A Gentle Way
This morning, near Mara Expedition Camp, a large female elephant gently lifted her back leg to nudge the tiny bundle at her feet. It was a perfectly calculated movement, not too abrupt to jolt the baby from its dreams but firm enough to make the point; that it is time to move on.
So often, as we sit with elephants, I see small nuances like this.
While I often write about how elephants embody the dignity, grace, empathy, respect, and intelligence we most aspire to. It also dawned on me that something about them goes far beyond that. It is in the appearance of doing nothing, or very little, but achieving so much.
Great athletes accomplish this in our world. Masters of any craft often make the impossible look so easy. At Great Plains, we train for ultimate service and often say it should be effortless. Great artists brush a single stroke, which leaps to life as an image. A single combination of musical notes and the profoundness of silence in meditation have all impressed me. Making every moment count is elephantine.
As I watched today, just a few days after World Elephant Day, it is this quality of elephants I think we can most learn from; it is, by contrast to the cluttered bombardment we suffer daily in our lives, a lesson in relevance.
Yet another good reason to come on safari and spend time in the Gentle Way.