Tuesday October 18, 2016 #838
“May you, and all those you love, be so blessed and fortunate to be surrounded by people who will help you get untangled from the things that are binding you. And may you always know the joy of giving and receiving gratitude.”
~Arthur Poletti
Long time JAMmer LK wrote to me with this lovely story which you may have seen before. She in turn had received it that day from her elderly father. Whether you have read this before or not, in a time of seemingly insurmountable challenges, it is an important reminder to pause and reflect with gratitude on the many blessings in our lives and in this world – a world with far more beauty and good than ugliness and evil, if we only open our eyes and see. Enjoy the story.
If you saw a recent front-page story of the San Francisco Chronicle, you would have read about a female humpback whale who had become entangled in a spider’s web of crab traps and lines. She was weighted down by hundreds of pounds of traps that caused her to struggle to stay afloat. She also had hundreds of yards of line rope wrapped around her body, her tail, her torso, a line tugging in her mouth.
A fisherman spotted her just east of the Farallon Islands (outside the Golden Gate) and radioed an environmental group for help. Within a few hours, the rescue team arrived and determined that she was so badly off, the only way to save her was to dive in and untangle her. They worked for hours with curved knives and eventually freed her.
When she was free, the divers say she swam in what seemed like joyous circles. She then came back to each and every diver, one at a time, and nudged them, pushed them gently around as she was thanking them. Some said it was the most incredibly beautiful experience of their lives. The guy who cut the rope out of her mouth said her eyes were following him the whole time, and he will never be the same.
May you, and all those you love, be so blessed and fortunate to be surrounded by people who will help you get untangled from the things that are binding you. And, may you always know the joy of giving and receiving gratitude.
I pass this on to you, my friend, in the same spirit.
I hope you’ll find that this little story which contains a big idea resonates with you.
If interested in learning more, here is an article explaining the full story:
http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/whalethanks.asp