In Africa it is said that a day spent watching elephants in the wild is not counted in the sum of days a person has left to live.
I have witnessed the lives of elephants in Zimababwe, Namibia, South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania and Botswana. Alongside them, I felt both small and enormous, all at once.
Now elephants come to me in my dreams and their photographs stare at me from frames on my walls. Words about them leave footprints I follow across blank white pages.
A Kikuyu elder once said to me, “Man and the elephant, they have something together, eh?”
Together. Inhabiting the earth. Lives enlarged.
Larger than Life
Beautifully written. So much said with so few words. Lovely.
Thanks Summer!
I work around elephants in a very different way, in a zoo environment, unfortunately not in their natural habitat, and without sounding ridiculous…. I learn something almost every time I am with them……there is so much represented in those kind, kind eyes.
What a great eye and lashes they draw you right in.
Lovely blog, Cheryl! Where’s the iPad app?
Hi Matt! If you open up my website on Sean’s ipad it should have one big photo with a “Swipe” message. If you swipe, you should see a montage of my posts. So the ipad app is embedded in WordPress just to change a website’s appearance when someone accesses the site from their ipad. It’s not a downloadable app on your end. Hope you get to go someplace warm today! – Cheryl
I have to admit Cheryl, before meeting you the elephants were always tied with giraffes as my favorite animals to observe at the zoo. Now, reading your posts and seeing your photographs, I find that I’m losing myself on an almost daily basis in dreams and fantasies about visiting the places you’ve been, and meeting the amazing people and elephants you’ve encountered. Thank you for letting me live vicariously through your adventures and I definitely plan on visiting Africa sooner than later – I feel a need to gaze into one of those awe inspiring eyes myself!
~ M