Page 31 - Dark Matter Issue5 Part II

DEENA METZGER

The Mystery: Approaching the Elephant People

This is a response to the darkest times. We know all life is threatened, and increasingly

so under the current administration, yet we inevitably respond from our human

perspectives and fears. However, we will not understand what we must without

recognizing non-human wisdom. In 2010, several of us had dreams indicating that there

are hidden passageways, different for each of us, to saving the earth and restoring the

natural world. For me, making alliances with animals and other non-human beings

became an essential path.

In 1997, as co-editor of the groundbreaking anthology, Intimate Nature: The Bond

Between Women and Animals, which testified to animal intelligence and agency, I was

introduced to one of the great mysteries: the true nature of the beings with whom we

cohabit the planet which I could only begin to understand by stepping out of my own

mind into the consciousness of others.

As many of you reading this know, I met an Elephant we call the Ambassador on

Epiphany, January 6th, 2000, in Chobe National Park, Botswana. Traveling to various

African wild animal reserves over the next seventeen years, I realized I was engaging

with different Elephants and herds while fulfilling the mandate implicit in the original

meeting to regard the Elephants as kin.

A few years ago, I was alerted to Elephants in Assam, India occupying an airstrip to

prevent military planes taking off and landing. There were also a series of attacks on

humans in India and around the globe that seemed to avenge earlier assaults on

Elephants, interruption or prevention of mourning rituals, and loss of habitat. It seemed

like a global organized activity on the part of the Elephants and I was able to speak of

Elephant sovereignty in an article translated into Hindi and circulated in Indian papers.

Very recently, a female Elephant in Hwange killed a big game hunter who was tracking

her and her herd. A great white Shark leaped into a fisherman’s boat in Australian waters

and a Bear attacked a hunter in Ontario Canada. Regarded as random, these incidents