Dolphin's leap crushes woman

1
This was the front-page headline in the New Zealand Herald today, after a 27-year-old woman sitting on the bow of a boat near Slipper Island, off Coromandel on the east coast of NZ's North Island, was seriously injured by a dolphin that "became over-excited" and jumped on the boat. Thankfully, the woman is now in a stable, though still serious, condition. The news item is online here:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/sto ... d=10416900

The relevant data is:
26 December 2006
2.30 pm NZST -13:00
Slipper Island, NZ
37S03
175E56
ASC: 18Aries43

Apart from the highly unusual nature of this incident (dolphins very rarely attack or injure humans), this is the third time dolphins have crossed my radar in the last month, which makes me pay extra attention.

First, my daughter and her classmates had the fantastic experience of swimming with a pod of dolphins on a school trip in early December.

I then happened to catch a programme about the Top 50 Things to Do in the World - and No. 1 was, you guessed it, swimming with dolphins.

My first thought is to look at how dolphins figure in mythology and in the stars. The constellation Delphinus is an obvious starting point and the myth of Neptune and Amphitrite seems relevant - especially considering the planet Neptune is currently conjunct both main stars of the constellation (Sualocin & Rotanev, around 17-18 Aquarius - but he's been in that vicinity all year). Dolphins are also associated with metamorphosis, music, Christianity & funeral rites. (Much more info on Anne Wright's wonderful site: http://www.winshop.com.au/annew/).

Has anyone else been seeing dolphins lately?!

2
Yes, with Neptune running through the Dolphin Constellation I think its making it more prominent. there is the dolphins in China that had the plastic removed from their stomaches by the tallest man in the world a shepherd. etc... many stories, sorta makes sense.

Granny

3
Well coming from the traditional Renaissance and Medieval point of view, dolphins would more probably be seen as being Jovial or solar in nature. Even if we take Neptune as the ruler of the oceans, it would cover all sea-life in general, not dolphins specifically. So I'm not so sure about this transit's effects on the whole world.

I?ve been re-reading a really excellent little book called The Elizabethan World Picture by E. M. W. Tillyard, and he talks in wonderful terms about how our ancestors saw the whole of creation as one intertwined chain of being, full of meaning, leading from the inanimate rocks and minerals up through the plants and animals to man and on the angels and finally to God. In that scheme, there were certain examples that stood as the summit of their particular order. Tillyard quotes Raymond de Sebonde on page 29 as saying that primacy belongs to
?the dolphin among the fishes, the eagle among the birds, the lion among the beasts, the emperor among men.
Tillyard quotes Henry Peacham from his Compleat Gentleman on page 30,
If we consider alrightly the frame of the whole universe and method of the all-excellent wisdom in her work as creating the forms of things infinitely divers, so according to dignity of essence and virtue in effect, we must acknowledge the same to hold a sovereignty and transcendent predominance as well of rule as place each other over either. Among the heavenly bodies we see the nobler orbs and of greatest influence to be raised aloft, the less effectual depressed. Of elements the fire, the most pure and operative, to hold the highest place. The lion we may say is king of beasts, the eagle the chief of birds, the whale and whirlpool among fishes, Jupiter?s oak the forest?s king. Among flowers we most admire and esteem the rose, among fruit the pomeroy and queen-apple; among stones we value above all the diamond, metals gold and silver. And since we know to transfer their inward excellence and virtues to their species successively, shall we not acknowledge a nobility in man of greater perfection, of nobler form, and prince of these?
Perhaps why dolphins and whales have this high rank in nature could come from them living at the edge of where the water meets the air. Part of this chain of being places earth at the bottom, water above it, air above water and as indicated above, fire above air. Since dolphins and whales live near the surface, they mirror the boundary that lies at the top where one realm joins another. Tillyard quotes Shakespeare?s Antony and Cleopatra on page 35,
Cleopatra, praising Antony to Dolabella in a speech full of cosmic references, says
  • his delights
    Were dolphin-like; they show?d his back above
    The element they lived in.
The passage loses half its meaning unless the reference to the dolphin as king of the fish is understood. Antony stood out in regal fashion above the revels he delighted in like the dolphin, king of the fishes, showing his back above the waves.
Our own William Lilly lists dolphins and whales as being creatures of the nature of Jupiter, but I might add that the regal quality that Tillyard assigns to them suggests that they may also partake some of the solar nature, as befits these kings of their niche.
Mark F