Last night I had a dream of walking along a dock and seeing a dolphin in the water. I reached out my hand because the dolphin wanted me to pet him. He was an adult dolphin, smiling and started talking to me and teasingly asked for a kiss. I forgot his name but I remember asking him, “Are you free?”

From the surrounding waters he didn’t seem free. It gave an illusion of vastness but he was limited to the confinements of captivity for tourist attraction specifically to draw attention to the children.

I was sad because he couldn’t answer me. A worker told me he was born into captivity as a baby dolphin. Instead he swam away towards the kids doing what he was conditioned to do. Perform. Perform for capitalism. For profit.

“Are you free?” How can one know what freedom is if they never had a taste of it? He never felt the depths and endlessness of the ocean. So how can he answer me?

I say I want freedom but have I ever experienced it? I have never left this society so why do I desire something that feels so familiar, so comforting, so at home yet I have never lived in?

The real question is, Am I free? What is freedom for me? What is freedom for you? Maybe it doesn’t have to be something tangible and maybe the dolphin didn’t answer me because he is free inside despite being in captivity. he knows freedom because his ancestors were free and it’s inherited in Him. We have ancestral inheritance, so maybe our greatest inheritance IS INNER freedom.

We all know this whole societal construct and values are beyond wrong. So how can I create the freedom in my life within the confinements of capitalism colonization and white supremacy? In a society that constantly destroys harms and takes. And wants us to be trapped in fear anxiety and insecurity.

And it’s through this unwavering knowing within that connects me deeply to the unseen. That encourages me everyday through the magic and blessings in my life that take place, to trust and deepen this relationship.

It’s the freedom to think to feel to love to be whoever I am despite what is expected in the “norm”.

It’s breaking through these systems and creating new worlds for myself and creating with my community a life beyond that aligns with our purpose. A life that is free.

I open the page to where I am up to in Undrowned by Alexis Gumbs and this is what I read. “Amazon River dolphins have not done well in captivity.”

The way spirit works!! The way Spirit moves. I am not even surprised anymore. Nudges and signs from spirit that I am where I need to be.

I close my eyes and breathe in the stillness of the lake before me. Feeling the breeze smelling the earth connecting with the trees.

It all begins with an idea.

It all begins with an idea.