Page 46 - Dark Matter Issue5 Part II

Neither Cyndie, I, nor Matt, who had been Head Ranger and Head Photographic Ranger

at the private South African game reserve, Mala Mala, had ever seen an Elephant lie

down to sleep.

What was communicated?

Trust.

Accepting that direct communication and analysis came from the Elephant People

allowed the field we were in together to become visible. We realized that we had been in

‘spirits’ theater for sixteen years, simultaneously actors and audience. Neither Elephant

nor human could have designed such situations in which members of both species

appear to each other as if explicitly summoned. While our meetings were both intentional

and circumstantial, the sum total of our many interactions over time, hours, days, weeks,

years, cohered in nested living stories that became the language through which we,

different species though we are, spoke to each other. This occurred both within and

outside of time and space. We had been transported to another dimension where

meaning and action are simultaneous and indistinguishable. The story that emerged

from and enfolded us challenged all conventional assumptions of reality and hegemony.

We had returned to the Elephants, again and again, at the behest of the Ambassador,

and in return we were allowed to participate in a common field of consciousness that

manifested unpredictably. Clearly both human and non-human were impacted by each

other. Attuned to one another, we began to share a critical DNA of mind from which

future connections and understandings would emerge. That is, we melted toward each

other and, ultimately, without changing shape, we melted into each other.

And so we entered the last day. Toward the end of the afternoon before we would have

to leave Damaraland, we again came across the bull whom I began calling The Great

Elephant. He was waiting for us in the central island of the sand river.