Thank you for caring about the elephants!

May 4, 2018

Many of you wrote back to say you had adopted an elephant at the Sheldrick Center. How awesome!

I want to say thank you and share a picture of my elephant, named Sities, orphaned at seven weeks old, due to to poaching. She came desperately seeking company and how wonderful she found a new family.

Remember that elephant energy is all about family, tribe and the heart. They feel deeply—loneliness, sadness joy and grief, and even though they tussle now and again, they stick together; they understand that love is not conditional.

In both Tanzania and in the Mara I taught my group how to “call in the elephants.” They surrounded our truck with curiosity and love and after the mothers sniffed our scent, allowed the youngster to come to us as well. It was life-changing as our heart chakras opened and tears flowed freely down each cheek.

This is not to say our driver wasn’t a bit nervous as the elephants reached their trunks to us and stared deeply in to our eyes as an adolescent male came closer as well. He could have easily tipped over our truck if startled. We held our breath and barely moved and just quietly opened our hearts and loved them back.

Seeing and feeling the elephants in the wild is amazing and I can understand how those elephant handlers can give up a year of their life to care for these orphans. Here’s a brief video of the youngsters at the Sheldrick Center coming back from a happy play time. Such a contrast from how they were found.

I’m working on the next trip to the Kenya in the fall and it includes a visit to the orphanage—an experience that will never leave you. We can learn a lot from elephants.

And PS. After the elephant encounter, my students asked me how to call in a lion!

Stay tuned,

—Christel