Connections

                                                   Connections

A story I wrote one afternoon in Southern India in 2008, this experience changed my life!

Today is almost tomorrow. It has been one of those days when everything has revealed its connectedness. These sort of days come more often when I am travelling. Maybe it’s just about having time to really see things.

Sleep came intermittently last night with vivid dreams interrupted by bouts of stomach cramps and trips to hover my arse over a filthy squat and drop toilet. I had eaten some dodgy fish cooked at a street stall two days earlier in Cochin and the consequences were erupting during the night. As is often the way before a day like this I had started to question why I keep coming back to places like India.

Before daylight I took my mind off my pain by starting a book I had picked up by chance at the Melbourne Airport. It's a book of stories of love, spirit and creation by Aboriginal authors called Heartsick for Country. Both the Introduction ‘A Land of Many Countries’ and the first essay ‘Different Ways of Knowing: Trees are Our Families Too’ blew me away with teachings of the connectedness of all living and non living things. Another essay ‘Country is Lonely’ is about living our own personal story as a part of nature. It told of signs and messages we can see in nature if we pay attention. They can be warnings given because you’ve gone the wrong way, messages about something you need to do, or reassurance that we are living the right story. One of the examples given was a story about a Grandfather who knew how to read the signs and detailed what it meant when stingrays jump. It doesn’t matter if the sea is calm, when stingrays jump we know it will become rough. Stingrays just know this, it is said that they know the sea inside. As I was reading the book I was thinking how I had never seen a stingray jump and how lucky it would be to see one.

Reading my new favourite book reminded me of the time I took a bunch of young people surfing at Phillip Island in Australia. I will now have to tell you of that day before continuing with my bad night sleep. Twenty or so kids were enjoying a brilliant Sunday morning with near perfect conditions. I was standing on the shore talking to one of the surfing instructors. She asked if I was going surfing too. I remember telling her that these days it's enough for me to see the kids get up early and enjoy a Sunday morning instead of sleeping off the effects of a Saturday night. I guess you could say that this is a part of my story. I am a Teacher. I was relating to her that I tell the kids that every time I organise an activity like surfing, hiking or camping the universe rewards us with great conditions or something special. I always tell the kids that great things happen when you get up off your backside and do stuff, particularly when they are whinging about a pre dawn departure from our inland town.

I remember how I stood on the sand discussing with my new friend how nature takes care of us. We started to notice something happening in the water about a kilometre up the beach. We weren't sure what it was at first but as it moved our way we saw an extraordinary sight. A pod of hundreds of dolphins was moving down the beach a hundred metres off shore. They were leaping out of the water. Some were spinning like corkscrews, others were doing double and triple somersaults. These did not seem to be simply playful dolphins - they were exploding from the water and reaching for the sky. We were both quite shocked. The instructor was an Australian Masters surfing champion, she has spent a lifetime at the beach and had never seen anything like it before. The pod of dolphins slowly moved past our kids in the water - still jumping and spinning in what seemed like a celebration. What were they celebrating? The kids sat on their boards in the water and watched silently.

So as I lay in my bamboo hut, starting to feel a bit better, and as the dawn light grew, my thoughts of happy dolphins reminded me that great things happen when you get off your bum and do stuff. I stopped wondering why I was subjecting myself to India again - and I walked to the cliff top to watch the Arabian Sea. There are a few cafés and guesthouses along the cliffs in Varkala on the coast of Kerala. Right now it’s the monsoon season so tourists are very scarce and nothing opens early. As the sun came up over the land I made my way to a quiet spot on the cliff. I was alone yet I felt connected. I watched as the choppy seas of the monsoon season crashed into the rocks below.

The first thing I saw was a stingray jump out of the waves!

Why had I chosen that book at the start of my journey?

Why did I have to start reading it on that particular night?

Why did that story of jumping stingrays evoke those memories and remind me to practice what I preach?

Was I supposed to see a stingray jump for the first time this morning?

Was there a special message in it for me?