Figure 1 – Burberry dolphin, Natick, MA (c) DE Wolf 2017

Figure 1 today is that of a fanciful dolphin on a Burberry handbag. It is another mall/IPhone shot that I took. Dolphins always bring a smile to our faces. I remember vividly going to the Everglades National Park and when the boat took us through the mangrove swamps and into the Gulf of Mexico, they gunned the motor and the dolphins joyful road our boat’s wake. They are magical in two ways. First, we believe them to be of superior intelligence rivaling, perhaps surpassing our own. Dolphins do not kill one another, nor do they threaten us with nuclear war. We long to communicate with them and wonder what they might tell us of their world. Second, they are deeply rooted in human mythology. They adorn the frescoes of the Minoan Palace of Knossos from the second millennium BCE. To the Greeks they were sacred to both Aphrodite and Apollo, although they were most closely associated with the god Poseidon, who is often depicted surrounded by them. To Greek mariners they were considered a good omen. Perhaps most significantly, the ancient Romans placed dolphins in charge of carrying the souls of the dead to the Blessed Isles. At a deeper level this role associates them with the fundamental mystical processes of life, death, and resurrection.