Whalesong

By Sarah Southern

Whales travel the world, spanning latitudes and longitudes, swimming thousands of miles across oceans, with songs on their lips. They are nature’s poets, composers of rich, complex melodies. The depths of the oceans contain a multitude of melancholic, rhythmic echoes from some of the most magical, elusive creatures.

Scientists remain unsure of the functional purposes behind whale communication. Unlike other animals, whale songs exist for reasons far beyond attracting mates. The Apple TV documentary “Fathom,” follows researchers studying and documenting the patterns and potential motives of the whale’s rhythmic language. The researchers learned whale languages possess repetition and intricacies not unlike human poetry and song. These gentle giants write their own lyrics, which are shared within their pods and family units, carried from pod to pod, region to region. Compositions are remembered and performed communally. One researcher discovered a particular song that traveled halfway across the globe.

Whales bear witness to their own experiences and lore; they are artists with embodied instincts to make for no other reason, perhaps, than the pure beauty of it. Who knows but the whale, the stories woven, the ancient histories preserved, the songs composed during long migrations.

I wonder if whales remember the great flood. Do they sing of Jonah, the arrogant anti-prophet swallowed by one of their own? Whales whoop and whistle, and introduce themselves by name. Even the way they eat krill, diving fathoms and swimming back up slowly towards the surface in circular motions is a kind of rhythmic dance.

Creation is an extension of the Creator, poetic expression of the Divine imprinted onto every created thing. The Psalmist wrote “where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?” Within the depths of the oceans is evidence of created order, wild things bursting with the inclination to be about the task of making.

Throughout the rhythms of life are symbols, vestiges of the holy flowing out into the physical, tangible world, declaring the glory of God. The whale is a reminder of poetry enfleshed, a creative Maker who crafted a blubbered being with the ability to sing and compose songs that reverberate throughout the limitless seas, safeguarding folklore and story, in the framework of a whalesong.

Humans bear the mark of the Creator, unlike any other created thing. We are predisposed to be makers. Like the whales, the act of creating serves no functional purpose in our lives. We can exist without beauty but it would be a deprived existence. Beauty offers goodness beyond the basics of survival. To make requires habitual rhythms, intentional practices arising from our own deeply embedded instincts. We are God’s workmanship, God’s poetry.

Sarah Southern

https://sarahsouthern.substack.com/

Sarah Southern is a writer and freelance graphic designer, sourdough bread baker and weekend hiker. She and her husband, Jordan, currently live in Denver, CO, with their rescue pup Lucy.

You can connect with Sarah on Instagram at @sarahbsouthern