With stones, rocks, flowers, chants, songs and their own bodies, about 200 mourners gathered last Saturday morning at Dillon Beach to commemorate the death this year of at least 70 gray whales, all stranded on the shore and visible across California.
The sky was overcast, the air chilly and the mood somber. Participants, in sweaters and shawls, gathered in a series of circles, some wider and some smaller, singing African songs and speaking their shared…