06 06 09 A Dolphin Memoir by Irlene Davis

It sure is good to be home!  Here it is and it's June already.  I came home, probably for good back in late January.  For over two years I lived with a dolphin pod which has its home off Raratonga reef in the South Pacific.  Like other dolphins, they moved around quite a bit, and they were in touch with many other pods across the world.  I was unique to them because I was the first human spirit to show an interest in them for a more than an hour or two.  I wasn't alone in this, either.  Two other women who are spirits were with me, as well as a "dark deva."  Eva Carr and Connie Munger came to Outlands early in 2005.  Hurrain was one of the first arrivals, long before there ever was an Outlands Community.

I had had it in my mind to go live with the dolphins ever since I read about them online.  I had passed through several pods after I had died in 1970 .  I was amazed by them.  They sensed me as if I were a living person and I could understand what they were "telling" me by way of emotionally-charged mental imagery.  For a very long time I found them very fascinating, their lives were just so different from those of human beings.  Intelligent?  Yes, very intelligent, but there is no way that I know of to measure their intelligence by human standards.

About 18 months ago - this would be about January of 2008 - Eva and Connie had decided to move to an area in the Sargasso Sea, and Hurrain volunteered to accompany them if I felt that I would be alright among the dolphins.  At the time we all knew that I would never be harmed by them, because they are such gentle creatures.  After those three had left me, I was, for the first time, alone with them.  This was a stark contrast to the time when Eva and Connie were with me; now I was living as a human spirit with creatures whose thoughts and emotions were completely different from my own.  I can say that they cared for me, and they treated me with what human beings would define as the utmost respect; yet there was so much that we did not understand about each other.  At first this was a novelty because I was able to focus on them as much as I wanted.  But there were no other human beings in the pod, living or dead, and I could no longer take a break and spend some time with Connie and Eva.  I began going home to Clifton more and more frequently, until one day I decided to return "for good."  I simply needed to be around other people.

There are a number of differences between humans and dolphins when it comes to day-to-day life.  For one thing, any one dolphin will be emotionally bonded with others, sometimes a great many others.  And they have a simple way of checking up on each other.  I call it "pinging," rather like what computers can do with each other.  A dolphin will send out a noise which is intended for one other specific dolphin, but the noise it sends out has within it an inquiry (Are you alright?) and something like an assurance (I am here).  Several times within a twenty-four hour period the pod rang with the resonating pings and answering pings.  I should add that once I understood what this pinging was, I was included in the "net."  I still am; although many thousands of miles away, I can sense the pings sent my way, and I always respond.  Although they use sound to help express them, the pings are actually a telepathic way of communication with them, based upon dolphin emotions.  The only thing that might approach this is when an adult plays "peek-a-boo" with a baby.  It's wordless but makes the baby and the adult giggle.

A second way in which dolphins and human beings differ is in the way that food is acquired.  While a small portion of humanity still gets its food by hunting for it, or in some instances, killing from a herd or a flock, the rest of the world is divorced from the brutality and immediacy of killing an animal for sustenance.  You may enjoy that rare steak, but chances are good that you didn't kill the cow that it came from.  And, there are no supermarkets where dolphins can buy fresh fish; rather, they kill and devour whatever fish or other sea animal comes across their paths when they are hungry.  In the ocean this is a commonplace among all animals, from the tiny shrimp which swallow single-cell creatures, to the colossal squid which crush and eat large fish - and the occasional dolphin.  I've seen these squid snare eight-foot sharks and it is as awesome as it is terrifying.  This violent acquisition of food is constant: something is always eating something else.

I never got used to this aspect of staying in the sea.  Perhaps because I was a "city girl" when I was alive, I rarely witnessed the death of an animal.  But seeing some of the violent attacks made by sharks always repulsed me, as did the constant "feeding" of larger fish upon smaller fish, and the constant capturing of undersea creatures by jellies, anemones and others.  For the dolphins this was merely a fact of life and they seemed not to attach any emotional baggage to it.  An individual dolphin will mourn the loss of a mate or a pup, or occasionally when a long-lived one dies; they do understand what we call emotional love but for them it is much more a part of their physicality.  I mean by "physicality" that they are much more aware of their physical bodies than living humans are, so anything that they do with their bodies leaves an impression with them not easily denied or forgotten: sexual experiences, giving birth, the occasional fights and even just being close with each other within the pod.  The horror which I often felt is just not a part of their lives.  They have ways of dealing with predators - except for mortal fishermen - and when death comes, there is mourning but, life just - goes on.

It was the whole underwater environment which initially attracted me to the dolphins in the first place.  Imagine if you could breathe water the way that fish do, or to hold your breath for extended periods like dolphins and whales; imagine further that you could go to great depths and rise with no difficulties, none of the ill effects that scuba divers risk.  Imagine being able to move through the water as efficiently as they!  You'd be in a world which is visually limited to blues and greens.  And although light is dependent upon the rising and setting of the sun, there is rarely any shadow.  Light is further affected by depth: the deeper you go, the darker it gets.  Most dolphins prefer to be in lighted parts of the sea; occasionally one will go to darker and deeper depths to be alone - if it is safe.

This is a glimpse of my world as it was for over two years, and I have seen and done things that I just cannot convey properly with words.   I suppose there'll be enough people who'll doubt that I'm a dead person being channeled by a living one, but it's the story itself, or my inability to express it properly that matters to me.  People imagine alien visitors from outer space, but there are earthborn aliens in the water, creatures that are just so bizarre!  I've seen these giant and colossal squid, I've seen underwater wrecks, I've seen huge eels, underwater volcanic vents, I've literally been to the bottom of the sea, a place so dark that the faint luminescence of my ethereal nature actually illuminated it.  (There are shrimp and worms living in those Stygian depths)  I've seen the wholesale devastation of the seabed off the coast of New Zealand's islands, which was caused by deep-sea trawling by fishermen.  In their desire?  greed? to catch every last fish, they uprooted every living thing from the ocean's floor.  The waters of New Zealand are almost completely devoid of life.  The dolphins will go there occasionally to attempt communicating with humans, but that has been largely a thankless task.

They did teach me a great deal, told me a great number of things, but here again I feel at a loss for words.  They know quite well that it's the mortal humans of the world who've fouled the environment, but they don't understand this.  Simply put they want us to stop and to heal the world.  If you are a human who has swum with them, or with whales, not matter what you think you "heard" from them, it is always this:  stop hurting the world.  They too have their "devas," seemingly ageless beings who somehow share their nature from the ethereal end of the universe.  I tried communicating with them, leaving myself 'open' to their energies but what I 'received' is still incomprehensible to me.

My decision to leave was a hard one.  It's not that I can not go back, I can, but I needed to know for myself that I needed the company of other human beings, needed it in the way that you need food, rest, sex and drugs.  I found that I had starved myself of human companionship and that was when I knew that I had to come home.  Sara greeted me with a hug and with many tears, and I just went from person to person, holding them and letting them know how much I had missed them and what they all meant to me.   My life with the cetaceans will haunt me in a good way, and I will visit again - someday; but right now, it is just SO good to be home!
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