Join me in the cold, dark, life-sustaining NE Pacific Ocean to discover the great beauty, mystery and fragility hidden there.

Posts tagged ‘Ocean Voice’

I Hurt. Goodbye 2025.

Er, why would I make a blog with “Goodbye 2025” on January 4th, 2026?
Why would I include “I hurt”?

Male Sea Otter covering his eyes with his paws, nestled in Bull Kelp as the world blurs by.
Photo ©Jackie Hildering taken near NE Vancouver Island, traditional territories of the Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw.

The following is what I posted on my social media channels just before 2025 turned into 2026. The posts have resonated with so many that I considered if I should share the content in a blog too. The deal I made with myself is that if the “reach” on social media was over 15,000, I would dare to do so. It’s well over that now so, here goes.

What you read below is what I posted on the cusp of January 1, 2026. May the words land where they affirm, heal, and fortify.

“I hurt.
Maybe you hurt too.
I believe in good, and truth.
Maybe you believe too.
_________

As it goes with such posts where I have to dig deep, I need to write this for myself. But, I anticipate I do not hurt alone. So, here goes in the belief that these words will be of use to others too.

In these final hours of 2025, I can’t bring myself to just post a pretty picture and type the words “Happy New Year!” for you. That somehow feels dishonest and as if I am contributing to blind hope. Yo, shake the dice and maybe rolling from December 31 to January 1 will somehow bring better order to the world.

It’s going to take more than that.

Many of us are acutely aware of the forces aimed solidly and so effectively at increasing overwhelm, fear, disengagement, and distortion of reality. The game plan is for it to be “too much”.

But are we aware of our reaction to it all? Are we among the fallen? Have we shut down, gone dark, or numb? Do we “hope” without action? Do we have to carry the weight of it all?

I rawly know the answer to that last question. We can’t carry the weight of it all nor dizzy ourselves with the details of all the insanity and inhumanity. Again, that’s the game plan… bury them.

But, I do need to have my eyes open enough to feel my way forward among the assaults on truth, facts, integrity, and equality. To know these assaults are aided by the misuse of artificial intelligence, reduced scientific literacy, conspiracy theories, the manufacturing of divisiveness, the erosion of journalistic integrity and the capacity for fact-checking, etc.

The chaos over our border has fed patriotism that favours short-term economic gain over potential long-term devastation. I think something broke in me when the rhetoric began anew about pipelines and tankers. We’ve been here before.

How to have a Happy New Year? How will I have a Happy New Year? Stand for truth. Put good into the world. Know the good and beauty around you. And protect the good in yourself, and others.

Onward.

It feels vulnerable as hell to hit “post” on this. May the words land where they may be of use.”

Tariffied

Tomorrow, as so many of you know and feel, is Canada’s federal election. And, I’m tariffied. That’s not a typo.

The Canadian election has been dominated by the results of the election on the other side of the border. So many of us are left thinking HOW and WHY did our neighbours ever make that choice?

We feel the global shock waves that are the result – from finance, to human decency, to national security, to consideration of the environment that sustains us.

How and why? Dear Canadian neighbours, now we are there ourselves.

Tomorrow will mirror back to us who we are and what we value (acknowledging and deeply feeling the realities of our non-proportional voting system).

The ugly in the world is not in the shadows.

This is how it began on the other side of the border. He who “says it like it is” – an invitation for more of the ugly to creep out from the dark.

I sense in myself the want to disengage; that I feel disoriented, wounded and even targeted. The leader on the other side of the border is the embodiment of what I have stood against since, as a child, I stepped between a bully and his target.

The gag-inducing hairball, the recoil, the violations of attempted autocracy come together with technology that creates further vertigo about reality, truth, and even who we are.

What to do?

To swing far to the right, is wrong. To create a party that invites and fosters violations of humanity/equality and the environment is wrong.

Feel what you feel and identify your response to it – fading, disengaging, hurting, despairing, scrolling away?

And then say, hell no.

Hell no to the bullying, the attempts to overwhelm, violate, disorient, disempower.

Hell no to handing over our power, identity, values, and the further resources that sustain life (which is exactly the attempted strategy of using the blunt tools of fear and lies).

Tomorrow we vote.

And then we live with the reality, in all cases putting good into the world, having empathy for those who are being sucked under in this vortex of ugly and their inability to see clearly.

Stay afloat, know the way forward, guided by the values that will serve future generations.

I have struggled with whether I will share who I am voting for.

We in the riding of North Island-Powell River have the following reality:

  • A candidate that has attracted and emboldened the far right.
  • The alternative choices of three other candidates.
  • Having to consider strategic voting because the vote for those who do not want the Conservative candidate, will be split three ways.
  • This has led to the decision to vote for the NDP candidate despite the Liberal candidate being someone I know.

Background on the quote I present here from Rita Leon, Sts’ailes, Nation.

It was provided as a comment on a social media post I made by Wendy Burton: “A dear friend, who is an Indigenous elder, told me many years ago, when knowledge of the Residential school system began to seep into my world: Despair is a position of the privileged. I have no time for despair. It stops me from doing my part to heal this magnificent world. Do I sit in the dark and weep sometimes? Yes. Do I rise up? Always.”

Photo: The epicentre of the place I love, learn, and work in the Territory of the Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw (the Kwak̕wala-speaking Peoples).©Jackie Hildering

Whale Tales (podcast interview)

Hello dear Community,
I recently sat down with the wonderful team from Whale Tales to have a chat for their podcast. There was laughter and a few tears in reflecting on our Marine Education and Research Society work for the whales, and what I strive for with The Marine Detective.

To have a listen, see the links below. Let me know if this was of interest, and maybe even uplifting for you? 💙 This helps give me direction about future efforts, and where to use my voice.

Where to listen:

The Strongest Forces . . .

This is another Ocean Voice blog = my thoughts about hope, connection, equality and positive action for future generations.

I have been dizzied by recent global events and needed to ground myself. You too? The following poem is the result. I shared it on social media where it seems to have resounded with many. May it be of use to readers here too.

In a world of
turbulence
know the calm.

But do not
ignore
the storm.

Do not hide
in the bubblewrap
of privilege.

Nor in the
dank of
denial or despair.

Ships sink
blood spills
oil seeps.

In deranged
creeping, fevered
vortexes.

Clouds of hatred
seeded with
fear.

The divine lives
in the calm
of good.

She shines with
integrity, equality
truth.

Fill with light
blind
the dark.

The strongest
forces
love. 💙

____________

Photo and words ©Jackie Hildering, The Marine Detective.
Learning in the Territory of the Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw.

To the Children

This is another big “daring to share” post.

It’s not about marine life. It’s about my life.

I share these more personal posts wanting the words to land where they may be of use to others. The following words emerged yesterday, on Mother’s Day. I shared them on social media and there was a strong response, so I am posting them here too. Here goes . . .

To the children, I did not have
You are here, with me

I carry you
In spirit and passion
Fire and purpose

Every child, the potential of you
Every child, motivated by you
Every child, the future of you

Grief duller now
The path not taken
Further behind

I could not be here
Were it not for you
I am here . . . because of you

There’s no comfort or reassurance needed dear Community. I am living the life I want to live. I also acknowledge that what I put into the world fits under the verb, “to mother”.

I am sharing these words so they may contribute to understanding and comfort for others. 💙


The above photo was taken by Nicole Doe on our most recent survey for our Marine Education and Research Society.

We Are Not Less

The following is again a more personal post.
The words I share below have resonated strongly with many on social media. Therefore, I am sharing them here too. May they land with others who gain from reading them.
Here’s to love, in all its diversity and depth.

Daring to share on Valentine’s Day because The Marine Detective is as much about equality and finding one’s way as it is about marine life.

Partner-less? Chlid-less?

We are not “less”.

I am writing this for myself as much as I am for others in the same boat.
(See what I did there? So clever! 😉)

If today you can look into the eyes of a partner and from the depths of your soul say “I love you”, that is so very, very much to be celebrated.

THIS is for the widow(er)s, the estranged, the separated, the childless, the partnerless, and / or the loverless (fun word to say). We are not less.

A paradigm is pushed at us that to be coupled is to be better. That being single is something to be solved or cured.

No. Many of us are living realities where this “single” life is so much more than the mediocrity, hollowness, or even damage inflicted from past partners, and that we perceive in the relationships of others.

Here’s to what got us where we are today – the tough decisions made, the growth, the scarring, the healing, the searching, the stopping, the loving, the uncompromising, the escaping, the vulnerability, and the freedom.

Here’s to the love in our full lives, the love in our hearts, the love we put into the world, and the love in our futures – whatever we chose that to be.

To be single, is not to be alone.
To be single, is not to be without love.

____________________________
#NotPlentyOfFish
#SingleAndSane
#FindYourOwnWay
#SingularPurpose
#OceanVoice

Here I Am.

Hello dear Community, Here’s another more personal, daring-to-share blog.

I posted the following on social media this past week and it resounded strongly with people. So I am also sharing it with you. I am doing so on the day I will attend the watch party in England for the episode of Planet Earth III in which we were involved as Marine Education and Research Society Humpback Whale researchers.

Here goes:

On Thursday, I woke up in the Netherlands (where I am visiting family) with the vivid memory I am about to describe.

This was when I was in grade 11 or 12 circa 1981 and is about the “Top Science Student” award in our high school.

I was very fortunate to receive recognition for how hard I worked including being “Top Female Student” in my graduating class. Yes, making a distinction between Top Male and Top Female was something that no one blinked at back then.

There were dear friends who were brilliant science students and who went on to careers in STEM too. But it happened to be that I had the highest combined science grade that year. The prize was a Texas Instruments calculator. That was a really big deal back then. 🙂

I was not recognized for the Top Science Student award.

What were we being judged on if not our grades? At least one of the teachers believed “I can’t see her in a lab coat”.

So the perception of what a scientist should look like, and behave like, BACK THEN was putting limitations on what a scientist could look like, and be like, IN THE FUTURE.

Well . . . here I am.

Here I am despite so many downward forces about what I was supposed to look like, and how I was supposed to behave.

Granted I am far more of an educator than I am a scientist. But, there too I am applying stereotypes and standards that I actually don’t believe in.

I joked around a lot then, as I do now. I gained self worth through my achievements and the humour helped distract from how hard I was working. There was also some big stuff going on and I knew I had to get the grades to get the hell out of dodge and into the life I wanted. But simply, it’s also how this brain works. It needs humour to remain engaged.

And granted, I am not in a lab coat.
I often wear a tutu or a lot of rain gear.
But, here I am.

Here WE are.
Those who did not fit stereotypes and societal standards and yet still found their way . . . so that many more can follow.
___________________

I Want for Rights . . .

The is not a scientific post. It is an #OceanVoice post = my thoughts about hope, connection, equality and positive action for future generations.

Scenery The Marine Detective
Mother Ocean. NE Vancouver Island, Kwakwak’wakw Territory ©Jackie Hildering

I posted the following on social media last night with the text:
“I needed to write this for myself.
May it land with those who need it too.”

The reaction to the poem suggests it may be of value to readers here too. Here goes.

I want to hide
Below the waves
Where man
Does not decree

I want escape
From values vile
That choke
Humanity

I want to be
Where those with eyes
Use them
To truly see

I want for light
To shine in dark
This way
To equality

I want for rights
So those who wrong
Shrink in . . .
Their toxicity

Bull Kelp The Marine Detective
Grow towards the light. Summer Solstice 2022.
Bull Kelp just below the surface near NE Vancouver Island, Kwakwak’wakw Territory. ©Jackie Hildering.

For more #OceanVoice, please see click here. 

Wishing You Wild

My final words for 2021. Squeezed out of my heart, head and hands.
I need this for myself, to focus on what matters.
As always, I hope it has value to you too.

Wishing you health 
And the heart 
To help those 
Slowed along the way 

Wishing you weather 
That does not 
Flood, burn
Nor twist

Wishing you strength 
To see
Truth and fact 
And what is not 

Wishing you endurance 
To run the race
Dodging pitfalls positioned
For disappearance into despair

Wishing you balance
Not to flirt with vertigo 
But to right yourself 
When you fall (because you will fall)

Wishing you love 
That mirrors back 
The good of
Who you are  

Wishing you joy 
Laughter that fills 
And makes your
Belly shake 

Wishing you wonder 
That stops you 
In your tracks 
And you are small again 

Wishing you silence 
Amid stridency
Buy, buy, buy 
Never enough (always too much)

Wishing you vision 
To know the way 
To what matters
Now, always

Wishing you wild 
For if there is wild
There is all 
Of the above 

Happy New Year dear community. 💙

Photo: Member of the G Clan of Northern Residents (threatened population).
Taken in Kwakwaka’wakw Territory, NE Vancouver Island, with telephoto lens and cropped
©Jackie Hildering, The Marine Detective.

#OceanVoice
#OceanInspiration 
#MoreOfWhatMatters #LessOfWhatDoesNot

Can’t see the forest?

Can’t see the forest for the  . . .  fears?

Yes I am toying with this idiom to get your attention dear community. 

Please read. Please take just a few minutes to check in with yourself. Please share if this resounds with you. 


This week the findings of a very big, very important report went into the world.  Likely you noted the heft of it; urgent words accompanied by imagery of burning, flooding and/or orange, red and yellow graphs?  

Yes, I am talking about the 2021 report by the Intergovernmental Committee on Climate Change. Stay with me!  What was your reaction? What did you feel? What will you do?

Take a few minutes please to reflect on this. Was it an emotional cocktail of overwhelm, fear, despondency, shutdown? This would be so understandable, especially for you who are already striving for so much socio-environmental good. But, BUT reflect on the amplified danger of this. 

If we shutdown, if it is “too much”, if we bury it, or if we reject  . . . where is the action? Where is the resolve and dedication to change? Where is the empowerment? Where is the future? 

It is such a difficult and delicate dance in how to communicate the urgency for change while not stimulating the fear that catalyzes paralysis or for “hope” to replace action.

What to do? Feel it and then .  . . do it.

We don’t need to be perfect in our actions. That notion also manipulates / debilitates us into eco-paralysis.  But we do need to act. 

At the very core of what needs to be done is that we need to reject that the use of less fossil fuels is about loss. We need to know the great gains achieved by our consumer and voter actions. We need to act on the knowledge of the common solutions to so many problems being achieved through less fossil fuels, less consumerism (consumerism most often fuels fossil fuel use), and more nature. 

We need to model the happiness that comes from empowerment and valuing our reliance on the natural world (like the kelp and trees that absorb our carbon).

We need to embrace that disempowerment is not only individually disabling, it is the denial by those who have power over the rights and choices of others.

Care more. Consumer less. 

Vote for future generations. 💙

Photo: Bull Kelp Forest in Kwakwaka’wakw Territory.  Kelp forests too are in a state of change through a suite of variables that are related to climate change. More heat and/or more wind challenges their health as does the balance of their predators e.g. more grazing by urchins as a result of less Sunflower Stars. ©Jackie Hildering The Marine Detective

Do you need more red, orange and yellow graphs? Probably not, but if you do or if you want to look at the scenarios for the best future:

IPCC, 2021: Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis.
Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change [Masson-Delmotte, V., P. Zhai, A. Pirani, S. L. Connors, C. Péan, S. Berger, N. Caud, Y. Chen, L.
Goldfarb, M. I. Gomis, M. Huang, K. Leitzell, E. Lonnoy, J.B.R. Matthews, T. K. Maycock, T. Waterfield,
O. Yelekçi, R. Yu and B. Zhou (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press. In Press.

For those who have found their way here but, for whatever reason, are not able to believe there is a climate crisis, my empathy to you. If this post provokes you, there is emotional truth in that too. There are of course deep reasons for why you believe what you do. Please know that I understand but I will not tolerate any comments that are motivated by countering precaution and/or countering science and reasoned and respectful dialogue.