I am so excited to finally share the story of the Hanging Mama and Baby whale with you! It was the highlight of my trip to Tonga to Swim with Humpback Whales last month. This is my second post about the trip, if you missed the first one, you can find it here.

I talked a little about the fear that came up for me when I committed to going on this trip last fall.  I want to share it more about it today because it really surprised me how strong it felt.  I tried to work with it and learn from it all the way up until the trip began.  As soon as I made the commitment to do the trip, the fear began to show itself to me. It announced itself as a gray and heavy energetic cloud that glowed from its center. It had a creepy quality that was reminiscent of a bully, taunting me. It made my heart beat faster and my blood whoosh throughout my body – a shot of adrenaline that seemed to settle in my belly. Fear created a warm, heavy gray cloud pillow of energy sitting right on my core. I had to take a deep breath and acknowledge its presence, and began to have a dialogue with it. When I  actually began to engage with the fear, I found that underneath it was not much substance.  That was an important part of my learning process this year.

In my last post, I was about to tell you about our magical third day out in the beautiful waters of Tonga. I woke up in the pre-dawn morning, the sun had not quite come up, yet the sky had a purple, almost pink, hue. Out of respect to my roommate, I had thirty minutes to lay in my bed while I waited for the clock to strike 6:00. It would be okay to get up then and not disturb her.

I decided the best use of my time would be to meditate. I allowed my breathing to come to a nice slow, immersed rhythm and felt myself quickly fall into a deep meditation. I thought about being on the water the day before when we saw the eye of the whale come right up on the side of the boat where we were sitting. It was super close and so fabulous to experience that by simply being on the boat. We realized that we didn’t have to be in the water to connect with the whales.

I felt grateful as I intuited that I could connect with the whales through meditation too. It wasn’t your everyday kind of gratitude. I’m not knocking everyday gratitude – I am a big fan of it. This felt different. It felt… profound. I, and others in my group, were somehow connecting with the whale wisdom mind and energy field. We had been told by

Trish and Doug, our amazing guides, that swimming with the whales is like being in the heart of God. The experience of the whale coming so close to us while we were on the boat showed me in every cell of my body, that statement rang true. The way that whale’s head came out of the water and made contact with all three of us before going back down into the water was not a coincidence. It was like the whale wanted us to know that we were right, we could connect with them whenever we chose to do so.

So, I let that deep profound gratitude help me to connect with the whales. I simply intended to lovingly be in their presence. I sat in bed for a few more minutes and basked in the yummy expansive energy I was experiencing in meditation. I heard the words. “TRUST. PREPARE. SURRENDER.”. With those words, a wave came over me. It was a wave of energy that felt comforting, cleansing and empowering all at the same time. I thought about the words I had heard.

TRUST. I trusted. I trusted myself to survive all of the fears brought up in the pre-trip Fear Festival. Dolphins travel the world in dedicated groups called pods. Our group adopted that and we referred to ourselves as a pod. I trusted my pod, the crew who had quickly become part of our pod, and I trusted the whales. I knew I was safe.

PREPARE. I was ready because I had prepared. I had my gear, and all of the human and spiritual essentials.  I had faced my fear and moved forward. I was as prepared as I was ever going to be.

SURRENDER. I guess that was my next step. The instruction was clear – it was my job now to surrender. Was I willing? The answer was a fully embodied “YES!”. As my meditation time came to a close I also heard the words: LOVE. SERVE. REMEMBER.

After the meditation I jumped out of bed and got ready for the day ahead. This second full day on the boat was the highlight of the trip. My pod and I gathered for breakfast and were at the boat by 7:30. The entire day was an amazing adventure filled with so much love, trust and surrender.

It was another beautiful day in paradise. The sun was shining, but it wasn’t too hot. Once the boat got out in the open waters we began to notice that there were whales everywhere. They were in front of us at 12 and to our right at 2. There were some at 5 and another one at 11. The whales were everywhere the eye could see and they were traveling with purpose. We enjoyed being near the whales all morning and we getting to know the beautiful people in our human pod. We shared stories of our happy times and stories of struggle. We felt grateful to be on this trip together. We wanted to get in the water with the whales, but where had they gone? Where was the whale that would be honor us and spend some time with us in the water?

Around noon, Trish called us all to the back of the boat to gather and hold hands in a circle. She led us through a beautiful meditation where we once again sent a big pink bubble of light out to the whales, the ocean and the world. We sent the whales our love and asked them to honor us with their presence. We shared our deep gratitude and desire to connect with their magnificent beauty and wisdom. Asking them to show themselves to us, we ended with even more love and gratitude. The meditation alone brought me into an altered state of being. I felt as if I had a heightened awareness of my surroundings. We went back to our spots on the boat and looked into the water with childlike anticipation.

As we continued on the water I heard Captain Andrew shout out that he saw a tail in the water! He turned the boat in the direction of the tail and the quest was on. As we got closer, I could see a beautiful white tall floating right on top of the water. It was an amazing site. As we approached, it became clear to us swimming with whale newbies, that what we were seeing was quite out of the ordinary. Both Andrew and Isi told us that it wasn’t common for a whale to be hanging with it’s tail on the water – they hadn’t seen something quite like this before. Then Trish and Doug chimed in that they had not seen anything like this either. Sure, we had seen the whale tails come out of the water as they dive into the deeper water, but this was different. As we slowed down the boat to approach, we noticed a baby whale playing and frolicking in the water near the tail of what we assumed to be the mama; her tail still in the air, slightly above the water.

As I mentioned in my last post, only 5 people can be in the water at a time with a whale in Tonga. One of those five people needed to be a certified guide. We had eight in our group and it worked out perfectly that Doug would take three people along with Isi our guide, and Trish would take three people along with Isi. The previous day, I had been in Doug’s group. Doug is brilliant in the water with people. His specialty is working with folks who are afraid of the water. I have seen him work miracles with people wracked in fear (there’s that F-word again). He holds a beautiful safe space in the water for his people. I was happy to be in Doug’s group, but I also knew it was important to be in the water with Trish at some point on the trip. I didn’t know why, but I was listening to my gut that it was important for me to make that request. This particular afternoon, I was in Trish’s group.

I filmed the first group in the water with our beautiful hanging mama whale and her baby. She was so open to letting us be in their presence. How trusting she was to let us be near her baby! It was as if she called us to her with focus and knew that if she hung there with her tail in the air that we would find her. It was thrilling watching Doug and his group approach the whales. The baby playfully touched a couple of the folks in Dougs’ group with its fin and tail. Before Doug’s group started heading back to the boat, we were instructed to get our snorkel gear and position ourselves to hop into the water as soon as the other group returned to the boat.

My heart was racing as I held onto my mask when it was my turn to jump into the water. I felt this surge of joy float up from the base of my spine, up to my heart, and out the top of my head. I held onto Trish’s hand and we swam towards the duo. It is hard to explain the emotion that I felt at that moment. Joy, excitement, aliveness, anticipation, gratitude and love all washed into one. We followed Isi and before I knew it we were less than five feet from the mama!!!! OMG!!!!! It was sooooo frikkken ccooooool!!!!!
Mama was literally hanging upside down with her pectoral fins open and her fluke out of the water, embracing us and allowing us to play with her baby  It felt like the mama was a beacon who was inviting us into her energy field. I immediately began to sing to her in tones of love, gratitude, and trust. I remembered the words that came in meditation that morning and knew my job was to surrender into this experience. I felt amazingly happy, content and peaceful. It felt like the ocean current was going to send us right into her. I felt a complete open invitation from her and, if Isi hadn’t told us to move a bit away, I think I would have allowed her to pull me closer in to her. I noticed that there was not a single drop of fear in me at that moment. And then I noticed our positioning. It had happened. We were belly to belly with the whales.

There are moments in life that change you. There is no doubt that this was one of those moments. I think it is fair to say that the everyone in our group felt this way about the experience.

As I got out of the water and back into the boat I knew that I had received what I desired. There was this moment of deep awe of the alignment in my life that very moment. Leading up to the trip I sensed that I was going to be belly to belly with a whale and it would have a profound experience on me. It had happened just as I had known it would. I am so grateful that Trish and I got to experience that encounter with hanging mama and baby together.

The other group was able to get back in the water with these beautiful, generous creatures. It was fun to see the awe on all of their faces. As I sat taking it all in, I thought that I received some insight and wisdom for a few who I felt were energetically a part of my own experience. My cat Lulu wanted in on the action too… 🙂

The remainder of the trip was wonderful. I have been home for a month and I still feel the whales close to me. My life feels as it is on an accelerated path of growth, love and learning. The whales still feel close to my heart and it may sound funny, but I feel like they are gently pushing me forward. I have this visual of being gently pushed forward by that mama whale. She has so much wisdom for me. The whales have wisdom for all of us. I am just beginning to understand the personal importance of the “Trust. Prepare.Surrender.” message and will share more about that soon. I have been allowing those words to guide me and the learning continues to unfold.