The Heart of the World is Still Beating

I don't usually swim first thing in the morning. Most days, I settle in for my breathwork + Kundalini Yoga + meditation practice. This winter in Los Barriles, I've made a practice of listening for my organic impulses and letting them move me. And today, the impulse was to swim.

It was a cold morning. I was chilly in my swimsuit and towel as I walked to the beach, still waking up. Talon and Anthony were sitting on the retaining wall. I rested my hand on the back of Anthony's heart, and he turned and smiled and pulled me into a big hug – he'd been away for nearly a month. Talon said: Time for morning practice? I said: I'm going for a swim. He said: I don't know anyone as devoted to self-care as you. I smiled. I enjoy having a clean vessel, a clear channel. It helps me show up.

I walked to the water's edge and paused. I'd been in motion since I woke up, and I wanted to enter with presence and intention. I was eye to eye with the sun; it had just risen above the horizon. I put a hand on my heart and looked out at the water. Everything was still; the waves were small and gentle. Gratitude bloomed in my chest and I smiled, wading in, surprised at the water's warmth and happy to feel no hesitation because of it.

When the water covered my hips, I took a breath, went under, and pushed into the depths.

At first it seemed my ears were ringing, but when I came up for air, the sound stopped. I dove again and understood what was happening. For the first time in my life, I was hearing the whales singing.

The sound was pristine. I'd heard recordings of whale song before – yes, this is what they sound like. It was so spacious, so gentle and loving. I looked out over the water's surface to see if I could spot them in the distance; I couldn't. I looked back toward shore. The friends I'd greeted on the way in had gone inside. The beach was empty. No one else was swimming. It was just me, and the sea, and this song.

I dove again and again, holding my breath as long as I could, and listened. I came up laughing... then crying... then laughing again. It was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard. It was love.

And I felt they knew I was listening. It seemed I was being given something, but also that I was being brought into something I'd always been part of. It felt like being welcomed into open arms or an enormous heart, a heart the size of the ocean. It didn’t matter that they live in the water and I live on land; what I experienced was belonging.

As I walked out of the water, I noticed my arms were open, held gently away from my body, palms forward, not swinging as they normally would. I wasn't doing it on purpose; it was openness, embodied.

I felt different.

I sat on the sand and looked out. Sardinias shimmered across the surface. Bigger fish breached. The wingtips of rays broke the water. Someone larger – seal? dolphin? – moved here and there. A cormorant dipped and dived in the shallows. I had never seen so much sea life gathered in one small stretch of ocean. I felt the opposite of alone. I knew, without question, that I was held and included in something enormous and alive. That I am held. That we are.

As I write this, my sense of hearing feels refined, expanded – as if I can hear everything at once and yet distinct: birds singing, a neighbor's voice, a car starting and pulling away, the far-off sound of waves on rocks… and underneath it all, inside me still: whale song. It’s all here, connected, alive.

So much of life right now buzzes with anxiety. There’s a sense of being untethered from each other, from the natural world, from something essential. We scroll, we consume, we manage, we cope. Inside, the silent question simmers: Is anything holding us?

Here is what the whales gave me this morning: We are not alone. We have not been forgotten by the living world. We have simply forgotten that we belong to it. But we can remember.

The world is still singing – literally, right now, in the deep water, the whales are out there, their love songs rising through the depths, welcoming us home to a place we never left. The sun still rises, and it will extend its warmth to you again and again. The flowers still bloom into beauty you can receive through your eyes, your nose, your fingertips. The birds still sing, the rain still falls, the moon still shines.

They don't see a human standing apart from the world. They just see world.

We are members of something vast. And when we are quiet enough – when we follow our organic impulse and walk toward life rather than away from it – we find ourselves welcomed home, into a heart the size of the ocean.