Communicating With Orcas: The Whales' Perspective

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Summary: Open your mind and your heart!
Review: This book is one of the most profound and wonderful books I have ever had the pleasure of reading! It's a beautiful true story that tells of two animal communicators, Mary and her good friend Raphaela, and their conversations with Granny. Granny is a 92 (est.) year-old orca who lives in the Pacific Northwest with her family, J Pod. During Mary and Raphaela's time conversing with Granny, they question her on many aspects of orca life from finding food to orca spirituality. Granny relays a very important message to the human race in this book. A message that MUST NOT be overlooked! This book should be read and emabraced by all. Granny's words certainly opened my eyes and made me see things in a different light. Open your mind and your heart. Read this book!

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Summary: Orca Wisdom as told by Mary Getten
Review: Whales in the dreams of children, whale spirituality, whale sex and whale governance are all things we'll not likely get from scientific researchers for decades, perhaps a century or two. That is one reason the new book by Mary Getten, a Naturalist specializing in the wildlife of the San Juan Islands and a practicing animal communicator is so brilliant. This is not for folks who think that actual communication with whales (or other critters) is impossible. Those folks are probably the same people who get angry at their dogs for not doing what they are told.

Mary herself was once a skeptic, as she relates in "Communicating with Orcas: The Whales' Perspective". At her first animal communication workshop, facilitated by Penelope Smith, Mary was given the task to communicate with Pirouette, Penelope's cockatiel:

"I knew nothing about birds. Mammals were my passion, and I had no
interest in delicate little avians. Truthfully, I was a little frightened of them, yet here I was face to face with a cockatiel and it was time for us to talk.

I looked into her bright white face, admiring the crest of yellow feathers on her forehead and the orange dot on her cheek. Drinking in her features, I relaxed and thought, this won't be too tough. She seems nice enough. So I began to think about what to say to her.

This is where it all went downhill. I didn't have a clue what to say to a bird. You would have though that I'd spent my entire life locked into a closet. Not a single question appeared. Time ticked by and I knew I had to so something, so I kept repeating: "Hello Pirouette. Hello Pirouette. Hello Pirouette."

Finally, I stopped for a moment to think of something else to say, and clear as a bell I heard Pirouette say: "Can't you say anything but hello?"

Humor, backed with good science and historical tidbits going back to Aristotle and Pliny The Elder balance the presentation for those who are a little reticent to believe in this mode of communication. (This skepticism persists even in the wake of breakthrough research by famed scientist Rupert Sheldrake.) Mary's writing is clear and accessible and the stories of whale sex are quite funny. I mean laugh-out-loud, drool on the PAGE funny.

Yet, the skepticism that Mary had when first learning to communicate with animals is the book's biggest weakness, in my view. I was fascinated by the notion of Ruffles, the male elder of the Southern Puget Sound resident community's J Pod, visiting the dreams of schoolchildren who had been on whale-watching cruises. The notion that our species, the lowly Homo sapiens, is at the beginning of a new wave of consciousness that will see remarkable innovations in bodies and senses, or that of the whale councils, the ability to live in past lives (though whales don't call them that) and their description of the universal life force as "The Prime Cause," are all subjects that fascinate me, but the book only teases with these concepts. Perhaps a sequel is called for.

However, these are pretty far-out concepts for the average reader and when it comes down to it, Mary has covered the basics in a thorough manner with a wicked wit. If you have the least bit of interest in Orcas, you will be able to read this book in a weekend.

May we all be able to live in the moment like these whales have for thousands of years. Their intelligence is much needed in these days when our allegedly more intelligent species, can't get beyond such insanity as war and environmental degradation.

Paul Nelson