My Old Ignorance of the Elephant Spirit

I read the book the Elephant Whisperer by Lawrence Anthony, and was so moved, awed and shocked by the interactions and society of the elephants including their long-distance communication and ESP-type perception. The book is an autobiography of Anthony's chapter in life of saving a unruly herd of elephants that required many sleepless nights camping by an enclosure (a boma) to

stay close to the distrustful group as they got accustomed to their new place and to him. He spoke to them often so they would feel his intentions after a time. He spared no expense to build a serious fence to protect them from poachers and from villagers whose fields, if trampled, would give them license to kill.  Once out of the boma, they tested the big fence, wanting to go back to their original home. They knew the direction to go and made a run for it once. A skilled helicopter pilot herded them back, and saved their lives doing it.

Over some years, he and the herd got to know each other. I could not put this book down, learning about the social lives of the elephants and for the connections he created with his soft patient presence with individual elephants as he would encounter them in their daily routines during his cruises through the property. The elephants finally recognized that place as home.

When Anthony died suddenly of a heart attack in Europe, the elephants traveled 12 hours to get to his house a day or 2 later in S. Africa. They had not been there  in three  years. They stayed there, near the fence around the house, for two days. Maybe they were saying goodbye... showing their appreciation and trust with Lawrence... or maybe they were performing a funeral rite. I cried for their sorrow, their unity in emotion, their acknowledgement of their friend and I cried for the beauty and realization of the magic of these beings. I felt almost betrayed, that this aspect of elephants - belonging to a level of beings with that type of consciousness was not in my ken, much less common knowledge as I felt it should be.

They stayed present with his spirit, his passing and their intention to honor him... and maybe with their own sadness. It seems that the elephant is more present and honoring of a death than we are. This event alone has put me on a path of creating change for elephants and learning more and more about them.

We all know dolphins communicate and in India they were recently declared dolphins to be non-human persons: “[Their] unusually high intelligence as compared to other animals means that dolphin should be seen as ‘non-human persons’ and as such should have their own specific rights and is morally unacceptable to keep them captive for entertainment purpose.”

I implore India to do the same for their own native Asian elephant. Can all nations do this for dolphins, elephants and  primates? Will that make a difference to all the killing that is happening for the sake of ivory in Chinese markets? Can we then move to respecting all animals and giving them respect and space to be? 

When will we see that we are not superior to other animals? When will we break free of our egos and superiority complex and realize we have become frail and ignorant of earth which is our source of life and connection to everything?

I am happy that elephants are still alive and that so many people are working hard to protect them from the killing that is rampant right now, as the demand for ivory is very high in China. I know we can change it.

source: http://www.beliefnet.com/Inspiration/Home-Page-News-and-Views/Wild-Elephants-Mourn-Death-of-famed-Elephant-Whisperer.aspx?p=1

Loving Bollywood & SRK

I am experiencing a fascination with Indian movies these last few months: the music, the movies, the culture displayed therein, and Shahruk Khan, the person. I am downloading soundtracks and dancing my workouts to them. I had a party the other night, and it was all Bollywood music for my guests. I showed them my favorite dance number Maurya Re song from Don the movie showing a devotional dance for Ganesh; I am floored by the percussion, SRK's amazing agility and dancing, the choreography, the devotional aspects of it all, and the group dancing in the surf, so moving!  I can't believe how much I am moved/awakened/inspired by so much Indian music in general.

The movies? There is a lot to say. Mostly I love how so many of them are hopeful, uncynical and innocent. Some people accuse them of being "cheesey" which to me is a complement because cynicism is the opposite of that. Cynicism is the opposite of open, vulnerable and willing to risk yourself. I notice many American movies and series leaning toward valuing the cynical, sarcastic, and competitive, and these movies offer a nice break.

The continual reminder of the color and richness of Indian culture with ritual and spiritual attention in their lives, is stimulating and beautiful. Welcoming people home, blessing the young, honoring the gods with lamps and offerings, spending days at a time in festivals with food, community, dancing and music make me long for more ritual and community celebration here.

Many of the movies show me how painful some of the traditions can be, like arranged marriages, the caste system, and keeping family honor at the cost of individual happiness or matters of the heart. Honoring a parent, no matter how wrong or unloving, sometimes comes above honoring a lover or friend, but can lead to lifelong internal pain for many involved. Keeping up appearances seems to be paramount sometimes, and I love that these movies highlight this as a way to help people see the pain it might be creating for people. 

One aspect that has annoyed me is the lack of a voice that I see in many of the female characters. In moments of high emotion they wait for another to make a decision or express feelings. A refreshing exception Paro express her anger and hurt in Devdas recounting exactly what her lover had done to create the painful situation that they now were in. I yelled "right on!" being so happy she spoke her mind instead of looking helpless and frozen not daring to speak her feelings or wishes but waiting for the whims of her man or family to blow the winds of her destiny.

Shahrukh Khan is a force of nature. His on-screen presence combined with his accessibility, openness, vulnerability, humor, intelligence, accepting-ness, daddy-ness and "yes" energy visible in interviews, has me fascinated and smitten.

Teach Science: Start in Nature

Science class. I think of e=mc2 (can't find superscript), the Krebs cycle, memorizing geologic time periods, dissecting fetal pigs, and electron transfer. So many amazing topics taught in isolation from the end-result where they are acting in nature around us. My schooling was very conventional. Looking back, I feel that chemistry was one of the most ridiculous classes ever devised. Memorizing a bunch of elements and how they interact and transform, all in a vaccuum away from the world in which they actually act. Why would I ever care about behaviors and qualities of Strontium or Lithium? Why learn about all chemistry, or all geology or all biology separate from the other topics which are indispensable to them?  It's like looking at a big beautiful painting with a magnifying class and taking little photos of each square cm. And after 12 years, it seems I sort of had to piece all the little photos together myself somehow, and I was not provided any index to order the photos, and I was not led in the order that would help me piece them together to allow me to see the big beautiful picture. I say, why didn't we look at the painting first, and then inspect the areas of the painting that contribute to the whole?  Why not go to a place in nature, for example, Ichetucknee Springs in North Central Florida.

Observe the springwater flowing from limestone rock that goes to the river that supports aquatic plants and animals while people swim and snorkel. What an amazing sciene laboratory we have right there. But not a laboratory in the classic sense, a laboratory as a place to observe the hundreds or thousands of interactions of everything we'd ever need to learn in science class. We can start with the water flowing. We can observe the water and measure the clarity, the flowrate and talk about it's chemical composition. We can ask why it's flowing at that rate with those chemicals and that clarity. This leads us to ask questions about the rocks we see when we snorkel down. We see limestone rock. We do a little research about limestone rock and we learn that for millions of years calcareous animals died to create 1000s of feet of dolomite etc. What geologic time period was that? Does that rock help explain the chemical make up of the water? How does that affect the plants and fish growing in the river? Does clarity play a role in what lives in the river? So many questions to drive our curiosity about this place to lead us to discover about the biology, chemistry, biology, hydrology and physics of this place and putting little parts of all those topics into context of a big picture that started with a small interesting directly experienced place.

So I say, if I ever teach science, I will take you outside and start with the end. Start with what is here now, visible and experience-able so questions and curiosity can drive us into the mysteries of how it all works and interacts. I think I would call it "Nature Class."

#teaching #science #scienceteaching