The Awesome Wonder of Dolphins

Before the beginning of recorded history, humankind has enjoyed a special relationship with playful and highly intelligent animals called Dolphins. There are incredible stories regarding their sensitivity to humans in distress at sea. It would appear that we have only just begun to understand the mystery and value of these fellow creatures on the “spaceship” earth. But I would imagine that could be said about every part of God’s awesome creation.

Work has been done by physicians and scientists using dolphins to treat people with mental challenges, genetic problems like Downs Syndrome, physical ailments, and emotional disturbances. These researchers have been astonished at the positive results of their experiments. The patients with therapists are placed in the water while the dolphins swim around the humans and investigate (examine?) the situation. The dolphins seem to sense the vulnerability and disease of the patients. They interact with them in tender, compassionate ways, touching the patients and sometimes the therapists as they (the therapists) are manipulating their patients. Both patients and therapists report a definite feeling of energy going through their bodies when they are touched by these marvelous sea creatures.

I won’t go into details regarding the outcome of these encounters, but I will mention the results with one little boy with Downs Syndrome. This boy was barely functioning. Unlike many people with this affliction, this boy was uncommunicative, very awkward, limited in motor skills, and was making no progress in his school. After a number of sessions with the dolphins, the child improved so significantly that he was mainstreamed for part of his schooling and became significantly more coordinated and social in his interactions. The Upledger Institute in Florida has been conducting other experiments using dolphins in the treatment of their patients with remarkable results.

Western scientists, of course, are trying to figure out how this works. Our civilization seems to be afflicted with the need to understand logically a phenomenon before accepting its validity. For those working with the dolphins and the patients, the results are obvious and unmistakable. Those requiring scientific explanations have suggested that the dolphins use their energy to affect the energy fields of humans. Others look to the built-in sonar of the dolphins, reminding us that dolphins “see” with this sonar. Since the human body is mostly water, the dolphins may use ultra-sonic waves to “see” inside the body and perhaps can detect where there may be disturbances. What is obvious to everyone is that the social interaction between the dolphins and the humans by itself is not enough to explain the results.

I find this phenomenon most intriguing. This discovery reminds me that we are truly just one strand in the vast web of life and need all the other strands to be whole. We can survive without dolphins, but with this magnificent and wonder-full creation, who wants to settle for mere survival? I wonder what other discoveries we could make about other parts of the animal realm (not to mention the plant realm) which would benefit our lives and make us whole. Is it possible that the dolphins have an intelligence and ability that in certain ways exceed our own? Would not a humble respect and awe for God’s creation be a better approach than our current practice of polluting, destroying, abusing, and objectifying the world around us?

Perhaps there are answers to most of the problems we face as humans, and those answers are may be right under our noses. But our arrogance and greed keep us from seeing our own salvation and healing. And if we are not careful, such arrogance and greed could bring to extinction the very strands of the web we need to be whole. So, if for no other reason than self-interest (and I would hope we could go deeper than that), we must learn to appreciate the wondrous and fragile web of life of which we are only a part—and perhaps currently the most troublesome part.

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