WHALE WHISPERING

Come sink into the experience of Michaela Harrison’s years-long conversation with the humpback whales of Bahia, Brazil. Rooted in her profound connection to African and Indigenous ancestral traditions and her lifelong trajectory as an animal whisperer, Whale Whispering is Harrison’s offering to a world in the throes of the most intense climate upheaval in recent history and facing concerted efforts to erase the truth about the roles oppressive and extractive systems have played in jeopardizing the viability of our planet as a habitat for various species, including our own.

 

Described as “an ancestral commission, an ode to water, a work of interspecies translation, a diasporic healing quest, [and] a musical transmutation of the legacy of trans-Atlantic enslavement,” Whale Whispering lives as an ongoing co-creation between Michaela Harrison and the whales. Addressing the generational trauma inherent in slavery’s continuing impact, she writes: 

 

“I am learning to wail with the whales as a form of curative release, just as the Africans who crossed the Atlantic in slaving vessels surely did… In my path as a priest in the Afro-Brazilian tradition of Candomble and as a student of Ifa, I have received guidance from my ancestors, through dreams and divination, to reconnect with these marine beings whose own ancestors (according to mine) witnessed, accompanied, and responded with song to the journeys of captured Africans across the Atlantic. I am listening to and singing with the whales to tap into the echoes of the Middle Passage that are contained within their songs, to bring forth sounds that honor Nature’s prescription for this time of reckoning and share the wisdom of water as it is relayed to me.”

 

A love song for life and a call for personal, communal, and global transformation in recognition of the unity of all being(s), this multidimensional project serves as a vibrational antidote to environmental destruction and racial, economic, and gender-based violence. Through underwater and studio recordings, filmed documentation, blog posts, and community gatherings focused on collective singing, water blessing rituals, climate justice, and environmental activism, Whale Whispering serves as a way of dreaming forward via the lens of the so-called past.