Photo Credit: Beluga Whales, Copyright GREMM

I am honored to be one of the writers whose work is included in Dark Matter, Women Witnessing Journal, Issue 8, April, 2019:  What Does it Mean, to Heal? Part III, edited by Lise Weil.

Dark Matter publishes writing and artwork created in response to an age of massive species loss and ecological collapse. The journal is a home for dreams, visions, and communications with the nonhuman world, especially those that seek to heal our broken relationship to the earth.

In this issue, I write about my time with the endangered population of beluga whales who live in the St. Lawrence Estuary and Saguenay Fjord, Quebec, Canada. In this article, I share the wisdom, teaching, and experience offered by the belugas for our species and the Earth in this time of great change and loss, responding to the question of the journal for this issue: What Does It Mean, to Heal?

 

Photo: Frank Bevaqua

July, 2018

I arrive in L’Anse–Saint–Jean, Quebec, in the early evening. Twilight colors the sky and the massive walls of the Saguenay Fjord in a wash of blue, purple, and pink. I’ve come to this place to spend time with the St. Lawrence Estuary Beluga Whales, an isolated population that lives in this fjord and in the St Lawrence River. These belugas are severely endangered and facing the threat of extinction.

I’ve come to be with the belugas, to listen to them, to hear, feel, sense and understand their viewpoints, their experiences, and their understanding of their situation, and to learn what I can from them about facing the global crises of climate disruption, species extinction, and the extreme and precarious situation all beings on our planet are now facing. In my mind, I’m referring to my travels to be with these and other endangered cetaceans as “The Extinction Tour.”

Read the complete article here: Life is Love: The St. Lawrence Estuary Beluga Whales

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