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The following first appeared in the private email list IVy-subscribers,
which is available to all those who subscribe to the
printed magazine, International Viewpoints.
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Accidentally on porpoise (a marine mammal with a large brain)
by Phil Spickler
15 Nov 1999

Dear Fellow Sea-Creatures and others who are currently land-based,
       Being as how my astrological sign is that of Pisces, and since I like
very much to be influenced by distant groups of stars, and since the fish in
my sign swim in opposite directions, I've always felt somewhat comfortable
with GPM tech, and delight in dramatizing opposing forces; and since whenever
I get near a body of water, such as a fellow human being (just kidding), I
have an instant urge to immerse my body of water in other larger bodies of
water like rivers and lakes and seas and oceans, I often wish there was a
simple way to convert this body into being a marine mammal so I could have a
lot more fun and be a lot more playful and frolicsome, and also enjoy the
company of perhaps the freest beings that this planet is ever going to see.

         Porpoises, or dolphins, are lovely, beautiful, sleek, streamlined
marine mammals who have big brains.  I have heard that they have bigger
brains than human beings, even in  proportion to their body size and weight;
and they also possess many of the attributes of highly evolved and highly
developed  people.

      They sometimes come under criticism, with the question of "How come
they get messed up in fisherpeople's nets and die and drown in large numbers
-- how come if they're so intelligent they don't pass that information to one
another in such a way as to prevent such large reduction in their numbers?"
I don't propose to try to answer that question at the moment, in large part
due to the fact that it comes from the minds of human beings, human beings
who are very serious about survival and who cling to physical existence with
all their might and main, oftentimes even when it's a really shocking and
unpleasant existence.  So I don't know if they're in a good position to
comment on dolphin behavior, or the behavior of people who like to skydive or
fly to the moon or flight-test supersonic planes, or who work as deep divers
in the North Atlantic, living underwater in helium-rich high-pressure
environments making the oil business in that part of the world possible.

       This really brings up the subject of being willing to die, and one can
have a lot of fun scrutinizing it through such things as the Tone Scale.

      Anyhow, I have a theory about marine mammals, particularly the
porpoise, having had a certain number of encounters with these amazing beings
and some opportunity to read about and observe their behavior.  Unlike us
folks, they are neither trying to save the world or make it a better place,
nor are they attempting to destroy it or make it a worse place.  By the
simple act of inhabiting highly intelligent, strong and energetic bodies that
are marvelously adapted to the oceanic environment, they have shown at one
fell swoop a simple intelligence far exceeding anything human beings have
come up with: namely, as you may have noticed, Earth is a water world with a
very large percentage of its surface covered by water,   waters that are, or
used to be, filled with everything needed or necessary to support physical
existence.

       So here we have these wonderful marine mammals who live in a world
that is not divided by borders and religions, a world filled with abundant
food free for the taking, a world in which dolphins and porpoises do not war
on one another, a world in which the highest order of events is being
playful, a world that does not require shelter, doctors, lawyers,
governments, income tax --the list of requirements that we humans have
invented to bedevil ourselves with is practically endless, and it's no wonder
the lengths that we all have gone to and will continue to go to in an effort
to gain relief from the mock-ups that we have surrounded ourselves with and
that we feel necessary for existence.

       So the porpoise, and most marine mammals, seem to have as their
highest purpose the spirit of play -- no therapists' couches for these folks!
 No gurus, no individuals who have become enlightened, followed by the
catastrophe of a major religion -- just free beings at play.  And who knows
the full extent of the individual and collective imaginations and perceptions
of these amazing creatures, who by comparison make us look like a bunch of
real nut cases.  If there ever would be a quantity of Clears on this planet,
the marine mammals get my vote.

         In chatting with some of these very friendly creatures at different
times, I have endeavored, telepathically and otherwise, to get their opinion
about this notion that seems to be be-bopping about in human cultures having
to do with spirits or thetans or spiritual beings or immaterial or
non-material entities that are alleged to have lived before this lifetime and
will live again in some form or another.  Well now, as you know, porpoises
are always smiling -- even when they're croaking, they're smiling -- and in
answer to this question that I've put to quite a few of them, they generally
look at me with a terrific twinkle in their eyes, and if it's possible, their
smile seems to get even bigger; and for an answer they take off underwater at
about 35 miles per hour and then come racing up out of the depths and leap
into the air 15 or 20 feet and come back down again.

      Which (as I end tonight's poem) is exactly what I imagine I'm doing, if
only verbally.  Au revoir, until we meet again --
       Flipper