You can read more about the “Neototems Whale Tail” here.
Reflection
As you gaze at the whale and the tidal pool, perhaps with children running around it, read this poem “Nothing Wants to Suffer” by Danusha Lameris
Nothing wants to suffer. Not the wind
as it scrapes itself against the cliff. Not the cliff
being eaten, slowly, by the sea. The earth does not want
to suffer the rough tread of those who do not notice it.The trees do not want to suffer the axe, nor see
their sisters felled by root rot, mildew, rust.
The coyote in its den. The puma stalking its prey.
These, too, want ease and a tender animal in the mouth
to take their hunger. An offering, one hopes,
made quickly, and without much suffering.The chair mourns an angry sitter. The lamp, a scalded moth.
A table, the weight of years of argument.
We know this, though we forget.Not the shark nor the tiger, fanged as they are.
Nor the worm, content in its windowless world
of soil and stone. Not the stone, resting in its riverbed.
The riverbed, gazing up at the stars.Least of all, the stars, ensconced in their canopy,
Danusha Lameris (aMAZON bIO)
looking down at all of us—their offspring—
scattered so far beyond reach.
A few words to ponder or to journal
Sitting in a threshold, like a door, is to invite conflict and suffering: you either need to be in or out, you are an obstacle to others to walk through it, perhaps your hand gets caught by the door and hurts. Suffering is also sitting without processing a decision coming up, or going over a threshold crossed in the past without a trained therapist helping get through it.
Suffering because of a threshold is a choice. It’s okay to choose it, to sit with it, to wrestle with it, but eventually you can choose to not suffer anymore and walk through the threshold to something new, or see it isn’t for you and step back to find a new threshold somewhere else.
What is suffering or weighed down that could be let go of?
Walk to First Church
Walk west from the Baby Whale Tail between the Pacific Science Center on your left and the Children’s Theatre on your right. Keep going all the way to the 2nd Avenue street, turn left. Cross the 4 way stop to the west side of the street and follow along until you reach the church driveway again right before Denny Way.