Fearless Friends
Last Sunday the Discovery Channel launched a seven-part series, "The Frozen Planet," an epic documentary of the earth's polar regions and the very real threat posed by global warming.
I could spend the rest of my life watching television like this, or studying animals in general and dolphins in particular.
Dolphins stay in small units, or pods, and communicate via an elaborate system of whistles, clicks, and squeaks. We all know about the squeaks from Flipper and bad Disney films. But their group behavior is something that can constantly teach us.
Instead of casting a weaker or ill member aside, as many other animals do, a pod of dolphins will often surround an ill dolphin and work as a team to bring her up to the surface for air to prevent her from drowning. In other cases, bottlenose dolphins have been seen biting and pulling through nets to save a captured companion or staying close to a female dolphin in labor.
While these "empathy-based" behaviors are difficult not to anthropomorphize, I'm sure that's exactly what led a friend to leave us with a beautiful figurine of a dolphin leaping from the ocean's surface when she and her husband moved from our community to Florida several years ago. The dolphin was her gift to us.
The tightly knit pod, she said, reminded her of the breast cancer support group where we all met. And that when one of our members - first Theresa, then Judy - sickened and ultimately died - we all pulled together, and brought our ill friends to the surface for air, so they might breathe easier, if only for a moment. We stayed with them, by them, around them, until there was nothing else we could do. Then water, life-giving and always mysterious, flowed in to fill the space.
In Loving Memory --
Judy Halinan, Denell Hilgendorf, Elizabeth McCready, Rachel Cheetham Moro, Susan Niebur, Monica Phillips, Anne Robinson, Theresa Walleye.
The term "Fearless Friends," was coined by Rachel Cheetham Moro in a tweet chat on January 23, 2010. She died on February 6, 2012. We will always miss her.
I could spend the rest of my life watching television like this, or studying animals in general and dolphins in particular.
Dolphins stay in small units, or pods, and communicate via an elaborate system of whistles, clicks, and squeaks. We all know about the squeaks from Flipper and bad Disney films. But their group behavior is something that can constantly teach us.
While these "empathy-based" behaviors are difficult not to anthropomorphize, I'm sure that's exactly what led a friend to leave us with a beautiful figurine of a dolphin leaping from the ocean's surface when she and her husband moved from our community to Florida several years ago. The dolphin was her gift to us.
The tightly knit pod, she said, reminded her of the breast cancer support group where we all met. And that when one of our members - first Theresa, then Judy - sickened and ultimately died - we all pulled together, and brought our ill friends to the surface for air, so they might breathe easier, if only for a moment. We stayed with them, by them, around them, until there was nothing else we could do. Then water, life-giving and always mysterious, flowed in to fill the space.
In Loving Memory --
Judy Halinan, Denell Hilgendorf, Elizabeth McCready, Rachel Cheetham Moro, Susan Niebur, Monica Phillips, Anne Robinson, Theresa Walleye.
The term "Fearless Friends," was coined by Rachel Cheetham Moro in a tweet chat on January 23, 2010. She died on February 6, 2012. We will always miss her.
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