How Wallace J. Nichols’s ‘Blue Mind’ Shifted My View of Water

Don’t miss a moment of the 2024 Tour de France! Get recaps, insights, and exclusive takes with Velo’s daily newsletter.
Sign up today!.

The first time I met marine biologist Wallace J. Nichols, he gave me a blue marble. As I wrote in my 2011 Outside story about him, it was sort of awkward.

“Hold it at arm’s length,” he’d told me. “That’s what the Earth looks like from a million miles away—a water planet. Now think of someone who’s doing good work for the ocean. Hold it to your heart: think of how it would feel to you and to them if you randomly gave them this marble as a way of saying thank you.”

I can still picture that moment in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park outside the California Academy of Sciences, still feel my discomfort with his suggestion melting away as I imagined the face of a good friend who was working in habitat restoration when I handed him the marble. J—that’s what everyone who knew Nichols him called him—had a knack for getting people to embrace their touchy-feely side. He was an accomplished scientist but certainly not a typical scientific thinker. It’s one of the many reasons his death in June at the age of 56 is so sad: the world needs people like him right now.

J first made his mark in the mid-1990s, when he tracked a female loggerhead turtle that made its way from Baja, Mexico, to Japan. Nobody had recorded an animal swimming an entire ocean before, and he took the then-unconventional step of posting all his data online. He followed the turtle for 368 days before, unfortunately, she most likely perished in a squid-fishing net.

When I met J, he was an associate researcher at the California Academy of Sciences attempting to pioneer a new approach to ocean conservation by investigating the positive impacts that being near, on, or in the ocean has on our brains. His belief was that if we could understand why water environments make us feel so good, we’ll be far more inclined to protect them. He wasn’t a neuroscientist, so he had to build a movement in order to inspire researchers to take on the work. That’s where gifting blue marbles came in handy. The act went viral, and by the time J gave me one, he estimated that a million blue marbles were circulating among ocean lovers. Meanwhile, he’d inspired a diverse mix of scientists, surfers, and even real estate agents to think differently about our connection to water.

A few years after my story about J came out, he published his first book, Blue Mind, which Outside reviewer Abe Streep described as “part neuroscience treatise and part self-help manifesto.” The mix of scientific explanations and relatable anecdotes about people finding peace and clarity by the ocean had broad appeal: the book became a national bestseller.

In the years since, J gave hundreds of lectures, hosted Blue Mind conferences, and built partnerships, forging ahead with his vision. He was always extremely generous with his time, working with nonprofits without pay, and was known to give away copies of Blue Mind. His most fervent supporters boosted his efforts through the crowdfunding site Patreon (I was a contributor to an earlier version for a couple years after my story was published).

J and his wife, Dana, raised two daughters in a house that they built in the redwoods north of Santa Cruz, California, following their completion of an epic trek of the Pacific Coast, from Oregon to Mexico. It was reached by a dirt road and was by all accounts a magical place. I never visited, but I heard stories of the craftsmanship and attention to detail, as well as lively dinner parties. In August 2020, J was home alone when a neighbor came to the door and let him know that the CZU Lightning Complex was rapidly approaching. J grabbed his dog and a few things, and evacuated. The house burned to the ground that night. The next day, he wrote a moving letter to his daughter Grayce, who had just left for college, telling her that the home had served its original purpose of raising their family. J and Grayce later wrote a book together inspired by the letter, Dear Wild Child.

J and I stayed in touch intermittently over the years. At some point, he began signing off all his emails with what became his trademark farewell, I wish you water. I liked that, as I think most people in his orbit did. Earlier this year, we started corresponding again, looking for a time to connect. It wasn’t easy. He and Dana were celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary in the South Pacific, where they’d renew their vows in the water. I was mired in a busy stretch of work deadlines. But we kept trying. I was eager to hear what he was up to—he was always pursuing some new opportunity to grow the Blue Mind movement—and I sent him a note in the second week of June. Several days later, I got a reply from Dana letting me know that he had passed.

I never did give away my blue marble. It sits in a wooden case on the top of my bedroom dresser where I keep a small number of items that are meaningful to me. Every time I open the case, it serves as a precious reminder to protect the ocean. Unlike J, I need that reminder. But if I could, I would give it back to him now to thank him for his life’s worth of work inspiring the rest of us to take better care of ourselves by taking better care of the ocean. Since I can’t, I’ll take a walk to the beach. That will make me feel better, just like he always said it would.

The Dr. Wallace J. Nichols Memorial Fund was established to fund the continuation of his work and is approved by his family. You can contribute here.