Page 54 - Dark Matter Women Witnessing

From Entering the Ghost River: Meditations on the Theory

and Practice of Healing, Deena Metzger, Hand to Hand Press,

2002

Despite the anthology, and the surge in writing about animal intelligence and

relationships, this first meeting and those that followed1 remain unprecedented.

Cynthia Travis, writer and founder of the NGO everyday gandhis, has been my

companion and colleague on several of the meetings when the elephants have

communicated by enacting a Story, creating a piece of theater that invite us to

participate. The mystery increases the more often the elephants appear and the

more dramatic their exchange with us. It is as if we are making ‘first contact’ with

another species and culture altogether. We are entirely captivated and are trying

to understand what the elephants might have in mind with these

communications.

Cyndie and I had a remarkable encounter in Tanzania in 2008 that alerted us to

the possibility that we were being called into unique relationships with elephants

in general rather than with a particular elephant and his people.

We were traveling in the Ruaha, Tanzania, with, for the first time, a guide. We

did not know how the presence of a local might affect our connection or whether

a relationship was possible outside of Chobe and the elephants we knew. Her

son and a companion were with us. Stopping to look over an embankment, we

saw a female elephant with several calves in a shallow pool of water in the sand

river below. We quietly watched as one of the young female elephants ran to

and from the bank alternately spraying water upon us and herself with her trunk.

Her action was deliberate and conscious. We stayed engaged until the mother

called the calves away, wandering away down the river. Having been given

permission to leave, we proceeded onto the dirt road again. Suddenly, a great

1 The history of meetings with the Ambassador are chronicled on my blog,
https://deenametzger.wordpress.com/2011/12/07/the-language-of-relationship-engagement-with-elephants/

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