Peggy Oki speaks with passion about how the in-between times when she waited for waves to surf taught her a lot. It helped her to study animal behavior, observing dolphins and whales at close quarters. She talks of how spending forty years skating and as many years surfing has made her an ardent admirer of the wild at Sea.

She talks about how a life guard had his children swimming at sea when a host of dolphins started to circle around the kids. The kids were not afraid of the dolphins but when the father went out to check, he saw a three-metre great white shark just outside that cirlce.

How can we then, talk down about animal intelligence, after all aren’t the creatures of the sea our great great fore fathers….Darwin said so, didn’t he?

Sometimes I think of how whales choose to breach by huge ships or those perhaps who they see as being harmless. Perhaps they are calling attention to their condition, and asking to be dwelt upon, coz perhaps they know that after all they are at the disposal of the biped mammal.

There is really so much for us to ‘undo’, not because we got to save the planet, which Vandana Shiva comments does not need to be saved. Nature knows her course, but if man wants to exist, he might as well learn to behave!

I wish our children started to play again outdoors soon, and learnt to question the cutting of trees or the missing of birds and animals around them, after they are the custodians of what is to come. For that though, they need to know the who’s who of trees, plants, birds and animals.

So, let your child go wild

swinging upon the branches

munching berries of all kinds

and return home muddied

head to toe,

the real school of life

is outdoors, so get out

count the trees, the birds

know the plants, the lakes

look up at the skies

and let laughter roar again!