Bruce Jordan Bott

SWIM

‘The Politics of Splashing’

A Life Systems Book

Published by

Life Systems Family Foundation

Vancouver, British Columbia

Canada

The Life Systems Family Foundation

        Life Systems’ perspective encompasses scientific, psychic, and fine art for the sake of quality of life. If civilization follows a synergistic system of wisdom, a unified cultural expression will emerge, coming to the aid of people fulfilling labours of love, potentially creating a universal homage; a ceremony by which creation acknowledges itself through a diffusion of individual and societal advancements in awareness and understanding. True understanding apprehends the significance of Life’s meaning by aligning perceived particulars with appropriate concepts. Wherein the eye of the beholder comprehends the implications of any situation, and sensibly recognizes true grace, gratefully. Physical, moral, and spiritual loveliness in nature is the intended euphony between all phenomena in space and time.

Bruce Jordan Bott

Life Systems Family Foundation

Council of Chiefs

1976

A person asks for a vision: to be true to the life giving spirit. A vision reveals a promise for the future.  This is my vision and its unfolding reality.

Long ago – from what was yet to come – the sky was blue for eons, above a landscape of clear reflected light rising up from sun bleached white rock. A primordial world where life was sustained simply through breathing air and with spare infusions of rare water. Parched from wandering over an arid land, I came to an immense body of precious water swelling out along the broad arc of the horizon.  I stood mesmerized at the brink. What lay beneath the surface was unfathomable.

Sensing a presence, I looked back to see a formidable anthropoid approaching, the likes of which, in recent history, have only been glimpsed at the edges of our earth. As he came to stand before me I perceived the peaceful intent of his presence. I was told, “For the truth you seek go into the Sea.” I felt restored. I bowed to the ancestor and slid into the consuming warmth of the unsalted sea. Cautiously clinging to the rock face, I slowly sank deeper and deeper, naïve to the concept of swimming. My feet probing below as antennae, detected an opening. Landing on a ledge far below the surface, I found an entrance through an invisible interface into the air of a cave-like room.

This room was composed of bedrock, sculpted smooth. It was illuminated by a calming warm light emanating from the stone. In the center, there was a volcano-shaped formation standing chin high. A profound curiosity to look inside its crater overtook me. To do so, I had to reach forward and grip the rim with both hands, extending far beyond my center of balance. Thus prone, I was committed to peering into its depths. There I saw our planet from outer space. What a wondrous gem! In my great rapture my consciousness gasped, rushing to the surface, as wind and comprehension dispersed a primordial bank of cloud. The winds blew in all four directions. The sensation of wind coming through the bedroom window, my portal on time, was what brought me back. It still blows afresh. 

Taking to heart the ancestor’s instruction for me to go into the sea, I moved to Victoria, British Columbia in pursuit of a career in diving. A year later, I was called out by Sealand of the Pacific, who were in the midst of capturing five orca whales, one of them being pure white. My job was to be their lifeguard. It soon became obvious, the whales were cooperating through every stage of this unseemly process.

The five whales held in Pedder Bay seemed to settle in for the long haul. Almost routine, until one night when I was on watch. Wet-suited up for an eight-hour shift, I sat in an open speed boat tied up to the log boom pool. I was peering through the windshield when the lights suddenly went on overhead. I stood up. The only sound in the night was the slight stirring of five orca poking their heads up from the water, grouped tightly, rubbing shoulders with one another in the center of the holding pen. I followed their uplifted gaze toward the source of flooding light. The shoreline was steep and heavily treed with Douglas fir and cedar. A luminous elliptical disc about 60 feet across hovered alongside the first row of tall trees. It glowed with a pure white light, perhaps one third of the sun’s intensity. I was dazzled and yet in complete repose. I became aware that I had been engulfed by the same profound calm which I experienced upon eye contact with the white orca a little more than a week before.

From the ‘womb’ of the mysterious, vaporous light, a disc of colored light, perhaps 12 feet in diameter emerged, then another and another. These slowly formed a column of multicolored light. This manifestation transmuted sequentially through the chromatic spectrum as it descended upon the orca who continued to gaze upward, their heads bathed in coloured light. I would expect it immersed their very depths as well.

Violet, blue, green, yellow, orange, red.  Say it as a mantra in your head.

As soon as the first coloured disc reached the orca gathered below, a second column began to form, rising from the surface of the sea. This column ran parallel to the first. It was less intense but emitted the same, glimmering purity of rainbow light. The columns completed a circuit between the source of white light and the orca themselves. This went on until the last translucent coloured disc had travelled thus and was finally drawn up within the source. Because the ascending column was less intense, it appeared the orca received a quantum of energy from the source during the high communion. Feeling privileged to have witnessed the extraordinary spectacle, I thought, wherever these whales come from, and wherever they’re going, despite whatever else happens on earth, they’re on some far out celestial trip. In every respect they certainly do have some powerful connections. I was beholding much more than I would have ever thought possible. 

Orca           (Gr.) being from the deep. (Latin) Greek God of the underworld.

Orc             (Fr.) a kind of dolphin

Dolphin    any various cetaceans , genus Dolphinus (Gr. delphis)

Delphi       The location of the famous oracle in ancient Greece

Oracle       the medium by which God reveals hidden knowledge or makes known the divine purpose, also the place where the revelation is given

Orcinus orca, largest of all dolphins at a maximum ten meters in length for adult males and seven meters for females, have been seen in all oceans. Orca are tactically organized social beings who have a complex system for communicating. They have no natural enemies who threaten them, save man. The orca brain is described as a first-class organ when drawing any comparisons. They have a higher neocortical-limbic ratio than healthy, intelligent humans; captive and free orca show humor, empathy, and self-control that few of us could match under comparable circumstances.  Leaves one to wonder as to who is more intelligent when taken in light of humanity’s propensity for violence, even among themselves. 

In the fall of 1972, the white orca, Kull-la-ma-much-em died at Sealand. She had been pregnant with Haida’s baby at the time. While chainsaws carved up her body poolside, blood streamed into the pool, and Haida lay motionless with his head buried in the opposite corner. I knew then what I had to do. In the aftermath of the autopsy, I confronted Bob Wright, the owner of Sealand and the man responsible for everything that had transpired. I told him and the others gathered at Sealand, how I had perceived this chain of events, and how this tragedy might have been averted. “We need an alternative to capturing orca and forcing them to perform circus tricks. Orca can only maintain quality of life when left in the wild. If we respect that, I believe there is a very real potential to demonstrate an elevated level of cooperation between our species.” During this speech I introduced and defined the mission statement of Project Apex. I began implementing my ideas by founding Ocean Life Systems Society then organizing an expedition to attempt to communicate with orca in the natural environment.

It was now time to make ready my sailboat, Four Winds, and set sail upon the sea in anticipation of meeting our aquatic allies eye-to-eye, engaging in some kind of dialogue while initiating a foundation for friendship. 

Over the course of that Summer of 1973, our days were mostly spent monitoring and exchanging underwater sonic activity with orca swimming just off the Four Winds; or paddling the canoe among several resident pods of orca. Trust was the mantle between us, even after a fisherman shot and killed one of the orca. Despite this outrage, I was able to film the first underwater footage of free Orca ever obtained, a mother and her calf coming within three meters of my camera. That day, we understood the enduring bonds of love and peace.

With the summer’s fair weather behind us, prime footage in the can and reels of taped audio exchanges, we were itching to get back to Victoria and commence post-production in order to share our findings with the world. It was a smooth sail home and we all got busy through the fall amalgamating our data. Crew member Erich Hoyt catalogued and made selections for presentation reels of the ‘orcastra’ sound tracks, which we delivered to the press at the earliest possible date.

“Yes, they talked with whales!” the Victoria Colonist published. “No matter how strong an ‘I’m from Missouri’ attitude you have, when the tapes begin to roll, skepticism gives way to belief as you hear the joint concert of synthesizer and whales… the tapes bear out Bott’s theory that whales in their natural environment communicate with less inhibition than those in captivity.” Pat Dufour, October 20, 1973.

Michael O’Neill and Peter Vatcher took care of film processing so that Jim O’Donnell, the newest member of the team, could edit a final cut. Once the soundtrack was combined with the edited footage, we had a ground-breaking dramatic short documentary. Our film Orca premiered at the Christmas Whale Show at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Vancouver, British Columbia on December 26, 1973 to a sold out house.

We were encouraged by both the reception and the letters we received:

“The film is a wonderful statement, the closest glimpse we have yet gained of these creatures. In it is documented the first ever unquestionable communicative exchange between free orca and humans.” Dr. Paul Spong in ‘Mind in the Waters’.

“Life Systems’ film of free whales cavorting through the straits is breathtakingly beautiful. The sight of proud glistening dorsal fins pinwheeling in the foam is easily as persuasive a reason for their protection as their value as highly evolved creatures with remarkable communication and organization abilities.” Scott Macrae, The Vancouver Sun.

“Bruce Bott’s perceptive approach to learning more about whales in their natural habitat has additional value in its potential for increasing public awareness of the almost human attributes of whales and of the need to treat them as something more than spectator objects in marine zoos or sources of blubber. I fully expect this project (Project Apex) to capture the public imagination in much the same way that Kon-Tiki did.” G.O. Mackie, Chairman, Department of Biology, University of Victoria.

“Project Apex could make major contributions to scientific knowledge.” Bristol Foster, Director of the British Columbia Provincial Museum.

“In this particular instance, the use of highly sophisticated audio technology in the analysis and interpretation of the communication systems of sea mammals is of great interest and value.” Centre for Culture and Technology, Director Marshall McLuhan, University of Toronto.

“I was privileged to see films he has taken, perhaps at great personal risk, of the threatened killer whale in British Columbia. He was able to show me what my colleague in science have not been able to do, that these whales mimicked noises he transmitted to them in the water…. The work should be continued to document the remarkable nature of these animals… As one deeply familiar with the problems of whales at the hands of man – I sit on the National Scientific Advisory Committee to the U.S. Marine Mammal Commission – I applaud Bruce Bott’s efforts.” Professor of Natural History, Kenneth S. Norris, Director of Coastal Marine Laboratory, University of California, Santa Cruz.

“…by far the most impressive point you [Mr. Bott] made was the fact that you and the whales had achieved a meeting in which there was a mutual response, a meeting that took place at the choice of the whales.” Dr. Alan R. Emery, Royal Ontario Museum.

“As a result of discussions held between yourself, members of the Defense Research Establishment Pacific and Personnel of Maritime Command Staff Esquimalt, it is considered that the loan of equipment requested by you has been completed. I have read the Project Apex report and am impressed with the potential of this project. I would like to wish you much success in the coming months and am looking forward to reading further results when published.” A.L. Colker, Rear Admiral, Commander, Maritime Forces Pacific. 

“In the past, attempts have been made in various ways to communicate with whales both in tanks and in the open sea and all have met with minimal success. In 1973 a group led by Bruce Bott had remarkable success using a technique – a combination of advanced technology and an almost mystic approach to the whales” Stanley Burke, former anchorman of CBC News, The National.

When it came to inter-species communication, we had only scratched the surface. Throughout the course of the project, I determined that we were making the greatest strides in the area I call ‘Ultra-species’ communication regulated through telepathy, synchronicity, and corresponding cosmic events which can be taken as an Omen. 

John Lilly, Alice Miller, and Henry Truby’s paper, Reprogramming of the Sonic Output of the Dolphin: Sonic Burst Count Matching, confirms dolphin’s ability to articulate vowel-consonant constructs and simple English words and phrases. Beyond mimicry, the dolphins, like the orca during Project Apex, appropriately matched series of sonic bursts, inter-burst silences and latencies while differentiating between stimuli and unrelated human comments of corrections.

Orca’s continued interest in us relies on our ability to impart the wisdom of our species in one clear voice. They appear to be a communal species. A dissonant clamoring from the cacophony of humanity may be as meaningless to them as are the schemes of individuals. In order not to bore them with the things we might say, we need to work out a practical representation of human harmony beyond musical entertainment. We need to present a unified altruistic message to align our zenith with their nadir: an inter-species invitation to a conference of concrescence. How, in heaven’s name, did the natural language of Spirit disintegrate and with it our sense of proportion? We soar with pride, placing ourselves at the pinnacle of evolution, only to be viewed from above as a clutter of scrambling rats straining to perch upon the flotsam and jetsam of material existence. Bobbing further and further out to sea, we are left merely flapping our arms, signaling for someone to save us from this ever rising tide of sanctimony. We struggle to forestall total immersion in living water for fear of drowning, gasping to avoid swallowing our false pride.  Is it not better to swallow than choke later? And yet the great commotion for taking on airs persists, a futile attempt to elevate ourselves, whilst burrowing deeply in collective delusion. Alas, shrill cries for help are droned out by the cussed language of withering might, no longer casting so broad a shadow upon the earth; it’s minions murmuring in the raptured tongues conceded to the meek. The party is over!

Viewing our origins from an aquatic perspective, paints a brighter picture of the world – a world wiped clean of the imposing thumb prints which frequently alter the course of the written page. Through a concerted effort, a patchwork knowledge was slowly quilted together, coming to rest lightly upon the bedrock beginnings of Indian, Middle Eastern, and Western religions. The initial passage was plain, stating that in the very first instance of recorded history, 30,000 years ago, the vivid incarnation of the Hindu God Vishnu descended to earth in the form of a blue-skinned dolphin, Matsaya Avatar. Emblazoned in the solar spectrum, it was this deity who directed the Indian people to cultivate the land and construct houses alongside temples, rendering a landscape engulfed in music and dance.  Vishnu was the predecessor of the Sumerian God, Oannes. The Sumerian make it abundantly clear that their civilization was founded by Oannes, a half dolphin/half man, who is said to have brought language, cultural refinement and the baptismal initiation by water.

The Sumerian culture was succeeded by the rise of Babylonia and Egypt. Their cultures and religions share many links with one another, from calendars to creation myths. Checking these references against other sources, I discovered that Egyptologist Wallis Budge had written, “We are therefore driven to the conclusion that both the Sumerians and the early Egyptians derived their primeval gods from some common, but exceedingly ancient source.” Whether that source was the starlight from Vishnu, or Poseidon of Atlantis, God appears to have originally come forth in great light from the sea.

The Greek dolphin God ‘Proteus’ which translates to ‘First Man’ has also been identified as a personification of Osiris.  I discovered there were other dolphin/man sea gods as well, such as Nereus who was able to change forms and foretell the future.  Interestingly enough, he fathered fifty daughters (sea nymphs or nereids) with Doris. The most celebrated of them is Amphitrite the wife of Neptune.

Greek legends reflect a pantheon stabilized and nurtured by dolphins.  Greek law called for punishment by death for anyone killing a dolphin. They were regarded as the conveyers of life, and the transporters of souls into the afterlife.

Deliverance through dolphin riding was not reserved exclusively for Gods like Eros or Aphrodite.  This was a Golden Era, a joyous time, when youngsters straddled dolphins along every sandy beach throughout the sun soaked Mediterranean. It was a fabulous time where mutual trust, respect, and co-operation existed in an exalted form between human and dolphinkind.  In Greek mythology even the gods were susceptible to human frailties. Yet the dolphins never were. Eternally in support of the gods and humanity, dolphins are ever helpful, wise and undemanding.

One thousand, five hundred years before Christ, in the Greek town of Eleusis, which translates as ‘Advent’, the inhabitants celebrated the ‘Advent of the Divine Child’, the son of the ‘Wise One’ who came from the sea. Purification by baptism was also practiced at this time, marking the return to the Sea of Christos. The mother of the Divine Child is the ‘Virgin Mary,’ Merry Maid or Mermaid.  In Greek, Mary translates as ‘of the Sea’.

“It is an evil and disloyal generation that craves a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.”  - Jesus Christ, St. Matthew, Chapter 12, verse 39

Money has now become the world’s greatest religion, claiming unparalleled numbers of devotees. God has been summarily relegated to the bottom line. As long as power and money remain the name of the game, human and environmental abuses invariably occur. Creating a healthy environment will always take a backseat, as long as people everywhere continue to dread an economic down-turn more than total environmental collapse. No matter how we dole out the blame, it is our collective quest for material gratification that is destroying the biological foundation of our existence.

A sustainable, all-inclusive economy must be created using the principles of bio-regionalism tempered with reciprocal abundance. Bio-regionalism is an environmental movement and social philosophy that envisions decentralized community self-rule within political boundaries redrawn to reflect the natural contours of differing ecosystem types. Its goal is nothing less than to foster an ethics of place and create sustainable human societies in harmony with the natural world, and consistent with the flourishing of all native species. 

        Thought, alone, God’s word itself, is said to have created heaven and earth. Hope and prayer, particularly when perfunctory, with incessantly repetitive incantations, leaves us merely knocking at the door. The Creator, by all accounts, appreciates creativity. The first Hawaiian people often ended their prayers with “Next time I will try to pray more creatively, Amamma.” Too many people seem unwilling to acknowledge the psychic channels that emanate from the soul, yet they embrace prayer. Let’s not limit God, if God can hear and answer our prayers, God can certainly facilitate any kind of communicative phenomena, no matter how mysterious it may appear at first. The universal language of telepathy allows us to communicate with all species. Every living thing has been imbued with this natural ability, but often lost on human beings. Thoughts and emotions have a very real electromagnetic energetic consequence that can be perceived. The key to receptivity lies in intention, which is as much a matter of the heart, as it is of the mind.  Because interspecies communication is often a telepathic/energetic phenomenon, it can take place regardless of the physical proximity of the parties sharing discourse or spiritual communion.

        A psychic medium named Neville Rowe provides us with a dolphin’s perspective. He had no special knowledge of dolphins prior to channeling this message from a dolphin during his transfixed sleep:

“Welcome to this inter-species communication between man and dolphin. We are sending communication as a vibration from us to you. Those vibrations are translated into English language words within the subconscious mind of this channel. Understand that the words we use are from the speech patterns of this individual.

Why do dolphins come to you at all? Why do we play with you? Why do we welcome your presence within our environment? Why do we allow ourselves to be captured and be a part of your sea parks? We come into your areas to be of service to you. We wish to bring you a greater understanding of your true environment…of your oneness with all life. We do not care about our physical bodies to the same extent as you do. In many ways we understand much more about physical and spiritual existence than you do. This is not a judgment, for you have chosen humankind and we have chosen dolphin kind in this life. Many of you have lived life as a whale or dolphin. Many of us have had life as humankind. These are understandings or perspectives for your examination. We wish to assist you to understand more of your place, and ours within this environment.

In general, mankind believes in the domination of all life forms on this planet. You believe that you can rape and pillage nature and she will buckle under. You think you will always find another intellectual or technological answer to any difficulties you bring forward. But understand that Mother Earth has a very different idea. Nature is a spiritual entity that is in service to you. And that service takes many forms. Humans are an imbalancing element upon the earth’s surface and you are greatly increasing your number at this time. You have imbalanced nature and the vibration of the earth. Many of you are recognizing this fact and are balancing yourselves from inside out – working on internal harmony. As more of you do so, you make it less and less necessary for Mother Earth to balance and harmonize things for you. This is not a catastrophe or tragedy. Most of humanity fears death. You hang on to your physical bodies as long as you possibly can, feeling that your physical body is all that you have. It is your only expression of self. Most of you do not understand the true spiritual nature. You protect yourselves from nature. You protect yourselves from other species for you feel they are in competition with you. You feel that you are endangered by them. You do everything in your power to protect yourself and that includes killing and removing other species from your environment. You think it will be safer. But, of course, it is simply unbalancing.

Dolphinkind have a much greater understanding of their spiritual nature than do humankind. We place far less importance on the physical body. We leave this life voluntarily, knowing that the physical body was only a temporary vehicle.  We can always come back and have another one if we need to. Humankind do not understand that so well.  We are coming forward at this time to bring greater understanding. That is why we allow ourselves to be caught and placed within your sea-parks…to be a part of the show.  And most importantly, to communicate with those who come by.  We are communicating with you at a telepathic and subliminal level that people are not even consciously aware of.  Those who come by and feel our presence go away with a slightly different understanding, communicated on an unconscious level.

The great whales beach themselves and your scientists cannot understand why they do this. You try to drag them back into the sea and they come back again. It is in your terms called suicide. They voluntarily give up their physical bodies. You see your physical bodies as the be-all and end-all of your existence, and so very important to your lives. They do not care anywhere near the same extent about the physical as you do. When another species does something such as this, you sit up and take notice.  Your scientists ask themselves, how is it this dumb species doesn’t understand anything? How is it they are doing this strange thing’? This act causes those who would not otherwise be concerned to stop and look at what is happening in the environment, with pollution and your technology. They are dying in order to teach you.  This is to demonstrate the imbalances that humankind is creating within the earth at this time.  It is an attempt to bring awareness to what you are doing.”

Telepathic communication with sensitive, aware life forms should never be ruled out. To quote Dr. John Lilly,

“If one works with the bottlenosed dolphin day in and day out, for many hours, days, and weeks, one is struck with the fact that one’s current basic assumption and even one’s current expectations determine, within certain limits, the results attained with a particular animal at that particular time. Dolphins are interested enough in communicating with us so that they exert surprising efforts to reprogram their outputs to solve communication tasks imposed by us. Research into communication with cetaceans is no longer simply a scientific pursuit: such research is now a necessity for humans to exchange information at a high level of complexity with the cetacean.  We must learn of their necessities, ethics, and their philosophy, in order to find out who we are in this planet, this galaxy. The extraterrestrial are here – in the sea.”

A scientific interspecies communicator must be able to sustain an overall composure, balanced between objective and subjective awareness. A clear evaluation of one’s motives remains the best guide for entering unexplored communication frontiers.  Research along mundane lines provides no cosmic rhyme – nor reason.

Honest attempts to communicate with cetaceans may lend new prospects for dispelling the inanities we often face communicating within our own species.  Orca living along the British Columbia coast have, in their own way, attempted to overcome the alienation between our species. Their extraordinary cooperation and curiosity toward people can be regarded as a persuasive step in bridging the separate realities of terrestrial and aquatic life. Mythological evidence and direct observation affirm that cetaceans are cosmological ambassadors bearing significance. Let’s heed the call or be subject to the handwriting on the wall.

Holistic evolution is characterized by beneficial symbiotic relationships. Within human society, people are often fragmented into a multitude of competitive and antithetic social strata, lacking a common cause.  Real understanding evolves out of shared experience. The one experience connecting all known life forms is living on this planet. We share a home. The care and maintenance of this planet hold out the only hope for the survival of humanity and our fellow creatures – now mandated by our common interest. What we consider to be ‘free will’ would be better understood to mean ‘supreme obstinacy’. 

Ultra-species and meaningful inter-species communication call into play the entire score of human knowledge. The set of precepts with which humanity ideally views itself will determine the content of such communication. The Universe is a harmoniously predicated and developing ‘organic’ whole, whose parts are defined by their inter-relationships. Each functional part radiates a wave-like pattern that interconnects with patterns from all the other constituents. Because living energy is imbued with spirit, it is regenerative. This is to say, sympathetic vibrational patterns of thought and emotion can persist through space and time. These energy configurations manifest locally as individual and collective experiences.  In a broader collective psychological moment, thoughts are synergistic, yielding infinite possibilities. An advanced community of shared awareness can reach a complementary cornucopian threshold and instantly advance to a new level, in unison. The most advanced stage of this celestial bliss is commonly called ‘Heaven’.  In the end, we only reap what we sow together.

At sea, the Europeans of the day could be a brutish, obstreperous lot. Dr. Stillman, a passenger, described the events which took place on board the ship Plymouth in 1850.

“We are witnesses of a very remarkable exhibition of the social disposition of the whale. A week ago we passed several, and one was becoming more familiar, keeping under the ship and only coming out to breathe. A great deal of uneasiness was felt, lest in his careless gambols he might unship the rudder or do us some other damage. It was said that the bilge water would drive him away, and the pumps were started, but to no purpose. At length more violent means were resorted to: volley after volley of rifle shots were fired into him, bullets of wood, bottles, etc., were thrown upon his head with such force as to separate the integument, to all which he paid not the slightest attention, and he still continued to swim underneath us, keeping our exact rate of speed, whether in calm or storm, and rising to blow almost into cabin windows. His length is about eighty feet; his tail measures twelve feet across; and in the calm, as we look down into transparent water, we see him in all of his huge proportions. He seems determined to stay with us until he can find better company. It is now twenty-four days since he attached himself to us and during that time he has followed us as faithfully as a dog…this afternoon he left us.”

Meditate. Think back to a far distant time when the fore bearers of modern cetacea, for whatever imperative, transformed themselves into animals better suited to the sea. Insofar as paleontological evidence can determine, they evolved over a period of 45 million years from an early wolf-like animal, ‘the Creodonts’, into their present form. This is the generally accepted view, even though there are many missing links. From the moment the ancestors of dolphins first took to the sea, they adapted their bodies to its environment at levels beyond human comprehension. Yet there are intriguing latent similarities between cetacean and human anatomy. Flippers of dolphins and whales have all the finger bones of the human hand including an opposed thumb, the one physical characteristic responsible for our distinctly human creations.

        Coastal Natives believe that humans are escorted by orca into the spirit world and that they can be reincarnated back into this world as orca. West Coast Native lore also tells us that orca and wolves are interchangeable beings who share the ability to trade consciousness as individuals.( Wolves have been reported swimming alongside orca as far as six miles off the coast of British Columbia.)

        With this consensus of wills, they can experience both terrestrial and aquatic life. These beings go through the world composed, confident and sure of their destination because they travel full circle. What I wanted to figure out was how to enter the circle. Each time I had met free orca eye to eye underwater, the same overwhelming, peaceful sensation was imparted to me. Had they allowed me to view them through the portal of the spirit?

In an attempt to get my research back on track, I met with Mr. Halladay, Regional Director of Communications Canada. He had endorsed Project Apex back in 1974. During the course of the meeting I explained our current approach and handed him a paper titled, “Conversations with orcinus orca using the English Language.” When I left his office and entered the street, I ran into Mel Gregory of Greenpeace. He saw the tape recorder slung over my shoulder and asked me if I would accompany him to the Vancouver Public Aquarium at the Stanley Park Zoo. He had heard the Beluga whales imitating his flute sounds the day before, and wanted me to try to capture this on tape.

On the way over, Mel shared his recent experiences tracking the Russian whaling fleet in the North Pacific aboard the Greenpeace protest ship, Phyllis Cormack. This had proven to be a daunting task, considering the vast expanse of water to be covered. After a three-month search, they still hadn’t made contact. Plugging over rolling swarthy seas, Mel was at the helm all night long. Through the murkiness he spotted the end of a distant rainbow, a phantasmagorial sight in the black of night. He gasped and in the same breath altered course bearing on the magic lantern.( In the years to follow, Greenpeace continued the battle to stop whaling, sailing a new ship named the ‘Rainbow Warrior’.) By the morning, the bedazzled crew found themselves between the whales and Russian harpoons.

When we arrived at the aquarium, we secured permission to enter the pool area. Mel made his way to the underwater observation port. I stood above, alongside the pool where I placed a very small hydrophone, suspending it just below the surface. One of the whales immediately expressed cognizance of the hydrophone, first echo-locating it with fine sound patterns, then conducting a close visual examination. Belugas are capable of facial expressions unlike any other cetacea, and she broke into animated gestures similar to those a rubber-faced comedian might display while toying with a microphone. The beluga then centred the top of her head an infinitesimal distance below the hydrophone. In one graceful motion, the whale slid the entire length of her body past the hydrophone. Mel was playing his flute with the belugas lounging in the pool, while I monitored the recorder topside. Faint flute sounds were barely penetrating the pool through several inches of heavy glass. The static hum of electric motors and the whirling hiss of water pumps dominated the acoustics within the pool. This is the distressing reality. Born into a silent ocean, a whale’s amazing acoustic sensitivity can be exercised without gross interference.

I curtailed my internal dialogue for a moment, centering my energies, recognizing, “Perhaps I can facilitate a communication here.” Instantly, a single echo location struck the hydrophone. The beluga nailed the hydrophone from the far side of the pool. Encouraged, I maintained my focus and requested, “Please if you can, somehow communicate to us your understanding or feelings regarding your present situation here.” The beluga whale then spoke in a human voice using an unknown language.  The latter portion of these utterances contain an English response to my request when the whale called out, “Get me outta here!” Then hitting a felicitous, sarcastic note, she sang, “Yawn, yawn, Old MacDonald had a farm.”