There are two curved sides to a heart—give and receive

True, I had spent the past few days engaged in marathon photographic swims halfway to Japan, moving at full speed alongside Spinner and the spotted dolphin pods, but this much pain seemed undeserved! I breathlessly searched through my tachyon bag, found some Panther Juice and slathered it on. After a ten-minute treament, I crawled, snail-like, out of my tent into the sand. 

The dolphins had made another flyby at that point, and they were now about three quarters of a mile from the beach, flipping, spinning on their tails, then crashing back into the dark, wind-chopped water. The sun had not yet lightened the vast, royal blue Pacific, which meant that it remained the rightful domain of the sharp-toothed night feeders, wherever they might be. 

"Oh God, please help me make it to the water" I whimpered. A soothing voice from inside assured me that my back and leg would be all right if I could only reach the dolphins. After a while, I felt enough relief to wriggle into my wet suit and fins. Grabbing my Nikonos which, gratefully, I had thought to load the night before, I slowly backed into the surf like an aching centenarian. 

Once underwater, I could feel the vibration of dolphin songs. I raised my head. I called out to them, cooing my own dolphin song while painfully and persistently kicking through the coral reef and the mist-topped frothy waves, determined to make a rendezvous...crippled or not. As usual, nothing else mattered except interacting with the intricacies of dolphin life. 

Suddenly, out of the infinite blue-blackness of their underwater home, came a hundred joyous shadows on all sides of me. I was shocked to see how quickly they had raced to shore. There was a festival of interaction taking place, and I was instantly absorbed into an uninhibited web of family life. Their voices became a yakking and squeaking chatter. 

I watched them dancing, teasing, nipping andrubbing white tummies together;spinning wildly upside-down,chasing and gnawing on each other at the same time. One was even sweetly scratching a buddy’s forehead with his pectorals, which I knew have the same bone structure as our hands! Observing the adults and calves playing together. I lost myself in their joyful chaos--so wild and free--a real dolphin Mardi-Gras! 

Marveling at their willingness to accept me into their intricately woven world, I began to run my energy down far beyond the bottom of the ocean and then back up into an elliptical curve. When the curve expanded, intersecting the dolphins, I offered them my heart, as pure as a dew-kissed rosebud, and asked them for a healing in my spine. 

All the members of the pod turned away and disappeared playfully into the now aqua blueness--all, that is, except one. A full-grown male spun around and swam up to my face. I was about to touch the gray stripe running down his side, but out of respect, I withdrew my outstretched hand and began to entrain with him, blending our energies. With his vibration came a telepathic message: "I can take you to the Crystal City!" It came as an electrical shock tearing into my third eye. My head began to hurt. Where did that come from? How had he known about my recurring dream? I looked beyond him, at what I thought could have been the crystal temple. I blinked, just then the entire pod had surrounded me again, forming a wide circle all around, countless rows stacked below me. Every single pod member was perfectly quiet, somber, no interaction of any kind. They floated silently, in military rank formation, yet in a meditative state, not even rising to the surface for air. 

Glowing gray backs, equidistant--fin to fin--sounded out haunting songs that reduced to a reverent whispering whistle. Streamlined muscles were rippling while gliding almost motionlessly, barely six feet under me. Physically silent, they were pulsating with power and throbbing with celestial energy. Even the newborns stopped suckling and took their places in formation. 

My dreams of the Amethyst Crystal City materialized across my forehead again. Miles below the ocean floor I saw a clear faceted structure, emanating a bright white light from gleaming violet center. Inside, golden lettered volumes pictured in sacred geometrical codes. I ran my energy as fast as I could. My body went completely limp, hips and sacrum seemed to open wide, like the base of a pyramid. There was a sensation of the warm tropical waters thrusting through my body, from head through feet, increasing in temperature so hot and fast that my fins could have melted. The nagging charley-horse in my left leg released its hold and I felt my spine lengthen. Finally I was relaxed, dangling like a jellyfish, smiling like a dolphin. Oh, thank you! 

After a few more moments, the intense ache in my upper thigh diminished and I was able to kick hard in an attempt to keep up with my companions. A peculiar looking dolphin eased up at my side. I recalled that I had seen this one at a distance several times before, but had not been able to distinguish the extent of damage to its right side. The sun peeked momentarily from behind the storm clouds above us. Sunlight beamed onto his torn skin. My heart sank, clearly it was a shark bite! A long thick layer of flesh had been torn off. He was jagged down the side from dorsal fin to tail, but still moving in rhythm on the extreme left end of the pod, lacerated side toward the safety of his companions. He seemed a valiant, wounded warrior, slashed while selflessly protecting his family. He looked straight at me and blew a long string of little love bubbles out of his blowhole. I felt that he was weak and needed a healing too. I turned my shoulder his way so that we were aligned in the same direction. I began to kick, now swimming with the dolphins rather than swimming at them. We traveled slowly at the rear of the pod, parallel to each other, oblivious to the rest of the world. He shot me a loving look when I amped up my energy as fast as I dared through my pendant. I shut my eyes and directed it right into the wound. Once again, hot lava-like rushes pushed through me. My breathing all but ceased. I shuddered in expansive euphoria. 

My body was kelp, just floating like an enchanted corpse above the pod, relaxed, yet still tingling. I sleepily opened my eyes to see that my friends were still synchronized, all surging up for air, flying their dolphin colors on gleaming silver dorsals. As they blended into the blue, heading west, out to the deepest South Pacific, it dawned on me that I had certainly lost track of time, since there is no such thing in the dolphin world. In my altered state, I had no idea that the cloud shrouded sun was now high in the sky and the wind velocity had increased dramatically. My first left brain action stressed that I had better go back to land immediately, or I would be out to sea with them. Not a horrid thought, I might add. 

At that point, the dolphin camp looked tiny as a matchbox and beachcombers were toothpicks. The pod sent a sweet caressing good-bye to my soul and promised to "See you in your dreams!" Still acutely aware of their spin within my body, I kicked mechanically in the direction of the beach. Gravity and dry land would be the test of the pain. When I got to the sand, I stood up tentatively, then straightened my spine...standing tall without a grimace. 

Thank you darling dolphins! I love you!" I waved to them, daring to even raise my arms and stretch my body to the limit. 

The research team from the next camp dropped their binoculars and clipboards and hurried over, excitedly. "Star, that pod was circling you for 2 1/2 hours! How did you swim for that long? Doesn’t your back still hurt? One of them did a flip and almost landed on your shoulders! Then they completely disappeared underwater and surfaced all around you after twenty minutes! What was going on all that time?" 

"Oh not much," I grinned "they were only showing me that there are two curves to a heart--the side of give and the side of take--and they both meet in the middle...Oh, never mind! Anybody for aerobics?"