Swimming with the Salmon

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Normally I like to talk and listen to new things, but I was winding down and told Neo I wanted to go to the river, to watch the salmon run towards the spawning beds of their desire. Neo and I walked up and down the river to see the progress of the salmon. I had never seen salmon swimming up river before, -- except on TV, and I was real eager to see everything up close and personal. After an hour or so of hiking Neo pointed at a little butte that was situated so that anyone there could look down at the bend of the river. We made our way up on to the butte so we could enjoy the benefit of such a good place to sight see. As I looked down at the river I could see the broader areas, and the plenty of spots that were shallow with a very gravelly bottom. Neo claimed that was where the salmon like to deposit their eggs. I brought my binoculars because my vision is poor and the distance between our perch and the salmon in the river was too far away for my meager eyes to see most things in detail. With the binoculars I could see everything quite fine.

We sat down and I enjoyed the air that had been warming up throughout the day although it still had just a touch of a brisk cool snap to it. I looked at the birds circling around the river and a hawk over to the left diving for some hapless meal, perhaps it was a mouse or a small gopher.

Neo pointed at the salmon struggling up the river, they looked discolored and a variety of animals had come down by the banks to feast on the dying salmon. Neo pointed to another area of the river where there was more salmon that was sick and dying.

Many of these tired specimens were floundering and floated up to the surface then washed up and were trapped in the rocks where the water eddied endlessly There was river otters, raccoons, wild cats, weasels, badgers, coyote, and even though I had not seen the elusive bear and cougar, I had seen their tracks which had been left at the waters edge where they had come in to feed on both the still vigorous salmon along with the dying or dead brethren.

In company with the predatory mammals were the birds such as the crows, ravens, kingfishers, ospreys, hawks, golden eagles, gulls, and many of the other types of waterfowl. The combination of all of the animals preying on the somewhat healthy fish that were still trying to make it up stream made the area in view look like a killing field. So many of the salmon were being snatched out of the river and even more of them were laid up on the banks or floated helplessly in eddies. I wondered how in the world that enough salmon managed to make it up stream to spawn and insure the survival of the species.

I mentioned this to Neo and he simply nodded his head in agreement. Neo said, “Every year, the salmon make their way here thousands of miles from their feeding areas in the ocean just to make the trek back to the place of their birth so that they also can spawn and give birth.” “They expend so much energy swimming back…their need to breed drives them thousands of miles up rivers that often cascade down with brutal force over vicious rocks…down from mountains like this one -- their bodies being bludgeoned and smashed on to the sharp crags that are litter along the way.”

Neo said, “As if that was not enough, they have to contend with the various predators that are waiting along the way to take them out for their own meal…and to feed their own young.” “Also the salmon are so single minded in their drive to get to the spawning beds that they do not bother to take a meal along the way that would help them to bolster their strength.” “By the time these poor little buggers git to the spawning beds they are disheveled, discolored and their bodies so corrupted they are practically dead as the females lay the eggs and the males fertilize them.” “Even when the males git to the spawning beds they will compete mindlessly with the other males to spray their sperm on as many female eggs as possible.”

Neo said, “Imagine all that distance, and effort that they expend at the expense of their bodies which are discolored, torn, starved, wasted and dying just to get a chance to spray as much of their sperm on as many eggs as possible.”

I looked at Neo and I said, “Sometimes I know just how the poor little buggers feel!” Among the salmon I could see large fish that looked different than the salmon and they were also fighting their way upstream. Neo told me that these were Steelhead trout. According to Neo the steelhead unlike the salmon they can survive their spawning to go back to the ocean where feeding and a life that they are better suited for awaits them. They make the spawning journey for five or more years in succession. I guess compared to the salmon they should count themselves as lucky bastards. I wondered how many years of spawning I had left in me.

I was feeling pretty slapstick and gregarious from the fresh air and the walk…but Neo wanted silence. Then Neo makes a wide sweeping gesture with one pointing finger and said, “Let’s sit here and just look at everything out there” “I like to look at everything and I sometimes try to visualize actually being part of the activity with the animals down there.”

I said, “What do you mean?”

Neo said, “Just imagine that you are one of the otters feeding or a hawk tearing at the flesh of a salmon pinned under its claws.” “You mentioned that you knew how the salmon felt going through all of that effort to spawn, perhaps you could imagine swimming along side of them as the salmon are moving up the river so that you could imagine spawning., or you could even imagine actually being one of the salmon.”

I thought to myself, “Neo you are one frigging fruit loop.” Instead of speaking my mind I said, “That’s interesting, how do I do that?”

Neo said, “Just put yourself in the same state that you use to prepare yourself for a workout that you want to transcend…you might be surprise what happens.” I sat in a comfortable position and worked on putting myself into the state that had proved best to facilitate visualization in both the optical and the kinesthetic sense. I also added in breathing and physical techniques that had helped me to achieve out of the body experiences.

As I used these techniques I looked down at the landscape along the entire length of the river that up to the distance that did not stress my eyes. On occasion I used the binoculars to bring myself up closer to the fish swimming and the animals rendering and feeding on the fish by the banks.

I tried to imagine my non-ordinary self at the sight of the river alongside of the animals on the banks and then in the water swimming along with the fish fighting against the icy rushing waters to make it upstream.

It was not my non-ordinary body that was making the trip…instead it was simply my very active imagination. I took delight in my ability to imagine that I was actually in the water and that I was imagining the feel of the water and the jostling of my body against the fish whose midst I was in and the gravelly bottom of the river bed rubbing against me. I wished that I was able to go beyond my imagination and actually be one of the fishes…to really feel what the salmon were feeling. That wish was beyond me and so I had to settle for my ordinary imagination.” My imagination took me further and farther up the river and my imagination saw that many of the fish all around me were faltering and failing as they floated up and washed near the banks where opportunistic birds and animals delighted in the opportunity to feast.

An errant part of my mind wondered if they appreciated the Omega - three and Omega – six fatty acids that the salmons bodies provided for their optimal health. Here and there as my imagination swam upriver a bird of prey would snatch a salmon that had been struggling heroically out of the water and carried away to hungry mouths chirping and cawing in a distant nest. As my imagination got to a shallower gravelly area I could see the females depositing the eggs in little gravel basins that they had created by the purposeful wiggling movements of their bodies, specifically their tails. I could see that the males were spraying their sperm all over the eggs in wild abandon and a part of my intellect was grateful that it was only my imagination that was in the water… because the thought of gulping water down after the males got done with their spraying filled me with revulsion.

“Too natural for me” I thought. On the tail of this last thought, my imagination saw a male that was totally in my focus of awareness…he was in the process of spraying when I saw a shadow darken him and the area around him and then the water bubbled with flashing talons and beating wings and I saw the tips of the talons penetrate like hypodermics and slide deeper into the salmon until they reached the feathery hilts where the talons began and with an alarming violence the male was still dutiful spraying his sperm, -- was torn for the water…torn from my sight. This sudden violence that had pushed its way unrepentantly in my imagination was startling and it was at that instant that I wondered if I could actually be in danger. At the split second of that errant feeling of fear…for a split second I felt as if I was one of the salmon feeling my (scales?) rub against the gravel as I was spraying sperm and the icy water sliding on and past my slick body. “The water boiled above me and (me?) or my imagination could feel a piercing and pain sliding deeper in my body and the water seemed to bubbled and I imagined that I was struggling and being lifted out of the water.

The imagined pain and the very real terror for survival cause my imagination to come back to reality…not float back but snap back. I was there next to Neo and I was breathing hard and harsh and my heart was pounding like a trip hammer. As I was trying to subdue my pounding heart and my ragged breathing I looked down at where my imagination had been and I saw a golden eagle with a large salmon clutched in its talons. The heroic bugger was still twisting and wiggling mightily against the death angel’s talons, trying to get out of the drowning air and back into the water of life, if only for a brief time so that it could complete its biological destiny.

As I watched the golden eagle fly into the distance with its struggling prey… I could not help but wonder if my imagination had somehow put me for real into the body and nervous system of the salmon it was carting away. I could have sworn that just for an instant the pain and all other sensations seemed so real. It went beyond the journey that my ordinary imagination had been on up until that point. I told myself that too crazy to even considered and as I was still struggling to get my blood pressure and breathing under control

I looked over at Neo who had been watching me with a very curious expression of wonder and intent.

Neo said, “You were really there fer a bit, weren’t ya mate?”

I wasn’t sure what Neo meant by the question. I wondered if he was talking about the excursions of the imagination that a lot of people can engage in…or had he seen or known what I experienced at the last second or so?

I thought that was too nuts to even considered, so I decided to play it safe and I said, “My imagination is pretty vivid at times and I imagined swimming along with all of those salmon and steelhead.”

Neo was looking at me with more intensity, his peculiar eye colors swirling and he had a look on his face as if he was hoping for me to spill my guts…to tell him everything.

I said, “I even imagined that salmon all around me were laying eggs and spraying sperm and that a few of them were getting pulled out of the water by big birds.”

Neo looked at me and said in a low voice, “Just the fish around you huh?”

I didn’t want to think about my last few seconds of perception of my imaginary excursion so I said, “The most startling thought that I have from my imaginary trip is the feeling that all the effort, and the struggling that the teeming masses of salmon was mostly and sadly wasted.”

I said, “If the entire population of salmon had gone through this hellish trek so that only a meager number of them could achieve their end goal of spawning and dying, in my mind it is a bitter pill indeed.

Neo said, “The lives of the salmon, -- is not unlike the lives of humanity who are swimming upstream in the rushing waters of life.” “The results of most people are essentially the same as most of the salmon that you see lying torn, eaten and discarded on the banks and floating in the eddies.” “Only five out of every hundred small-fry salmon that hatched made it back to spawn.”

He said, “Just think if the same percentage of people made it to spiritual salvation…that would mean only two hundred million is left after they reach their spiritual spawning beds.”

I said, “That’s a huge drop in numbers compared to the number of people that are hoping for salvation, but it still is a hellva a lot of people.”

Neo said, “The reality is much worse.”

I said, “What do you mean worse?”

Neo said, “The reality is that only as much of 1/1000 or as little of 1/100,000 of the two hundred million humans that represent the number of salmon left to make the spawning will make it to their spiritual spawning grounds and attain salvation, even less will experience the rapture or a resurrection.”

He said, “Very few salmon make back to their spawning beds, so it is for humans in their quest to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”

I looked over at Neo and I was shocked to see the look of sadness and the two long tears running down his face.” I know it is silly but for some reason I had imagined that sadness was an alien emotion to Neo.” In my mind he seemed above negative emotions. His last few statements had me wondering once again about his mental health and stability.

I thought, “That is depressing.” “I guess that’s just an example of dark thoughts from a dark mind.” The famous words of Dr. M. Scott Peck came to my mind, “Life is tough.”

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