Discuss: Gray Thunder: Listening to Elephants

We must listen to the elephant, the chicken and each other.  There is a reason man was given one mouth and two ears and it is to be able to listen twice as much as speak.  I need to remember this and spend time listening to the voice of the creator speaking to me through the people who talk to me and I must listen more carefully to my own inner voice.

Nothing preventing us from learning the language and local dialects of Elephant, Cachalot, Wolverine, Caribou or Blue Heron. Nothing but our unwillingness to listen and learn from the old aliens already among us. Too much time spent in rooms, training kids to watch the flickering blue light, and push the buttons on time. Frog feels rejected, Owl closes it’s eye. The Elephant and the Camel just weep.

The truth is that we have to live one   with Nature.  The biotic and the abiotic factors of the environment need our respect.  If we respect Nature, Nature in return will respect us.

That is the way forward.

If we could just see ourselves as beings in a living planet instead of on this “thing” called a planet we could perhaps re-open our connection with what we call Nature. We have cut the cord perhaps, but we can never withdraw our roots that are entwined in the flesh or our Mother, the living Earth.

I can’t help but cry for what we have lost, which is so much more than what we have gained. Thank you for sharing your journey with us.  As a songwriter, writing is how I, too, deal with strong emotions around the unraveling of our world. Please listen to my song, “Stealing Beauty” about the loss of habitat and the removal of birds like Macaws from the wild. http://cdbaby.com/cd/thea2
Blessings, Thea

I have always been drawn to elephants as a species, even as a child.  I found it interesting that the tribes associate cessation of the rains with arrival of the white man.  I see a correlation between arrival of the white man and the white man’s religion, which conflicted with the tribes’ beliefs that humans were not separate from the environment, as the white man’s religion asserts humans are separate from the environment.  What is occurring among the elephants is also occurring among humans, as humans and the elephants mirror each other in many ways, and this is not unique among elephants but is also occurring in other species.  Materialism, over consumption, the belief that the environment is ours to do with as we please with no repercussions; these are the products of white man’s religion.  The god represented by the elephants is a different god.

Well written and thought provoking.
Gerry Baker’s comment that our listening needs to include chickens brought a smile to my face.  I travelled recently to China and Haiti—the Haitian chickens are faring reasonably well because their “owners” still pay attention to what and who chickens actually are.

Rodger,  the fact that chickens were introduced to the Caribbean islands in the 1420’s by Chinese explorers means there was also a transmission of conscious understanding about these wonderful birds of Asian origin that went along with the gift! The current African population of Haiti have inherited this appreciation, while back in China, the relationship has become “westernized”, meaning it has deteriorated into the mere counting of factory feedstock.