Tokitae
aka Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut​ 
​​(c. 1966 – 2023)​

​This is the tragic tale of Tokitae, an orca whale who was born into the silvery waters of the Salish Sea, suffered sorely at human hands, and died thousands of miles away in Florida confined in a concrete tank. Her story has much to teach us about the horrifying consequences of human greed and anthropocentrism.  
 
Once upon a time, a beautiful black-and-white orca calf was swimming with her family - learning their language, getting to know the regular rhythms of the tides, and becoming skilled at hunting for their favorite food - salmon. Then, one warm August day in 1970, when they were all close to the island of Tscha-Kole-Chy (aka Whidbey Island, WA), men in speed boats and spotter planes detonated so-called “seal bombs” in the water. Deliberately designed to create deafening and stunning shockwaves, they drove the terrified orcas into their waiting nets. The innocent, young calf was forcibly separated from her mother, snatched from the water so she couldn’t breathe, and heartlessly taken away. For one whose life had been defined by the open ocean and close family bonds, this abrupt abduction must have been indescribably painful.
 
But worse was to follow. Transported thousands of miles by crane, plane, and truck, she was summarily sold to the Miami Seaquarium for $20,000. Her new home measured only 80 feet long, 35 feet wide, and 20 feet deep – the smallest orca tank in North America. The vast, underwater world she had been born and raised in was replaced by a tiny tank.
 
Initially, her captors called her Tokitae, meaning bright day, pretty colors. But once in Miami she was given a new name – Lolita – in an attempt to erase her wildness and market her as a seductive, subjugated amusement. An obvious reference to the sexually abused young girl in Vladimir Nabokov’s 1955 novel, the name Lolita implied that Tokitae was somehow complicit in her unfortunate fate.
 
But something remarkable happened. Tokitae did not forget who she was or where she came from. For the next fifty-two years, she remembered her family by continuing to sing their songs. Orcas do not forget the calls of their kin. And they are not simple or senseless sounds, but a complex, cultural inheritance carefully passed down from one generation to the next. Sadly, she never heard a response.
 
What was she saying? What did she hope to hear? We will never know, but perhaps remembering became a form of resistance for her.
 
Over the years, millions came to watch Tokitae leap and lunge at her trainers’ commands, her beautiful body briefly arcing upward toward the open sky. She became an entertaining  spectacle, a profitable asset, a captive and captivating commodity. People clapped, cheered, and oohed and aahed. Many delighted in what they saw. A few felt troubled. And fewer still saw her for who she really was - a living, breathing, intelligent being, her spirit diminished but not destroyed.
 
The Lummi Indian Nation, the original inhabitants of Washington's northern coasts, bore witness to Tokitae’s suffering. To them, she was not a circus-like attraction but a much-loved and respected relative. They called her Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut, which means member of our family. They understood her captivity as a callous crime against the more-than-human world. Members of the Lummi Nation traveled across the country to Miami to offer her their prayers, compassion, and support, drumming and singing to remind her of her origins. They understood what the white man failed to see: that living beings are not inanimate objects, but our kin.
 
Over the years, Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples alike fought for Tokitae’s release, arguing that she could still return to the waters of the Salish Sea, where her mother, who was thought to be alive for much of her captivity, might still have recognized her. For decades, the debate dragged on, as the anger and grief grew.
 
Something else happened as well: Tokitae’s life became a spiritual story about the consequences of forgetting that all species are part of the web of life and that inside every living being there is a deep desire to survive.
 
Tokitae’s tale opened people’s hearts. It awakened compassion and kindness, sorrow and sadness. It unsettled the false and self-serving narratives of the marine entertainment industry. And it became a catalyst for questioning entrenched beliefs about what animals are, what rights they have, and how human beings should treat them. Her presence - so graceful and haunting - challenged humankind’s collective conscience.
 
Over the decades, Tokitae came to be seen as more than just a single whale. She became a representative of the countless living creatures captured from the wild and imprisoned by the self-centeredness of human desires. She became an embodiment of all the beings our species has contained, controlled, and killed over countless centuries.
 
She also personified what I call “intrinsic hope” (see my 2028 book Intrinsic Hope: Living Courageously in Troubled Times). Despite the terrible conditions in which she lived, Tokitae survived longer than any other wild-caught Southern Resident orca whale. Her long life defied all expectations. And in her patient endurance, people found inspiration and moral clarity.
 
Tokitae died in August 2023, still in captivity in Miami. When her death was announced, the grief was immediate and widespread, rippling outward through the Lummi Nation, environmental networks, social media, and into the hearts of people who had never seen her perform. Many lamented her loss and her suffering. Grieving who she could have been, they were enraged by the way she was treated.
 
Today, Tokitae’s passing can remind us of some basic truths we rarely remember: That all intelligent, living beings long for freedom and for relationship. That many are sacrificed on the altar of human greed. And that change begins when we look at another and understand that their life is just as precious to them as ours is to us.
 
She can teach us that even in the most challenging circumstances, the mind can remain open and free. That memory can be a respite from pain. That grief, when honored, can become a form of communion. And that the way to restore our relationships with the more-than-human world begins with us.
 
In the end, Tokitae lived an in-between life: in-between the human and the more-than-human worlds, in-between the outer constrictions of captivity and the inner sovereignty of the spirit, and in-between humankind’s age-old addiction to anthropocentrism and the possibility of a more benevolent and biocentric future. She reminds us that human beings are capable of great harm and great tenderness. And that the line between them is drawn by how we choose to pay attention to life in all its amazing forms.
 
After her death, Tokitae’s remains were cremated and members of the Lummi Nation escorted her ashes back to Washington State, where they were respectfully returned to the Salish Sea in early 2024. 
 
But she is still remembered. Every year in August, members of the Lummi Nation and others gather to mark the anniversary of her capture and to mourn her death. They liken Tokitae’s abduction to the abduction of countless Indigenous children taken from their homes and families. They relate her captivity and imprisonment to their own. And they say that her voice was unheard, just as theirs has been. They identify her suffering as their own.
 
In these and other ways, Tokitae’s tale lives on and continues to move many - nudging us perhaps toward a kinder and more compassionate world, one in which freedom is seen not as a privilege that can be taken away, but as the birthright of all living beings who walk, swim, crawl, and fly beneath the shared sky.
​

Events
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All times are Pacific Time

Tuesday, August 4 4:00 - 5:15 pm In Person
Healing Circles Langley
Mindfulness Meditation & More

Tuesday, August 18 4:00 - 5:15 pm In Person
Healing Circles Langley
Mindfulness Meditation & More

Sunday, August 30 10:00 - 11:15 am In person and on Zoom
Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Whidbey Island
Topic: The Sacred Pause

Tuesday, September 1 4:00 - 5:15 pm In Person
Healing Circles Langley
Mindfulness Meditation & More

Tuesday, September 15 4:00 - 5:15 pm In Person
Healing Circles Langley
Mindfulness Meditation & More

Thursday, September 17 7:00 - 8:45 pm In Person and on Zoom
Wise Spirit Buddhist Community Portland, OR
Topic: The Sacred Pause

Saturday, September 19 9:00 am - 4:00 pm on Zoom and In Person
Portland Insight Meditation Community
Daylong Retreat: The Sacred Pause

​Tuesday, October 6 4:00 - 5:15 pm In Person
Healing Circles Langley
Mindfulness Meditation & More

Tuesday, October 20 4:00 - 5:15 pm In Person
Healing Circles Langley
Mindfulness Meditation & More
​
Friday, November 6 - Thursday, November 12 In Person
Cloud Mountain Retreat Center, WA
Residential retreat (six nights)
Expanding Perception and ReMembering Who We Are...Slowing Down-Sensing-Responding
Co-taught with Ayya Santacitta
More info and registration​