Hi and hello, sweet listeners. Let's start by taking a nice deep breath together.
You know how that goes. We inhale through the nose and exhale through the mouth.
Here we go …. Inhale … exhale.
One more time ….Inhale, exhale.
And a third time …. Make some noise - Inhale, exhale.
Now that we are synced up, amazing things can happen.
How do I know that? Because when we are in sync with ourselves, with each other, and with the Universe, amazing things do happen. In earlier podcasts, Pippa, the white dog with dark spots and a formerly athletic body had called it being aligned with time and space. In this podcast, I am calling it syncing up. Sync, short for synchronize, means two or more things or beings working in harmony.
Today I want to share a sequence of events that led to being in sync with myself, those around me … and the Universe.
I spent the weekend at Cape May. One of my beloved jobs is to present artists at a gallery. One of the gallery owners, Randi Solin, a world-renowned glass artist, had a special event at a gallery in New Jersey, and I went along for the ride.
I had gone with her once before, a couple of years ago. We always have a great time together, so it was a little business and a lot of fun. When we are together, it is always easy. You probably have a friend like that and know what I mean.
The first evening, at Cape May, after dinner, both of us, at the same moment, said, "I need some chocolate." We laughed, and I said, "And now we are synced up!"
Later, during a nighttime swim in the ocean, we both said, again at the same time, "The water is not as cold as I thought." Haha, of course, we laughed about the synchronicity.
The next morning, back on the beach, this time with umbrella and beach chairs, we decided to go for our first swim of the day. I pushed right through the waves and swam past the playing kids while Randi eased herself into the water.
When Randi eventually joined me at the deeper part, we grinned at each other and said, once again at the same time, "I wonder if we are going to see dolphins today." Crack up, funny-funny.
The last time we were at Cape May, we saw some fins poking out of the water.
So inspired by our combined desire to see dolphins, I turned toward the open waters, widened my arms to embrace the ocean, solar plexus, and heart wide open, and said, "Hi, dolphins! In case you haven't noticed, we are back!!! If you would like to show yourself today, we would be so happy to see you."
After that, Randi and I swam around and caught a few waves with a boogie board.
A while later, I went for a walk on the beach. One of my favorite things to do.
Except things were complicated. I wanted to take my phone but didn't want to hold it. I debated that if I took my leather belted pouch, it would get wet because of my bathing suit. I also needed to cover myself because last time, I got burned on the first day because I didn't expect the sun to be this strong. In short, walking the first two miles, I was caught up in a 3-D reality of wrestling with my sun cover, the belt pouch, and a water bottle while keeping my eyes peeled on the ground so I didn't step on a toddler. How relaxing.
A young guy got my attention at one point, and I shortly lifted my eyes. The guy was straight ahead in my path, with two girls around him. His arm pointed to the ocean. I wondered for a moment if I should look but didn't. I concluded he was pointing to a person they all knew, and why would I bother?
But when the guy tapped one of the girl's arms and pointed his finger again toward the water, I looked up and scanned the ocean. Maybe there was a dolphin. That was probably it.
All I saw was a yellow party-speed boat cruising parallel to the shoreline. We had seen one of those boats racing through the water, turning left and right like a rollercoaster ride. This boat, however, was going at a good clip but in a straight line.
And suddenly, I saw a dolphin. Swimming along in the slipstream of the boat. Then a second dolphin popped up and jumped over the white-crested waves the boat was creating. The first dolphin now arched over a wave and dove down on the other side while the other sped up from his lagging position to catch the next wave. I was mesmerized. These two beautiful beings, one with the water. Arching over it, dropping into it, gliding through it.
I thought to grab my phone for a split second but didn't. It's always a choice in those moments. Do I want to be fully in the experience, or do I want to capture it to experience it later secondhand?
I watched until the boat was so far away that I could barely make out the black dots popping up and down behind it. Then I also looked at the guy who had stood with the girls watching the whole scene. "Thank you!" I said.
He grinned.
"Thank you for pointing them out," I said. "That was amazing!"
We grinned at each other again before I got my feet moving again.
For the rest of the walk, I was buoyed. Ocean pun intended.
When I returned to our beach set-up, I relived it by telling Randi, who thankfully geeked out with me.
At one point, another speed boat came by, and of course, we looked, but there were no dolphins in tow.
A few hours later, I thought I saw a fin, maybe two. But it turned out to be a lifeguard checking on an abandoned row boat.
After our last ocean dip for the day, we sat down for a moment to dry off and make plans for Randi's gallery event. Facing away from the beach, looking at Randi, my head suddenly turned toward the water involuntarily. My eyes roamed across a slice of ocean, framed by a sun umbrella on our left and the lifeguard station on the right getting stuck on … wait, was that a fin? I held my breath. Was it? I think so …. 'Randi, I think I see a dolphin," I called out. We both sprang up and ran toward the water for a better look.
Yes, yes, yes. There was one, no two, no three dolphins. The dolphins raised their back fins out of the water one at a time, calmly swimming in the opposite direction of my earlier encounter. Randi and I scanned and pointed 'there", "there," keeping track of the travelers.
And we called out, "We see you, we see you." Like little kids jumping up and down in the sand.
Then we saw them again. The first back fin slid through the water, then the second one, and wait … next, we saw the tail fin of the third dolphin sticking out above the water, slapping the water's surface, splash, splash. How cute was that!!!!
OMG, now we scanned the water even harder, and once again, the first two dolphins showed their back fin. One breath later, the tail fin came up, splash, splash in our direction.
There was a rhythm to it. The other two dolphins calmly arched their backs, and the third one came in with a little shake, shake. The move had personality.
We counted the tail waves. Randi thinks there were ten. I thought eight, but who is counting. It was not a once or twice kinda move. This was something else.
As the dolphins swam more and more out of our sight, Randi pointed and said, they are going away now. See, they're at 11 o'clock. Oh yes, now I saw it. A glimpse of a back fin. And half a breath later, the tail fin was rising … and with one splash toward us … they were gone.
Randi and I took a deep breath, looked at each other, and grinned. We had totally been in synch with the animals. No question. Sighhhhh ….
Later that evening, reminiscing about the encounters, I remembered that I had said upon entering the ocean, "Hi, dolphins! In case you haven't noticed, we are back!!! If you would like to show yourself today, we would be so happy to see you."
Upon closer examination, this particular phrasing created an opening for all that was to come.
I opened a channel by embracing the ocean and dolphins and announcing that we were there.
Then I offered the dolphins an idea. "If you would like to show yourself,"
I always feel that dolphins have a joyful personality. They are up for things. Do you know what I mean?
So telling them, "If you want to show yourself," I threw out a playful invite.
Then I added, "We would be so happy to see you," which is a heart and solar-plexus move. If you say those words out loud and mean it, your heart and solar-plexus open up immediately. They become an invitation.
Here is the other layer of information that came with the invite. Let me repeat it. "Hi Dolphins, in case you haven't noticed, we are back!!! If you would like to show yourself today, we would be so happy to see you."
I said, "If you like to show yourself."
Well, they must have wanted to show themselves. Because as you remember, I was so caught up in my own minutiae with my leather pouch and sun exposure that I was not looking. If the guy hadn't gesticulated, I would have missed the entire show.
So, they used the guy on the beach pointing to the sea to get my attention.
And when I doubted to look for a second, the guy got more clear. Touching one of the girl's arms. Making her look. And so I finally did too.
And there they were, those cutie pie dolphins, right next to me, showing themselves in the most joyful, playful way, diving through the waves in the wake of the boat. They wanted to be seen.
Hah, so much so that they attached themselves to a party boat. Come on, how much more clear can you get, right?.
The invitation I sent out the first day was an invitation. It wasn't a bidding or summoning. It was an offering to create an opening for two different species of mammals to connect freely and at liberty. When it happened, just like with Randi and me, we were in synch, and that brought tremendous joy to us, the humans, and seemingly also to the dolphins.
This is what the animals tell me all the time. Love and joy are everything we desire. Those are the feelings we want to synch up with.
We feel loved when we are seen.
And when we are seen, joy is always right around the corner.
Write this down.
We feel loved when we are seen.
And when we are seen, joy is always right around the corner.
And that's true whether you are a human or a dolphin.
If this episode brought you joy, spread it generously.
Thank you so much for listening. Bis bald und Auf Wiedersehen!
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