Hi loves,

I am so excited to share what I've been building for World Oceans Day (June 8)  this year!  This one is a love letter to the sea, that falls perfectly the day before.

Audio Alchemy: Ocean Soundscape 🐳

HAUM Studios, The Mission

Sunday, June 7 • 1:00–2:30pm

I'm thrilled to be joined by Marco  playing live alongside me as our Audio Alchemy duo for this one. Together we'll weave traditional sound healing instruments,  crystal alchemy bowls, gongs, chimes, with electronic ocean soundscapes, layered waves, and whale and dolphin song recorded from the waters right off our coast. It is one of the richest marine corridors in the world. Humpbacks, blue whales, gray whales, orcas, and several dolphin species. Pacific white-sided, Risso's, common, and bottlenose, all pass through, feed, or live in the waters right outside our Golden Gate. 🌁

It's an auditory journey designed to carry you beneath the surface, away from the noise, and into a steady, restorative stillness. Waves lap and swell around you. Whale song moves through the room like something ancient and alive. Layered electronic textures pull you deeper.

You'll be invited to let go of the surface, the chatter, the to-do list, the news cycle, and float into something older and quieter. Whether you come up feeling restored, cracked open, or somewhere in between, the ocean has a way of giving us exactly what we need.

🐚 Giving Back to the Whales 🐳

20% of proceeds will be donated to The Marine Mammal Center (https://www.marinemammalcenter.org/), whose work keeps our local whales alive and in the water. They respond to entanglements in fishing gear, investigate vessel strikes, and use their research to protect the marine life right off our shores. The same whales whose songs you'll be hearing in the room.

This feels like the most fitting way to honor World Oceans Day — to soften into the ocean and give back to it.

Bring an eye mask, extra pillows, blankets, or anything that helps you settle in. A journal too if you want to capture what surfaces.

Early Bird pricing of $15 off ends May 31: use code OCEAN15

Here are a few of my favorite things about how sound moves through the sea:

🐳 Sound travels four times faster underwater than it does through air. A whale song can travel hundreds, sometimes thousands, of miles across an ocean basin — meaning a whale off our coast might be heard by another whale near Hawaii.

🐬 Dolphins "see" with sound. Through echolocation, they send out clicks and read the echoes that bounce back, building a sonic picture so detailed they can detect the shape, size, and even the internal structure of objects around them.

🦐 The loudest animal in the ocean is the snapping shrimp. When it snaps its claw, it creates a bubble that collapses with a pop reaching up to 210 decibels — louder than a gunshot.

🌊 There's a sound layer in the ocean called the SOFAR channel where sound waves get trapped and travel enormous distances with almost no loss of energy. Whales have been using it as a long-distance phone line for millions of years.

🐚 And the ocean itself has a heartbeat. Scientists have recorded a low, rhythmic hum from the seafloor — faint, but always there.

 🐳 Sperm Whales May Have a Language — and AI is Helping Us Decode It 🤖

A nonprofit called Project CETI (https://www.projectceti.org/) (the Cetacean Translation Initiative) — a collaboration between marine biologists, linguists, cryptographers, roboticists, and AI researchers from MIT, Harvard, UC Berkeley, and beyond, is using machine learning to try to decode the communication of sperm whales off the coast of Dominica.

What they're finding is wild. Sperm whales communicate in patterns of clicks called codas, and the data is starting to suggest those codas may have the building blocks of language as we understand it. Researchers have identified what they're calling a "sperm whale phonetic alphabet," and a recent UC Berkeley/Project CETI study found that sperm whales appear to use vowel-like sounds and diphthongs, features that mirror elements of human speech.

They live in matrilineal family groups (grandmothers, mothers, calves) with distinct dialects passed down through generations. They have culture. They have names for each other. And now, for the first time in history, we may actually be on the edge of understanding what they're saying.

It's one of the most beautiful examples I can think of of technology being used in service of the natural world, not against it. The ocean is full of voices we're only just beginning to hear. Humpback whale song and other species are also being studied. We are at there very tip of a very big iceberg.

🧠 The Science of Blue Mind 🌊

There's a reason being near water makes us feel the way it does. Marine biologist Dr. Wallace J. Nichols (1967–2024) spent his career studying it and gave it a name: Blue Mind. He described it as a mildly meditative state characterized by calm, peacefulness, unity, and a sense of general happiness and satisfaction in the moment. The opposite — what he called "Red Mind" — is the overstimulated, anxious, always-on state most of us live in by default.

The science behind it is real. Being near, in, or even hearing water has been shown to:

🌀 Lower cortisol (the stress hormone) and reduce blood pressure

🌀 Activate the parasympathetic nervous system — the "rest and digest" mode that lets the body actually repair

🌀 Release a cocktail of feel-good neurochemicals — dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, endorphins, and GABA (the brain's natural calming agent)

🌀 Shift the brain into "involuntary attention" — that soft-focus state where the mind can wander, problem-solve, and reset. The same restorative state we chase in meditation.

The rhythmic, predictable patterns of waves give the nervous system something safe and steady to latch onto. The vastness gives perspective. The negative ions in ocean air have even been linked to increased serotonin. Our bodies — which are themselves about 70% water — seem to recognize the ocean as home and respond accordingly.

The beautiful thing is that you don't have to be standing on a beach to access it. Sound alone, especially full-bodied, immersive sound, can carry your nervous system to the same place. That's the invitation on June 7th.

For those of you newer to this list, the ocean isn't just a theme for me, it's a passion and a lifestyle influence. Life long love affair with ocean creatures and mermaids, competitive swimmer, citizen scientist naturalist, shark specialist, and marine conservationist, in a variety of ways in rolls over the years. I have volunteered for 10+ years with the International Ocean Film Festival,  and a chunk of my heart still lives with the great whites and other sharks I worked with at Oceans Research in South Africa. I always describe my holy trinity as movement, music, and the ocean. The ocean is a place that has taught me the most about presence, surrender, and power. It is full of mystery, wonder, and awe. Just like the human experience.

This World Oceans Day, if the ocean has given you something — calm, perspective, joy, awe — consider giving a little back. A few easy ways:

🦦 Donate to The Marine Mammal Center, Oceanic Society, or Heal the Bay

🌊 Join a beach cleanup (Surfrider SF, Save Our Shores, or just bring a bag on your next walk at Ocean Beach)

🦈 Point Blue Conservation Science (their 56-year research program on the Farallon Islands is at risk right now due to federal funding cuts)

🦪 Eat lower on the seafood chain and check Seafood Watch before you order. Never eat farmed salmon.

♻️ Use less single-use plastic — straws, bags, bottles, takeout containers all end up in the sea

☀️ Skip the sunscreens with oxybenzone and octinoxate (they bleach coral); reef-safe mineral SPF only

🎥 Come to or save the date to volunteer and get involved wiht the International Ocean Film Festival — our 2027 festival is already in the works 🎬

The ocean takes care of us. We can take care of it right back. 💙

🌴 Save the Date: Xinalani Dec 5-12 2026 🌴

Launching next week!!!

Quick reminder that my December 5–12, 2026 retreat at Xinalani (3 Michelin Key, boat-access eco resort in Mexico) is about to be open for booking! Yoga, sound healing, all things ocean and jungle — with optional add-ons to swim with wild dolphins, surf, and adventure as much or as little as you want. Reach out if you want first dibs on rooms 🐬

Stay tuned for the next newsletter with more details, early bird pricing, and booking information!

Until June 7th — keep listening for the quiet underneath the noise. Deep breaths and big sighs, keep taking care of yourself so we can take care of each other.

With so much love and many hugs — I hope to SEA you soon 🐚🧜🏻‍♀️