He Rose From the Deep

A True Story

The Beaches of Far North Queensland, Australia 1979

While living in Australia, I often lived on the beach, or not far from it. I spent a lot of time body surfing and swimming in the sea. Compared to my childhood swims in the ice-numbing waters of the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Maine, Australia’s warm coastal waters we pure bliss. I often watched dolphins riding the swells alongside the surfers. I thrilled at seeing sharks follow beside the boat that shuttled me out to the Whitsunday Islands. I could have leaned over the railing and touched their broad backs, but for obvious reasons did not.

Living in Australia was a continual wild adventure. I never knew what I might see or experience. This time of my life shattered my cultural conditioning and ripped me wide open to Life’s immense possibilities. Life was wild and so large that a person would be hard-pressed to escape themselves, especially once they ventured beyond the cities. And, it didn’t take long to do that. The outback lay like a massive untamed force just waiting to sweep back in and reclaim its own.

My life in Australia made my childhood seem tame and sheltered, which is not a bad thing. I loved growing up in the woods of Maine. I can’t think of a better place for a ‘wild child’ like me to live out her youth. Nonetheless, my experiences in Australia were larger than life. Most days were incomprehensibly ‘large.’ Each day held a raw, wild intensity…just like the land itself. In the late seventies, many parts of Australia were still untouched. A person could drive miles and not see another human being. Wildlife was plentiful, the land rugged, and the Australian people were refreshingly independent, free-thinking mavericks. I loved their self-reliance and no nonsense, rebel energy. I adored the Aussies.

One day, I left the rainforest where I was living, to make a supply run to Cairns, Queensland. This was not just a skip and hop down the street, or a quick jaunt to a nearby city. This was a day long adventure. I rose at ‘sparrow-fart,’ dug out some clothes (had to wear clothes in town), packed water and food for a day, and then stuffed my dirty laundry into the white five-gallon buckets in the bed of the Toyota truck. Since I wore few clothes in the jungle, I never filled more than two or three buckets of dirty clothes after many months.

Then I lugged water from the spring up the hill to the truck and filled the buckets with water and a dash of soap. I secured the lids tightly on the buckets and strapped them to the sides of the truck. The bone-jarring agitation over bumpy dirt and potholed roads left my clothes clean by the time I arrived in town. Once in town, I went to a gas station or a pub--somewhere with an outside tap--and I emptied the dirty water, roughly rinsed the clothes, then topped up the buckets with clean water. By the time I returned home, my clothes were fully rinsed and clean, ready to wring out and line dry. I’ve never since had clothes as clean as my bumpy-road clothes.

To get to town I drove down several dirt roads to arrive at the Daintree River where I awaited the punt to carry me to the other side. I would drive onto the flat platform and the ferry master would carry me and my truck across the lazy Daintree. I often got out of my vehicle to stand at the railing and look for large salties (salt-water crocs) cooling themselves on the banks of the river, their mouths open to sweat.

A ‘saltie’ cools himself with his mouth open to sweat.

After a long day traipsing around town for needed supplies, I headed home, north along the coast road, back to Mossman, and then to the Daintree River Ferry, across the river, and then back into the rainforest.

The coastal route from Cains to Mossman is breathtakingly beautiful. I drove for miles with vast expanses of blue sea spread all the way to the horizon. There were several places along the road where a vehicle could pull over, but I never stopped. I had to catch the ferry back across the river before it shut down at six o’clock that evening. If I didn’t make it in time, I’d have to sleep the night in the truck until the first morning ferry run.

However, this time, an irresistible pull begged me to stop, to take a few minutes and dream with the sea. Impulsively, I pulled the Toyota off the road and got out of the truck. Miles and miles of empty beach lay before me. Small white-capped waves rolled rhythmically onto white sand. Gentle breeze carried the sweet scent of salt and wet sand, a much loved and familiar smell. An occasional seagull glided by with a halfhearted squawk.

As I looked around, I noticed a pile of tumbled boulders off to my left. I couldn’t resist exploring. I glanced at my watch to be certain I would arrive back at the Daintree River in time for the last ferry crossing. I still had about fifteen minutes to spare. Wearing a watch felt weird. I hadn’t used clocks in years, and only wore the wristwatch on my rare trips to town. Otherwise, I rose with the sun and went to bed with the sun.

When I reached the boulders, a tiny cove not much bigger than a two-car garage, caught my attention. I wandered right up to its grassy edge and stood looking down into deep, dark water. With the tide high, the water level was only a foot below ground level. I suspected that in exceptionally high tides, the sea spilled over the grassy bank. The water was so deep in the protected cove, that there was no surf, only the gentle swell of sea, slightly rising and falling like the breath of a sleeping baby. The air by the cove smelled of seaweed and algae covered rocks. I found it invigorating and clean.

Looking down at the deep dark water, I wondered how the cove had formed along miles of sandy beach. Maybe it had once been an underwater cave. As I stood there pondering, suddenly something started to slowly rise to the surface, something very, very huge. Eyes wide and mouth agape, I watch as a massive black shape slowly, very slowly rose. I thought it might be a one-man submersible. Maybe the cove really was an underwater cave and someone was exploring. The shape was dark and long, at least twelve feet. It continued to rise, still moving in slow motion. As it neared the surface, I noticed a white patch at the front of the massive object.

As it gently broke the surface with hardly a ripple, I recognized it as a young Orca, maybe a year old. Only a foot of space separated us. I felt breathless by the Orca’s massive size so close to me. He emanated a magnetism I’d never experienced in any other Wild One. I didn’t think to step back. I couldn’t move.

The Orca gradually lifted his head out of the water. Every move was slow and deliberate, as he sat there suspended looking at me with one beautiful eye. I saw brown flecks in his eye, and even two tiny red veins that ran across the white. He was that close. Me on the land and he in the sea, right at my feet. I stared. He stared.

If I had knelt down, I could have reached my hand out to touch him. But I was rooted where I stood as information from the Orca suddenly flooded into me. I was no longer standing on the shore. I was the Orca floating in the water looking up…at me. I felt how calm he was; his only intention was to connect with this lone woman standing beside him. I saw myself from his perspective. How small I looked as I stood there with my thin legs and arms, so vulnerable, yet so intensely strong with my beautiful heart wide open. Compassion for myself flooded through me and brought tears to my eyes. I not only saw myself, but I saw the Soul of this gentle Orca. My heart melted as I felt his fully conscious desire to share with me, to let me see his intelligent, earnest soul.

Some people might not believe the exchange of wisdom and love that can take place without touch or words. Yet, I felt I had known this young Orca for centuries. I was overcome with infinitely tender love. I could feel that the Orca knew what I was feeling. The sense of going Home was so strong that I drowned in it. We stared into each other until we merged. He in the water and me on the land…only a foot apart.

I knew this was not a chance meeting. As shocked as I was at his appearance from the deep, our communion felt completely natural. I was not only safe with this young Orca…I was loved. All of his movements were exceedingly slow and gentle. I realized that he consciously knew to surface very slowly so as not to slosh me into the water, which he easily could have done with me standing so close to the edge. If he had risen at full speed, I might have startled and fallen in. I felt his genuine desire to set me at ease. He also wanted me to know that he was doing that. His intelligence was thoughtful and fully cognizant of what he was doing. And, his ability to communicate that was startlingly clear.

I lost myself to the vastness of the Orca’s presence, as we stared into each other’s souls. There was time within time, until time stopped. I forgot where I was, who I was, and became the experience of this gentle Being. For a moment out of time, I became his thoughts, feelings, and intelligence, an intelligence so comprehensive and vast, I felt as if I’d been transported to outer space.

His experience of life passed through me as a transfer of information that I couldn’t stop, nor did I want to. He wanted me to know what it was like to be him. His intelligence felt so far beyond my own that it awoke every muted corner of my soul. I saw the world through his eyes. It felt infinitely mysterious, more than anything I’ve ever known. His ability to love was absolute, without flaw or deviation. Then, just as I felt myself released; I was back on the bank looking into the eye of the Orca. I took several slow breaths, and then…

…as mysteriously as the Orca came, he very slowly lowered his head and submerged, growing darker and darker until he vanished in the deep.

© Robin Easton – All Rights Reserved
-- EXCERPT FROM: Robin Easton's upcoming book, "Seeing the World With Wild Eyes."

The day I arrived in the Queensland rainforest - 1979

Robin’s Thoughts

When the Orca submerged out of sight, I glanced at my watch in a dazed sort of way. I was shocked to see that barley a minute had passed since he surfaced beside me. I had lived a whole lifetime in a minute.

I stood at the edge of the cove, staring out to sea, in hopes of one last glance, but the Orca was gone. Nor did I see his pod. I tried to comprehend the incomprehensible, but I knew it would take time. This extraordinary experience was one of the rarest and most intimate and powerful Wild Communions I’ve ever experienced.

The actual water that we call “the sea” or “the ocean” holds an alluring pull for me. I have known for a long time that water is alive and imprinted with the energetic mapping of every single life that lives within its embrace. When I looked out upon the vast sea that day, I knew the water was filled with the emotions, wisdom, and desires of all the life that lived within it, both plant and animal. The sea is not merely beautiful scenery, a dead backdrop ‘just there.’ Nor is the sea comprised of barren H2O, mere unconscious atoms of hydrogen and oxygen. The sea’s sentient awareness flows through all life within its loving, watery embrace. The life of the water and the life in the water are inseparable. They are in love with each other. Just as the land holds eons of memories, so too does the water. Both Water and Earth are interconnected. They live as one Intelligent Life Force communing with the intelligence of Moon, Stars, and the Vast Cosmos.

As I drove northward for the jungle and home, I realized the Orca might have been communicating with me before I pulled off the road, and maybe even through my dreams. Earlier that year I’d had two dreams of an Orca beckoning me closer, to follow him into a sea of incomparable depth….of awareness. He was inviting me to feel his connection to the Vast Cosmos.

From this experience, I feel that the great Whales, Orcas, and Dolphins have the capacity to communicate with land species, humans, and possibly life on other planets. I experience their reach as immeasurable. I suspect that this young Orca’s empathic call compelled me to stop and explore the cove. Of the millions of moments, and the thousands of possible places, I picked that one spot and he picked that one spot…and we met. I ponder the reality that these highly intelligent species call out to us, desperately trying to reach us, needing us to awaken and rediscover our own infinite potential, and more importantly…our compassionate humanity.

To be approached by a wild Orca, one who lingered to form a bond, was not only a sacred experience, but I have read that Orcas are not as common along Australia’s Queensland coast---although they are spotted. However, they are more commonly seen off the coast of Western Australia near Bremer Bay, or near Byron Bay, New South Wales.

To this day, the magnitude of this experience leaves me overcome with awe. I am sure it will be so for the rest of my life. I could not recant this true story without tears as I typed. It is the first time I have publicly shared my meeting with my beautiful Orca friend.

© Robin Easton – All Rights Reserved
-- EXCERPT FROM: Robin Easton's upcoming book, "Seeing the World With Wild Eyes."

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