What the Fish Have Taught Me
Introduction
I have achieved profound personal healing through my extensive and intimate relationship with the ocean. While keeping in mind the relation of ocean and psyche, I will explore how the ocean has become a container for my understanding of concepts from this course through the telling of three personal experiences of spearfishing that have each shifted my consciousness in a certain way. I have chosen to explore what the fish, big and small, have taught me about myself, my place in this physical and spiritual world, and the web of life through the telling of my experiences that were each significant in their own way.
The ocean is like home to me. I submerge myself on an almost daily basis whether it’s on or under the water. If a day goes by without some sort of contact with it, I feel incomplete. While either floating on my surfboard or freediving at the local reefs, there is potential for a new encounter with nature and its inhabitants, and even with my own knowing of myself. Below the surface, the world is different. The pressure of the water encloses in on the body and ears must be cleared. There are crackling sounds of fish talking, rocks moving with the surge, sometimes the hum of a boat going by. There is movement with the current and the swell so it’s hard to stay in one place so grabbing onto the reef is the only way to stay put while everything else sways back and forth. It can be disorienting, but also soothing once you can relax into it. Depending on the time of day and the visibility of the water, sunbeams dance off of the particles of sand and plant matter making everything sparkle.
The ocean is a site of wilderness, “a place of archetypal power, teaching and challenge” (Snyder, 1996, p. 11). The surface can easily be seen, but only those willing to dive below what is seen will get a glimpse of the everchanging, expansive and mysterious world that lives beneath. From a depth psychological lens, the ocean can be viewed as a symbol of the unconscious and I could have easily written this paper on the archetypal themes of this landscape and my own experiences with the numinous. I encounter the challenges it presents and the numinous experiences it provides quite often. I have surfed alongside dolphins, sea lions and pelicans. I once dove with a sea turtle in waters where it is rare to ever see one. Last summer, a baby grey whale breached near me during a solo surf session. The sight of rainbows sparkling in the spray off the back of waves when the winds are blowing offshore never gets old. The list goes on and these experiences never cease to grasp my attention. It is these numinous experiences that bring me back to the ocean day after day.
It would be easy to write about any of these beautiful, pleasing experiences that have connected me to mother ocean, and there are many of them; however, the most powerful experience I have shared with her is by far the relationship I have shared with fish she has allowed me to hunt in her waters. I am not talking about sitting on a boat or a beach with a fishing pole, passively waiting for something to take the bait. I am describing the entering of their terrain, much like hunting in the forest, but rather than trees, I am among forests of kelp. Instead of walking the plains tracking elk, I am exploring the reef in search of fish. I see what the fish looks like and what it is doing before I take them. I am looking the fish in the eye like a hunter staring down the rifle at the deer. It is intimate and it is heartbreaking, but as you will see, it is not without purpose.
The Connection of Spirit
I will never forget any of the fish I have brought home from the ocean, but the first is one, I believe, all hunters will remember forever. The overwhelming feelings of excitement, sorrow, connection with and compassion for this living being in your hands. Feeling the life force depart a living being is one of the most powerful experiences I have ever felt and it has changed me forever. This does not ever get easier and, if it does, something has been lost within me. The first time I reeled in a successful catch, my hands fumbling and shaking, I pulled the knife from my ankle holster I knew what I had to do. I’m not sure whether the urge to shed tears was out of gratitude or remorse, but words came out of my mouth, or maybe straight from my soul, apologizing to and thanking this being for its sacrifice. This intimate relationship we share between hunter and prey has its own soul and I acknowledge it as my ancestors have done (Plotkin, 2013). I make a promise to it that I will honor its life the best way I can.
Over time, I have noticed rituals that I have developed naturally. From the moment I pack the car with my mask, fins, wetsuit, weight belt, knife and spear, I also pack the intention to hunt. The process of catching the fish and the words and feelings that are communicated with it are absolutely necessary in its honoring. The preparation and sharing of the catch (if I come home with one) is intensely important in dignifying the fish I have brought home. If I disgrace or waste any part, the spirit of the fish will know (Silko, 1996). It wasn’t until I read Silko’s, Interior and Exterior Landscapes, that I realized that what I am truly feeling in that fish is the spirit of all fish. “The purpose of the hunt rituals and magic is to make contact with all the spirits of the elk” (Silko, 1996, p. 29). As “the antelope merely return home with the hunter”, perhaps then, it was the fish which made that choice rather than myself (Silko, 1996, p. 26). We are deeply connected in that moment in relationship and in exchange. I can sustain my life because it has given its own.
Clearly, I am not dependent on hunting for my own survival. If I come onto land empty handed, I can simply stop at the store to get dinner on the way home. Spearfishing connects me to what it was like when my ancestors depended on a successful hunt for sustenance. While I am out among the kelp and reef, I exist in a mindset that makes me feel that if I come home without dinner, I will go hungry. There are days that I leave my refrigerator empty and I wonder if I have done this more or less on purpose when I plan to go dive for fish so that my dependency of a successful hunt feels more authentic. This deepens my connection to the fish, for who I am depending on for nourishment, and the ocean, which is the landscape and habitat for the life within it.
In addition to experiencing the connection of spirit, I feel the connection to the source of my food. It is easy to forget that the filet of salmon on a plate is not just fish, but it is salmon. It comes served without eyes, without movement, without its story to be told. There is a vast separation from the animals we depend on for sustenance and ourselves. Something has been lost of an important awareness that connects us to the spirit of the being, ourselves and the soul of the world, or the anima mundi (Plotkin, 2013; Snyder, 2010). “Our distance from the source of our food enables us to be superficially more comfortable, and distinctly more ignorant” (Snyder, 2010, p. 197). Recently, I discovered that my brother has not yet taught his own children that meat comes from animals because his children would be heartbroken. Ultimately, this heartbreak he is trying to protect his children from is what is so important and necessary in order to understand this connection. When we neglect this responsibility of knowing where our food comes from, or even the basic knowledge of what it is, the outcome is a detachment from nature and its soul (Plotkin, 2013).
In addition to the skill and mechanics of freediving, it is an incredibly difficult thing to take a living creature from the ocean. I believe that this experience is one we must have in order to understand the meal on your plate and to intimately know death without experiencing it for oneself. For several years I did not eat meat because the moral rule I held for myself: If I could not kill it, I do not deserve to eat it. Once I started hunting fish, I felt an overwhelming connection to all of the fish that I consume, even those that came from the market or restaurant. I started to wonder about who caught the fish I was eating, how it was caught, how long they lived, what they looked like before they lost their beautiful iridescent colors of their scales. It became much more than a delicious dinner. These fish that I have taken have taught me so much more than the skill of hunting. I used to believe that I understood the gravity of what it really meant to take a life, and I never thought it would be something I could do. I quite literally cannot kill a mosquito because I feel the guilt in taking a life that it is not mine to take and especially not one without purpose.
The fish I have taken have been with purpose and with my will in agreement with that fish and the ocean (Silko, 1996). “The meeting of hunter and prey may be foreordained, a willful exchange of life, a manifestation of spiritual power, in a watchful world where little happens purely by chance” (Abram, 2010, p. 26). They are taken with immense gratitude, dignity and love. I thank them not only for their life, but also for what they have taught me. “There is no death that is not somebody’s food, no life that is not somebody’s death” (Snyder, p.196). To touch death, to be responsible for that blood, is a responsibility that our ancestors took seriously. It was understood that death is a part of life, but we have become so out of touch with this fact. I feel the connection that Plotkin expresses about the soul of the world, “Both spirit and anima mundi point to what all people and all things have in common: our shared membership in a single cosmos, each of us a facet of the One Being that contains all” (2013, p. 190). I may not need to do this for survival, but I do need to do it to understand my place in the cosmos.
Risks, Instincts, and Knowing My Ancestors
The process and ritual of the hunt described in the readings is not limited to land. Our ancestors have been catching fish with sharpened poles for an estimated sixteen thousand years. Traditional spearfishing, however, has been mostly restricted to shallow water such as reefs, rivers and streams. Shore diving, walking directly from the beach into the water without a vessel, is the type of diving that I do and is included in the shallow water category. Since shore diving has been practiced for much longer than boat diving and blue water hunting which require modern equipment, I feel that it is slightly detached from its ancestry.
Although one can view the evolution of the skill that originated from our ancestors. All of the innovations made along the way produced the outcome of what it is today. I have no need for anything larger than the fish I find in the reef and the kelp so deeper is not always necessary. For me, diving and spearfishing is not about catching the biggest, most prized fish as it may be for those dedicated to the sport. My personal reasons for doing what I do which, I believe, are sharing a relationship with the ocean, feeling my ancestors within me as I provide my own food, and the freedom I experience within the risk and diving into the unknown.
Freediving is considered a risky activity. It shouldn’t be done alone for a number of safety reasons, and the deeper or further out one dives, the higher that risk becomes. It is an intense physical activity in an environment that cannot sustain human life for very long. As a freediver, I am welcome in that environment only for as long as one breath will allow. Even then, I can only take so many dives before I become too tired to go on. One is completely dependent on their body, trusting one’s abilities and knowing one’s limits. From Snyder’s definitions of wilderness, the ocean qualifies as it is “a place of danger and difficulty: where you take your own chances, depend on your own skills, and do not count on rescue” (2010, p. 11). There is no depending on anything except for what you are as a being of this earth
While less openly spoken of in the diving community, another risk is of inhabiting an environment where we can potentially be considered prey. On land, we no longer have think about being threatened by predatory animals while we go about our daily activities. We do not wonder about what might be lurking behind us or below. Being approached by a shark is not something that I often worry about anymore; however, it does exist as an awareness within my body. There is an aspect of this that roots me into instinct and therefore connects me to my ancestors. “For it is the body, the feeling, the instincts, which connect us with the soil. If you give up the past you naturally detach from the past; you lose your roots in the soil, your connection with the totem ancestors that dwell in your soil.” (Sabini, 2002, p. 73) There is an inherent knowing that something bigger than you could be to the left, right, above, below, in front of or behind you. This knowing is enlivening. It places me deeper within the order of things, furthering my understanding of my place in the world. I am not an all-powerful human. I am no different than a seal to the shark. I am no different than a shark to the fish.
In the place of heightened risk, I am acting on instinct. It is a matter of survival. In the Wilderness Vision Questing and the Four Shields of Human Nature, this could perhaps be considered a dwelling in the summer shield (Foster & Little, 1996). In this place, nothing else matters but the survival of the fittest. “Our actions are guided by the need of the ego and the physical body to survive attack” (Foster & Little, 1996, p. 8). Here, I am in the search for food, acting on instincts, ready to fight, flight or freeze in the event an encounter does occur. There is no time to think, only to react.
Last September, I decided to do something a little riskier than usual. I decided to dive alone at a local reef that I have been many times. It was also opening day of lobster season so I was sure plenty of other divers would be out. This was indeed the case, however, as I was kicking out to the reef, the lifeguard station made an announcement which is somewhat unusual this early in the morning. “Attention all swimmers, surfers, divers in the water. There has been a confirmed shark attack just north of here. We strongly advise you calmly exit the water.” Oddly enough, I didn’t immediately feel alarmed other than I knew someone had been hurt. I thought for a second about continuing my dive and decided to go back in to the beach. Of all the days I could have chosen to dive alone, I had to pick today. As I stood on the beach, three divers came down the stairs and asked how it was out there. I told them what had happened and they ultimately decided to go out anyway. They invited me to go with them so I wouldn’t feel alone and that was all of the convincing I needed to go back out into the water.
I learned something about myself that day in particular. I no longer have an irrational fear of predatory sharks, perhaps a symbol of the biggest, most hidden fear within the unconscious (Sabini, 2002). By going back out, perhaps something deep within me wants to encounter the greatest fear of human ocean dwellers (and that of many land dwellers who choose not to enter the ocean because of those fears). I do have a conscious awareness that they are out there. It is their home. Every time I enter the ocean I know that I am swimming into their territory. There are always sharks in the water, and that’s not to say they have lost their numinosity to me (Sabini, 2002). I feel respect rather than fear when I speak of them; however, if an encounter were to occur, instinct would most likely say otherwise.
The risk of an encounter is, without a doubt, slightly higher while carrying your catch in the water. I have heard many sea stories of divers being scared in by the elusive predators, some even having their catch eaten right off of their belts. The scent of blood travels far in the water and makes one smell appetizing to larger predators. Though it is still very rare to encounter them here, and much less so to be bitten, on that particular day one boy had a very unfortunate encounter while diving for lobster. He is now doing well and has since recovered and returned to the water again. He has had quite the rare experience to take with him through the rest of his life; however, for me it was a reminder of the possible risk that I agree to when I am also a predator in their landscape.
Surrender and Gratitude
One of the most recent dives I took was just before Thanksgiving having the clear intention of bringing home a Thanksgiving fish. At this time, I had been in this class for a month and a half and as I went out that day the Silko article was fresh in my mind. I packed my gear, suited up and went out into the water with the conscious wanting of bringing home a nice fish; however, I also had the awareness that if my intentions are too strong, the spirit of ocean will be able to sense it. I must remember to wait for the fish to come to me (Silko, 1996). I have recently gone through a long period of time in which I have come home empty handed. I tried to blame it on the unseasonably warm waters we had this year, on my lack of experience and skill, or perhaps just bad luck. Nelson spoke of hunters who have lost their luck, and much like what is recommended when one encounters a lack of dreams, you must go back and look at how you treated the last one you encountered (1989). Did I dishonor those fish in any way?
This day happened to be one of the most beautiful that I can ever remember. The visibility was seemingly endless, schooling fish were circling around me, cormorants and pelicans were diving for anchovies and smelt. This was the day my luck would return. It had to be. An hour, if not more, had gone by, yet no fish presented themselves to me. I started to feel the determination creeping in. It is a familiar conflict of emotions, “a temptation to give up and a stubborn determination to keep trying” (Nelson, 1989, p. 11). I was feeling frustrated and discouraged, but I was not ready to give up just yet even though it was starting to become evident that today would not be the day that my luck would return. If I did leave empty handed, at the very least it was a beautiful day under the water, so I might as well enjoy it.
Suddenly, out of the blue abyss, a foreign silhouette caught my eye. I have only seen one once before in this area, so it takes me a moment to register that I am in the presence of a sea turtle. I followed it for a long while and had forgotten about my tenacious determination to find food. Nothing else mattered but that moment of coming into relationship with this turtle (Abram, 2010). I left her and decided that that was the highlight of my dive and it was indeed time to return to land. I took two or three more dives and on the last one, to my amazement, a sizeable sheephead was hovering in a tunnel in the reef. I asked the ocean silent permission and it allowed me my Thanksgiving dinner.
It was as if the visit from the turtle pulled me out of the stubborn mindset I had acquired. It was a surrender to feeling spirit, coming back to being one in and of the wilderness, letting go into remembering my place among the ocean, the fish and the turtle (Abram, 2010; Plotkin, 2013; Silko, 1996; Snyder, 2010). The ocean continues to challenge and teach me with every encounter. Its depths put me in touch with my inner wilderness areas, with my instincts, my ancestors. It is my landscape for visiting the depths of my own unconscious and allows for me to be in touch with my soul (Sabini, 2002; Snyder, 2010). I have come to enjoy the solitude that I find in it all the while not being alone whatsoever. It truly has been, and continues to be, transformative for me.
Conclusion
Spearfishing has changed me in ways that I had not quite been able to put into words until writing this assignment. From the very first fish that I ever caught to the last I brought home on Thanksgiving, each has brought me closer to my understanding of myself and the whole of nature. The understanding of who I am in the world, not just as a spearfisher, a healer, a student, or a daughter, but as a being in the world among other beings. Spearfishing has deepened my respect for all life and has connected me to the deepest roots of what it means to be human. Relating to the vast and intimidating ocean is extremely humbling and reminds me of where my place in the world. If I ever forget, all I need to do is dive into the ocean and I remember, I am wild.
References
(Further reading)
Abram, D. (2010). Wood and stone. In Becoming animal: An earthly cosmology (pp. 37-56). New York, NY: Pantheon Books.
Foster, S. & Litte, M. (1996). Wilderness vision questing and the four shields of human nature. Moscow, ID: University of Idaho Research Center.
Nelson, R. (1989). The face in a raindrop. In The island within(pp. 3-33). New York, NY: Vintage Books.
Plotkin, B. (2013). Care of the soul of the world. In L. Vaughan-Lee (Ed.), Spiritual ecology: The cry of the Earth(pp. 184-202). Pt. Reyes, CA: The Golden Sufi Center.
Sabini, M. (2002). The earth has a soul: Jung on nature, technology & modern life.Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books.
Silko, L.M. (1996). Interior and exterior landscapes: The Pueblo migration stories. InYellow woman and a beauty of spirit(pp. 25-47). New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.
Snyder, G. (2010). The practice of the wild. Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint.
