Elephants, Love and Commitment

April 30, 2018

The Sheldrake Center in Kenya takes in orphaned elephants. It’s all about love.

Several times our jaunts to Kenya included a visit to the Sheldrake Center, where orphaned elephants are given love and care and companionship. Some of the babies lost their mothers and fathers mere weeks after they entered this world, due mostly to poachers who killed for ivory.

For an elephant, family is all important and a calf’s very existence depends upon its mother’s milk for the first two years of life. There are men who adopt these orphans and make a commitment of at least one year to eat, sleep and play with these babies.

Watching the babies being fed milk from rather large bottles just melts my heart. And of course play time with beach balls is always a sight to make you smile. In the evening the babies are put to bed, covered in a blanket only to fall sound asleep with their loving and protective caretakers right beside them.

They used to assign one parent to one elephant, but if that parent got sick or had to leave for a few days, the babies would cry for them and did not fare well. Now, they rotate the parents, so the youngsters get to know their extended family, just like in an elephant family where the elephants come together and help one another. Sometimes you need a village…

I asked one of the men why he made such a commitment and he answered, “love.” Kind of blew me away but I saw that love in his eyes gazing upon his sleeping young charge. So I’m thinking maybe in honor of Daphne Sheldrake, who recently passed, we could pay that love forward. You can foster an elephant to support her cause or you can choose to open your heart and let your words come from a loving space to the next three people you speak with.

Love is powerful. Love is healing. Let’s try to be more loving to each other. Let’s do it in honor of Dame Sheldrake who will be sorely missed. She had a vision and stepped up to make that vision a reality.

Sometimes, we need to let love nudge us in the right direction.

I am so grateful for her work and tip my hat in her honor.

Much love to you,

-Christel