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Breathing with Dolphins
During August, for my Institute for Jewish Spirituality Meditation Teacher Training program, we were to focus on breathing. During the first week of the month our teachers directed us to get back to basics-to use the breath actively as a concentration practice, experimenting with techniques such as labeling, counting, and paying attention to specifics such as beginning, middle and end; long, short, rough, and smooth.
We should set the intention to let the breath saturate our experience-to invite whatever pleasure arose, to grow and be sustained. We were to utilize this exercise to explore ways of deepening concentration. During the second week we worked with a sense of receiving the breathing and letting the attention be more on the whole body. I had hoped to establish mindfulness of the body so that the breath would simply come to me.
I dedicated myself to breathing in this receptive way, but I had trouble. My attention kept getting pulled to a recollection of a recent TED talk by Carl Safina about "clean-up" efforts related to the BP Gulf of Mexico oil gusher. Dr. Safina - an ornithologist, MacArthur Fellow, winner of the 2003 John Burroughs Medal for nature writing, and president of the Blue Ocean Institute who was named by the Audubon Society as one of the hundred leading conservationists of the twentieth century - began to cry during his talk as he recounted a story of a bottlenose dolphin in the Gulf. Now, I've seen men cry and I've witnessed the occasional scientist expressing profound sadness, but seeing Dr. Safina's seemingly uncalculated and public emotional response that arose from compassion was a first for me. In fact later in the talk, Safina explicitly referred to compassion as the most important quality we humans have to offer.
But it wasn't this that kept tripping me up in my efforts to deepen my concentration around the breath. It was the story of the dolphin. Safina said:
I heard the most incredible story today when I was on the train coming here. A writer named Ted Williams called me. And he was asking me a couple of questions about what I saw, because he's writing an article for Audubon magazine. He said that he had been in the Gulf a little while ago - like about a week ago - and a guy who had been a recreational fishing guide took him out to show him what's going on. ... he told Ted that on the last day he went out, a bottlenosed (sic) dolphin suddenly appeared next to the boat. And it was splattering oil out its blowhole. And he moved away because it was his last fishing trip, and he knew that the dolphins scare fish. So he moved away from it. Turned around a few minutes later, it was right next to the side of the boat again. He said that in 30 years of fishing he had never seen a dolphin do that. And he felt that - he felt that it was coming to ask for help.
Then he choked up, looked away from the audience momentarily, turned back to them and excused himself. "Sorry," he said.
Dr. Safina, if you read this, please know that I thank you and think no apology is necessary.
Now, I'm a geologist, not a cetologist, so Dr. Safina's story caused me to feel the need to do a bit of research on how bottlenose dolphins breathe. An article in Science told me that these athletic marine mammals show numerous physiologic adaptations to life in a dense, three-dimensional medium-that is, seawater-and as air breathers they are inseparably tied to the surface of the water. According to the website of the Dolphin Research Center, dolphins breathe air directly into their lungs via the blowhole, which is essentially a nostril that leads to two nasal passages beneath the skin. The blowhole is naturally closed and must be opened by contraction of a muscular flap. It opens briefly for a fast exhalation and inhalation. Air sacs under the blowhole help to close the blowhole.
Much to my amazement I learned also that dolphins are "conscious breathers" who must deliberately surface and open the blowhole to get air-that means they think about every breath they take; they concentrate on the breath. Bottlenose dolphins typically rise to the surface to breathe two to three times per minute although they can remain submerged for up to 20 minutes. How do they sleep, I wondered? Apparently, dolphins breathe while "half-asleep"; during the sleeping cycle, one brain hemisphere remains active in order to continue to handle surfacing and breathing behavior, while the other hemisphere shuts down. I tried to do my assignment, to focus on my breath, but I kept wondering if the recreational fishing guide to whom Safina referred had witnessed a dolphin, panicky, because it couldn't breathe.
I've had asthma myself and have been through bouts of croup and asthma with my children. I know that suffocating feeling. I wondered if Corexit, the dispersant used to break up the oil in the Gulf, might affect the geophysical fluid properties of seawater so as to make breathing more labored for dolphins there. It's been hard to find any information about this. Much of the bad news around Corexit relates to its geochemistry-not it's physical, but its toxic chemical effects.
As many people know, seawater contains not only sodium chloride (ordinary table salt) but magnesium sulfate, magnesium chloride, and calcium carbonate which taken together as the "dissolved salts" in seawater are called "salinity." It's measured in parts per thousand (‰) which is equal to grams per kilogram. The salinity of freshwater is 0‰; normal seawater has a salinity of about 35‰. Salinity makes seawater very different from freshwater. Most animals have a specific range of salinities that they can tolerate partly because salinity, along with temperature, determines water density. Density and pressure are related to one another. In my research I'd read that dolphins can detect very small changes in pressure. Could a pressure sensitive organ such as a blowhole membrane be affected by changes in the chemical and physical properties of seawater?
I watched as Safina conducted a science demonstration on TED; he showed that dishwashing detergent (a dispersant) added to a glass of oil floating on water and stirred causes the oil to break up into small globules that remain suspended in the water. The water became cloudy, and I would bet that if I tried to measure the density and viscosity of the Corexit-induced mixture of oil and sea water, those parameters would have changed from what the dolphins are accustomed to for their voluntary breathing process. Does the changed physics and chemistry of Gulf seawater owing to Corexit-dispersed oil in the seawater affect the breathing experience of dolphins?
Since the blowhole is supposed to contract tightly to ensure complete closure when the dolphin dives, would oil dispersed in the water make the seal slippery and less secure? Could oily water get into a dolphins respiratory system? I'm sure that some scientists would say that these effects are "negligible" so I had to leave these questions to the cetologists.
I finished an unsatisfactory sit because I couldn't easily receive the breath. My chest and heart felt heavy. I turned to one of our reading assignments for this month, This is Real and You are Completely Unprepared by "Zen Rabbi" Alan Lew, of blessed memory, who had been the spiritual leader of Congregation Beth Sholom in San Francisco as well as founder and director of Makor Or, the first meditation center connected to a synagogue in the U.S. Lew wrote:
We all share the same heart. We penetrate each other far more than we are ordinarily aware. Ordinarily we are taken in by the materialist myth of discrete being. We look like we are separate bodies. We look like we are discrete from one another. Physically we can see where one of us begins and another of us ends, but emotionally, spiritually, it simply isn't this way. Our feelings and our spiritual impulses flow freely beyond the boundaries of the self, and this is something that each of us knows intuitively for a certainty (Lew 81).
Maybe Carl Safina's heart ached because we all share
the same heart. And perhaps I'm having trouble receiving the breath
because we and the dolphins share the same lungs.
This essay first appeared in Shambhala Sun Space.
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16 Comments so far
Show AllNice piece with a twist.
Deep sea genocide is happening. It is very painful.
Great article.
Great TedTalk, too. I love the conclusion about energy, where Dr Sarafina points out that energy has always been a moral issue, as in "The cheapest energy is slavery."
We know that to live respectfully and reverently on this gorgeous, fragile planet, we will have to spend a little more -- in the short term-- on clean energy and use it a little more wisely. Or, we can ignore this fact, and pay the ultimate price. Our breath.
My wife has swum with the dolphins for hours. Their boat was becalmed in the Windward Passage. It was one of the most profound and joyous experiences she ever had.
It was heartbreaking to watch some of the overflight films of the spill, seeing pods of dolphins and whales struggling to breathe in that toxic soup, and photos of dead whales and dolphins washed up on the beaches. That doesn't even begin to illustrate the damage to our ecosystem. Look at the birds and marine wildlife, crabs, etc., washed up, or crawling out of the water to die on shore.
The cetacea are amongst the world's wonders. Fun loving and gentle, subject of many articles and legends. In the greedy pursuit of wealth and power, these are no more than pawns to be discarded, as are legions of humans around the world.
Schneiderman writes: "Most animals have a specific range of salinities that they can tolerate partly because salinity, along with temperature, determines water density."
The important difference salinity makes is not density, but osmotic pressure. Water moves from areas of lower concentration of dissolved substances to areas of higher concentration, eventually equalizing the concentration. Animals in the sea must manage the salinity inside their cells to prevent this effect. A freshwater fish in the sea will die because water in its cells will move into the surrounding ocean; a saltwater fish in a lake will die because fresh water will move into its cells and rupture them. In a wetland on an ocean coast there can be a gradation of salinity from fresh through brackish to saltwater, with the various salinity zones occupied by different animals with particular salinity tolerance.*
*Moore, Peter D. "Wetlands." New York: Chelsea House, 2006.
I wonder about, but mostly mourn the dolphins I knew off Siesta Key in Sarasota, Fla. The best of friends...
Om mani padme hum. Om mani padme hum. Om mani padme hum.
Interesting article, but screw meditation and breath control.
Many of the best writers (and journalists) have been chain smokers and heavy drinkers who got so heavily into melding the left and right brain processes that mere existence became secondary. (And, yeah, they often died young, too.)
Also, I seriously doubt the report that "... on the last day he went out, a bottlenosed (sic) dolphin suddenly appeared next to the boat. And it was splattering oil out its blowhole. ... he felt that it was coming to ask for help." Almost pure anthropomorphism. Almost like a Jew begging Hitler to stop killing Jews.
Sometimes "meditation" needs to be replaced by organized anger and spontaneous outrage. If I had been that dolphin I'd have been trying to sink that fishing boat.
If Gaia really were a Greek goddess she would be forcing humans to breathe fire through our blowholes.
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OleManRiver, I beg to differ. How much more effective would your "organised anger and spontaneous outrage" be if it was done in a mindful way? So that there was no wastage of effort. No needless hurting. No deflection of intent, but pure diamond mind focusing on what it wanted to achieve. Hey, even the Buddha (and Christ for that matter) used anger and violence in a constructive way on occasion, so there is an overlap here.
Also - how much more effective would it be if you channeled your breath, and therefore your energy, towards achieving the intended effect of your anger and outrage? If you made sure that your lungs were full of oxygen before embarking on your anger and outrage, how much more energy and drive would you have?
Meditation does not mean just sitting cross-legged! There is meditation in action as well as in inaction. It just means being mindful - aware - of what you are doing at any given moment. I think you have not thought this through fully?
So I beg to differ from you on this one.
"Also, I seriously doubt the report that '... on the last day he went out, a bottlenosed (sic) dolphin suddenly appeared next to the boat. And it was splattering oil out its blowhole. ... he felt that it was coming to ask for help.' Almost pure anthropomorphism. Almost like a Jew begging Hitler to stop killing Jews."
Anthropomorphism? My wife has swum and played games with dolphins. I have played games with wild dolphins at sea. As to whales, a year or so ago, some fishermen off the Farallons saw a grey whale tangled up in fishnet and struggling to stay afloat. They radioed for help and an animal rescue group arrived. Several people wetsuited up and went in the water. They approached her cautiously as they were not sure what she would do. She held very still while they swam over and around her body, cutting away the netting. One guy who was working around her head and jaw said her eyes carefully followed every move he made, even when he was cutting close to her eye.
When they finally had her cut free, she swam to each person who had rescued her and gently touched them. Then, she swam off. One is not anthropomorphizing when discussing reactions with cetecea of any species. They are highly intelligent and communicate very well. You just have to be aware and receptive.
That's weird... 2nd time today I've learned dolphins are conscious breathers. One of Amy Goodman's segments on DemocracyNow.org was an interview with the makers of The Cove, a documentary about Japanese dolphin slaughter and their efforts to hide it from the public. One of the people involved with the documentary was a former dolphin trainer for the TV show Flipper, who said the original dolphin who played Flipper essentially committed suicide by losing interest in breathing.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/8/16/filmmakers_activists_try_to_save_dolphins
http://www.checktheevidence.com/audio/
Dr%20Wolf%20-%20Cosmos%20Chronicles%20Interview.mp3
minitrue's posts reminded me of something I read in John Robbins' "Diet for a New America" - soon after it came out (1987):
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"Human-centred animal that I am, I find it easiest to appreciate the heroism of animals who save human lives, who rescue people. But I’ve come to be impressed, too, by the numerous accounts of animals inexplicably going out of their way to save the lives of other animals.
Now, the official government-run Soviet News Agency TASS does not ordinarily carry “human interest” stories. But in September, 1977, TASS reported a remarkable incident that occurred in the Black Sea. A Russian fishing boat found itself being circled by a small group of dolphins. The animals seemed to want something, and kept circling, until the sailors decided to raise anchor. Immediately, the dolphins sped off, as if they had been waiting for the anchor to be lifted, and wanted to be followed. The puzzled sailors decided to follow along to see what would happen, and were lead to a buoy near which they saw a young dolphin trapped in a fishing net. Understanding now why the dolphins had come to them, the men released the trapped dolphin. The dolphins then proceeded to guide the boat back to the exact spot where it had been originally anchored.
In this case, dolphins teamed up with human beings to save the life of one of their own kind. But there are many cases, perhaps even more remarkable, in which dolphins and human beings have collaborated to save the lives of other species, such as whales.
On September 30, 1978, about 50 pilot whales became beached just north of Auckland, New Zealand. Government officials tried in every way to lure the great whales out to sea, because if they remained where they were they would all certainly die. Nothing worked. Then the officials got the idea of guiding a passing group of dolphins into the harbor. This they did, and when the dolphins saw the whales they seemed to instantly understand the whole situation. Wasting no time, the dolphins immediately took charge, and literally herded the whales back to the open sea, thereby saving their lives.
Of all the accounts I have on record of dolphin heroism, perhaps the most amazing comes, once again, from TASS. Their report tells of sailors on board the fishing vessel “Neverskoil,” which was sailing off the coast of Kamchatka on August 14, 1978. The sailors heard a sea lion bellowing for help, and saw that the creature was surrounded by a number of killer whales. But before the whales could devour the sea lion, a group of dolphins appeared, and the whales backed off. The sailors watched as the dolphins then swam away, and they thought this high drama of the seas was over. But the whales made another run at the beleaguered sea lion, who again began bellowing in fear. I can’t help but think that what the sailors saw next must have astounded even these hardened veterans of the sea. The dolphins, hearing the distressed cries of the sea lion, realized that the killer whales were again honing in on the creature. They rushed back to the scene, leapt over the heads of the whales, and formed a ring around the sea lion, protecting it. They did not leave until the killer whales were well out of sight.
There are reports of dolphins coming to the aid of whales giving birth. When sharks are menacingly near, the dolphins take up positions around a mother whale and her female “attendants,” forming a ring around the helpless mother during her labor and delivery. Should the sharks attack, the dolphins bump them away with their bottle-nosed beaks.
There are so many cases of dolphins saving lives – both human and non-human – that we should really think of them as the “Life-guards of the Seas.” We should. But we don’t. Instead, we often treat them with utter contempt."
(continued below)
(continued from above - excerpt from "Diet for a New America" by John Robbins (1987):
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"One type of dolphin, called the Dall Porpoise, often swims in the water above salmon and tuna fish schools. Current salmon and tuna fishing methods use huge nets which trap the salmon and tuna – and the dolphins. In the last ten years, according to official figures, 1,649,189 were killed in the course of tuna fishing. The Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 required fishermen to reduce their porpoise kill gradually to zero. However, in September 1981, President Reagan’s Administration convinced Congress to exempt the U.S. commercial tuna fleet, resulting in the continued use of purse-seine nets which trap and kill thousands of dolphin along with the tuna. Thus fifty dolphins will be killed in the time it takes you to read this chapter. Two have been killed while you’ve been reading this page, and this rate of massacre goes on 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The huge corporations which own the fishing fleets tell the public they have modified the nets to permit the porpoises to escape. But they don’t tell the public that many of the animals are netted and released, netted and released, until they are mangled and dead. The Reagan Administration has also allowed the Japanese to kill porpoises while fishing for salmon in the U.S. Waters of the North Pacific. Over a million dolphins have died in their huge nets, which also trap and kill seals and birds. As a result, organizations like “Friends of Animals, Inc.” have called for a boycott of all tuna and salmon products."
The more I’ve learned, the harder it has become to avoid the conclusion that animals are capable of a respect and reverence for life that cuts across species boundaries. One veterinarian reports:
“I have six cases on record of pet dogs and cats becoming depressed and calling mournfully when a companion animal in the same house has been taken away to be put to sleep because of some incurable disease. In all cases, at about the same time that the companion pet was being destroyed, the surviving animal showed a sudden and obvious change in behavior. In one case, the owner did not know that the vet had put the other pet to sleep until he called an hour later, and for an hour before, her cat had been calling frantically and showing distress.”
I find it difficult to dismiss these cases and attribute them merely to instinct. They speak to me rather of a thread binding all creatures in the great web of life." [End quote]
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onemantribe writes:
"OleManRiver, I beg to differ. How much more effective would your "organised anger and spontaneous outrage" be if it was done in a mindful way? So that there was no wastage of effort. No needless hurting. No deflection of intent, but pure diamond mind focusing on what it wanted to achieve. Hey, even the Buddha (and Christ for that matter) used anger and violence in a constructive way on occasion, so there is an overlap here."
I understand what you are saying, while note that Jesus threw over the tables of the moneychangers, and that journalist in Iraq threw his shoes at Dubya. I would call these acts "organised anger and spontaneous outrage." The acts were spontaneous, but they grew out of organized anger over an observed injustice. It was the spontenaity of the ACT that caught the attention, the ACT as a symbolic representation of something known but heretofore unexpressed.
*****
minitrue writes:
<"Also, I seriously doubt the report that '... on the last day he went out, a bottlenosed (sic) dolphin suddenly appeared next to the boat. And it was splattering oil out its blowhole. ... he felt that it was coming to ask for help.' Almost pure anthropomorphism. Almost like a Jew begging Hitler to stop killing Jews."
Anthropomorphism?>
I guess you missed my metaphor. Humans surround the solphin with Corexit and toxic oil, and "...he felt that it was coming to ask for help." I guess the implication is that the dolphin has no idea that the humans are killing them. If they did, would they be seeking our help?
Concerning the other anecdotal posts on the empathic nature of the Cetacians, four decades ago I read John Lilly's first book on communicating with dolphins and have loved these animals ever since. But given the fact that their brain structures are quite different from ours (for example the corpus callosum) (even if bigger by body weight), is their collective "empathy" (including interspecies) like ours? (This was also a reason for my allegation of "anthropomorphism." It's a little like Michael Pollan's book on how we think we're in control of our relationship to the potato or the apple...or the dog, but it turns out they control us.... We just do not understand what motivates dolphins. I guess there are Skinnerian/Behaviorist issues here.
Sorry for the late reply but I've been in the hospital for a few days with pancreatitis, and the doctor admits he doesn't know what "caused" it! "It's a very hard disease to diagnose. I hate it."
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