Oct 29, 2021 · (davidprice-26453.medium.com)
THE ELEPHANT’S JOURNEY TO PAY RESPECT, BUT HOW DID THEY KNOW?
Lawrence Anthony, a legend in South Africa and author of 3 books including the bestseller, The Elephant Whisperer. He bravely rescued wildlife and rehabilitated elephants all over the globe from human atrocities, including the courageous rescue of Baghdad Zoo. animals during US invasion in 2003.
On March 7, 2012 Lawrence Anthony died.
Two days after his passing, the wild elephants showed up at his home led by two large matriarchs. Separate wild herds arrived in droves to say goodbye to their beloved ‘man-friend’. A total of 31 elephants had patiently walked over 12 miles to get to his South African House.
SOMETHING IN THE UNIVERSE IS GREATER AND DEEPER THAN HUMAN INTELLIGENCE.
— Leigh Carter
AMOR FATI
When we fully embrace the moment, Now, with a wide open heart, that is when Love pours into us and “we” are no more. It has nothing to do with anything external. It is a completely internal personal state that embraces the whole world in that moment. That moment, that Present is beyond all belief. Indeed, it is not founded on anything but “not-knowing”. It is founded on total trust and surrender to the Unknown. Now.
— Birgit Stein
We are each cells in the living body of the larger whole. Whatever is happening to us is both personal and part of the whole, just as every cell in our biological body is both unique and part of the body. Whatever we are going through is part of the planetary struggle to evolve. Our personal crises are also births of ourselves as members of the larger body. We do not do this work for ourselves alone.
— Barbara Marx Hubbard
Human intelligence has evidently evolved to handle and manipulate the physical world, a kind of opposable thumb of the mind. Of course we partake of the universal mind, but, especially in the West, we fence ourselves off from it with our literal minded and materialistic social conditioning. We have made astounding progress in our knowledge and abilities to control physical processes. We are very proud of our prowess in that regard, thinking that it proves the obvious superior nature of humanity.
Yet, we have failed to develop our inner connections to the universe. We encourage a state of isolation. We’re living in a paradigm of loneliness as a result. We console ourselves with tribal affiliations, possessions and fables of rewards in the hereafter. The more developed on the physical plane we become the more shallow we are in our spirituality. We think we’re advanced because we can go to the moon.
It’s interesting that so-called primitive tribes are far more aware of and connected to nature. They still live in a world where they know what the plants and animals are doing and how they are faring on a daily basis. We’ve become too abstract for that. We live in language, images and ideas, not direct experience of the manifest world. To us, that’s a uniquely human brilliance. To us, intelligence is power, not integration into the cosmic order. We’re incredulous at the idea that any other species could just know something without analysis or language.
Our hubris is more expansive than our understanding of our true position in the web of life, in my estimation. We are isolated within the complex fabric of life because of a peculiar blindness of the heart that has given rise to an indifference to the suffering we visit upon the world. As we tear at the web of life, oblivious to the pain we cause, we excuse ourselves with the lie that only humans can suffer, and therefore we bear no responsibility for any suffering we cause.
We are geniuses at excusing ourselves, at fitting ourselves with blinders. We are brilliant at inventing strategies to gain short term advantage, but not in seeing the larger context of our personal and collective existence. Until we graduate to a more inclusive vision, we will no doubt continue to create havoc just by living as a normal citizen of modern society.
World events are now calling to us to change this state of affairs, which can only be done by removing our cultural blinders. That is the real work of our age.
