Connection With Elephants
Elephants are the animals everyone longs to see on safari. They’re endlessly watchable — splashing in mud, nursing their young, rubbing against trees. But what draws me most is not their size or their antics. It’s the deep connection with elephants I feel everytime I’m in their presence.
“Elephants are like us, but better,” Daphne Sheldrick once told me. She was right. They radiate a presence that’s both powerful and gentle, grounded yet deeply aware.
Months before a safari I was leading in Kenya, I had a vision: five elephants running toward me and my group. I didn’t know what it meant. The day we arrived in Amboseli, I saw them. Five gray shapes moving steadily across the shimmering lakebed. They ignored the other safari trucks and surrounded ours instead, close enough to touch. My travelers looked at me, silently asking, Is this safe? I smiled, tears streaming down my face. I knew. This was a welcome — a first greeting for them, a homecoming for me.
Later, at a waterhole in Lewa Conservancy, I had a connection with elephants that astonished me. The elephants lifted their trunks, gathering our scent. I stayed still, heart open, sending them peace. Suddenly, my whole body shook with a chill — teeth chattering, skin buzzing with electricity. They hadn’t touched me physically, but energetically. It was like a tuning fork striking every fiber of my being. In that moment, something inside me shifted. I knew I had been changed.
That’s what connection to elephants does. It doesn’t just touch you, it transforms you.
I’ve seen them return year after year to the bones of their dead, lifting them with reverence. I’ve walked beside a rescued elephant in Botswana, her trunk resting trustingly in my hand. I’ve felt a bull’s gentle exhale against my cheek — the best kiss I’ve ever had.
Each time, I leave with the same quiet truth: my connection with elephants makes me want to be more like them. Calm. Loyal. Present.
And yet, each day, about a hundred fewer elephants roam the earth than the day before. From 10 million a century ago, there are now only about 35,000 left in Africa.
Without elephants, Africa would lose its heart. And so would I.
This blog post is adapted from a chapter in my forthcoming memoir. It’s Eat, Pray, Love meets Born Free — an honest, vivid, and at times unexpectedly funny story of courage, intuition, and returning home: to the earth, to the wild, and to oneself.
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