ones able to make the vital change in the world’s view of all creatures great and small. This was her mission, and they had to help her complete it.

Shiva submerged beneath her, offering his bent dorsal fin. Escorted by the rest of the pod Lynne was taken back close to the sand. She hugged Shiva for the last time, running her hand along his shiny black nose and cheek. God bless you my precious one, she sobbed, we will always be together, just close your eyes and I will be there!

Using all the strength she had left to turn away she kicked clumsily toward a deserted beach, holding her heart with her frozen hands. After a few painful minutes, she heard violent splashing not far behind her. Stumbling to her feet, she turned around to see twelve adult whales, and four calves holding their tails up high out of the water waving the grandest good-bye ever.

After that day, Lynne could never let go of what she knew was her real family. People say that on many evenings when an eerie, high-pitched song drifts in with the tide, there can be seen the outline of a single kayak. A silhouette of a smallish blonde woman slips beneath the surface, amongst a pod of mighty killer whales.