America is Back! So Are Our Astronauts With a Welcome by Dancing Dolphins!
Joy!
A good and dear friend had a favorite word for times of great happiness and he used it often- at a time of a great event or hearing a great piece of music he would exclaim: Joy! We have had so much joy! lately at so many events all one can do is simply repeat the words with which President Trump opened his recent speech to Congress: “America is Back”! What could illustrate that joy! better than the return of the astronauts to a magical splashdown in the Gulf of America floating toward that magnicent water under the canopy of those huge parachutes? Joy! But as if that weren’t enough joy! for one day there was an added element brought to us entirely free of charge by Nature itself which brought a surreal, almost spiritual quality to the homecoming of those heroes and heroine—the welcoming committee of those mammals sometimes referred to as “spirit animals”, that magnificent pod of dolphins who helped, unbidden, in the ceremony! On a personal note, my heart was just overflowing with pride to the very edge of coming to tears,- something a real man is not supposed to admit!- seeing those huge chutes open and then the indescribable moment when Space X Dragon and Crew #9 splashed down in the Gulf of America:
So as not to spoil the joy of the moment by dwelling on how the two Starliner astronauts spent 8 months on what was supposed to be an 8 day mission I will note a special expression ofdeep and abiding appreciation to Elon Musk whose gifts to the USA in recent months have been incalculable. I will leave the stage entirely to the welcoming committee of those amazing spirit animals:
As glorious as that moment was when their capsule toched the water it got so much better as described so perfectly in an article entitled Magnificent splashdown -- with dancing dolphins welcoming them to Earth”:
Yet at that magic moment when the capsule containing the precious astronauts was opened -- it got better: Dolphins appeared, lots of dolphins, and circled and swam around them, as if dancing with glee to welcome the astronauts home. Dancing dolphins amid the bright blue sky and the sweet feel of wet water and the tug of gravity!
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It was simply beautiful what spontaneously happened -- the dolphins came out as if to serve as envoys for all creation on Earth and all its many glories, telling the returning astronauts 'welcome home.'
Who could have anticipated it?
It's good to be back to Earth. The dolphins were just the right gift, a seeming smile from the heavens.
I cannot resist the temptation to combine the magic of the dolphins’ welcome home to our astronauts with one of my very favorite things in life, the truly awesome Blue Angels, in this shot taken right off their home base, NAS Pensacola, showing them being welcomed by one of these beautiful creatures:
Here is a touching graphic I found on X which seems to be a fitting way to close our tribute to our heroes and heroine in their return to Earth and also to the dolphins who played such an important part in their welcoming ceremony:
Where do we go from here, after this superb triumph? As the President has said: “We’re just getting started!”
And he also said, as was noted in the beginning of this post:
America is Back!
Joy!