Here’s a story about aligning to our own hidden depths.
The whale loomed up out of the heaving water.
“Are you looking for me?” she asked.
The fisherman stammered. “No! I’m not looking for you!” He just wanted her to go away and leave him alone.
“Strange…” said the whale. “I was quite sure you were looking for me…”
She swam away into the darkness. He was puzzled; he had never seen the whale before in his life, so how could he have been looking for her?
In the weeks and months that followed, however, he found that he was indeed looking for her. Every time he sailed his little boat out into the sea, he had one eye on the depths, looking for the whale.
One evening, he saw a huge dark shape rising up towards him. His heart started pounding.
“Are you looking for me?” the whale asked.
“Yes!” he blurted. “Yes! I am looking for you!”
The whale paused.
“What for?” she said.
“Er… um…”
“What exactly is it that you want with me?”
“I… ah….” The fisherman had no answer to that. He didn’t realise that you had to have a reason to look for the whale. She paused for a moment, and then drifted back down into the water.
Months passed, years passed, and the fisherman told no-one about his encounter with the whale. He felt foolish for not having had an answer to her question.
And all the time a strange feeling was growing inside him. A burning, aching feeling, like being in love, or like missing someone so much you can’t bear to be apart from them. And he realised that what he really wanted was to see the whale again and sail his ship close to hers, and go wherever she led him.
Finally one day out at sea he saw the water darkening as she approached.
“Are you looking for me?” she said as she emerged from the water.
“Yes!” said the fisherman urgently. “Yes I am!”
“And what is it that you want from me?” said the whale.
“I just want to be with you, to sail my ship close by you, to go with you wherever you go. I am sure that would make me happy!”
“Well, I’m not sure, but let’s try and it and see,” said the whale.
And so they went together, with the fisherman’s boat sticking close to the whale as she swam. And even when they travelled through storms, his little boat was always protected. Even when lightning flashed, it never struck him. Whatever troubles befell him out on the sea, he always felt safe by the whale’s side.
Until one day they came to an island with the most favourable conditions. Just a few people lived there and there was a plentiful supply of everything a person could need.
The whale suggested that this could make a lovely home for the fisherman, but he protested that his highest wish was to be with her, wherever she went.
And so they sailed north, to the grimy cities that the fisherman knew well. The whale suggested that this was where the fisherman belonged.
He said that he would only settle in such a place if he could be sure that she was always close by.
At that the whale jumped out of the water, made herself tiny, and landed in his pocket.
From that moment on, the fisherman always had a sense that the whale was with him, protecting him from whatever storms might come as he lived in that city and did his best to understand and help the people around him…
I told this story at my son’s bedside when he was five years old. It was one of a thousand in-the-moment intuitive stories that I told my kids when they were little. My desire was to draw for them a map of life, in which they could know their own intrinsic value in a loving universe. For me, this story sketches the journey a soul takes as it draws near to the infinite source of love and wisdom within.
You can find the story here: The Fisherman and the Whale.
