Water Fish, Wind Bird, and Gaia are three ancient guardians of Planet Earth. But Gaia (who watches over the land and all that grows upon it), Wind Bird (who fills the sky and brings breath to every living being), and Water Fish (who is present in every ocean, stream and raindrop) are rarely noticed by human beings in these modern times.
Even less known to the human race is Echosaurus.
It was not until dolphins and whales began to sing in the sea, that Wind Bird and Water Fish gave birth to Echosaurus, thereby empowering cetaceans to probe time and space by means of echo-location.
Every animal utterance is the voice of Echosaurus reflecting off the sphere of silence. These living voices are echoes of themselves without which sounds would fall at our feet like lead pellets and animals could not hear one another. And it is not just voices that are reflected back to the listener. Echosaurus also communicates the music of the cosmos to anyone who knows how to listen.
When humans started speaking, listening, and understanding–late in the life of our planet–poets and minstrels would sing about the three guardians of Earth. Special gratitude was expressed for Echosaurus—known by several names, all now forgotten—who was recognized as the translator and voice of the ineffable beyond. As recently as the era of Classical Greece, the Delphic Oracle—who was actually a representative of the dolphin tribe (hence the name “Delphic”)–was honored as the voice of a deep knowledge emanating from the hidden depths of the sea, imparted for the benefit of human beings who were already forgetting the living spirit of their planetary home.
Before long, celebration of a living ground of being was thought to be naïve and unreasonable. People starting saying that the world was an inert receptacle for a few pockets of life, deposited—like Easter eggs hidden in a condemned tenement building—by an absentee creator. Few could still hear the songs of Echosaurus. But Lao Tzu knew that these songs provided doorways into the inside of space; and Wittgenstein recognized that she was singing from an infinite, inexpressible shoreline where the waves of the unknown lap against the reefs of the known.
Understanding the wholeness of this unfolding creation is difficult for humans. But it is natural for whales and dolphins–who knit together the realms of water and sky with every breath–to fathom that the world is a communication from beyond.
Most humans no longer hear the songs of Echosaurus nor appreciate the opening to vastness that is expressed in every utterance and every call of longing or of joy. There are certain places where people have discovered that Echosaurus is obliged to respond, and they spend hours calling out nonsense syllables just to hear the voice of Echosaurus reflecting back to them. Even that is something for Echosaurus, who is condemned to be mute in the absence of the voices of living beings.
Ever since Echosaurus appeared, in response to the birth of intelligence on Earth millions of years ago, she has had two loves: rejoicings of wonder and the silence of awe.
When such silence–alive, vibrant, and rhythmic—reaches Echosaurus, a deep, welling song is returned to the listener–of such purity that the guardians of our planet feel hope blossoming once more.
In ancient times the silence of Echosaurus was called the song of the Bird of Paradise. There is no song sweeter for the guardians of water and air who, like all parents, cannot but rejoice in the happiness of their child.