Page 24 - Dark Matter Women Witnessing

In September of 2006, I went to Botswana with my friend Deena Metzger to visit the

Elephant Ambassador, so named for a bull elephant with whom she had had a life-

changing encounter a few years before, and had pledged to live in alliance with the

elephants as a result.12 We had returned in hopes that the elephants might wish to

continue the connection. Whenever we were with them, we practiced, as best we could,

a sustained heart and mind-opening, allowing our awareness to melt into theirs and vice

versa. In the course of our silent conversations, we mentioned that we were on our way

to Liberia, where the presence of elephants was known to be a sign of peace. We told

them that peace was deeply needed there, both for their elephant kin, the beleaguered

forest elephants of West Africa, and for humans.

As we sat under

the tree that was

our elephant

meeting place, an

elephant family of

four crossed to the

nearby river to

drink and to play.

As with Deena’s

first encounter with

the elephants in

that place, we had

been waiting all afternoon and, on the last day, at the last moment of the last hour, they

came. When it was time for the elephants to go home, the youngest didn’t want to leave

and the adults had to insist, gently pushing it out of the deliciously cool mud and back up

the riverbank. The parents stood close to our truck and affectionately entwined their

trunks before the mother left with the youngsters. When they had disappeared into the

bush, the male began pulling at something in the low grass, eventually picking it up and

tossing it toward our truck. He came closer. Stopping about ten yards away, he turned to

face us and got down on one knee. After a few moments, he stood up again, twisted his

trunk into a figure eight - a sort of elephant-trunk infinity, and ambled away. What he had

12
Entering the Ghost River: Meditations on the Theory and Practice of Healing, Deena Metzger

11