The Elephant Whisperer: My Life with the Herd in the African Wild

by Lawrence Anthony

cabal

spoor.

Every wild thing is in tune with its surroundings, awake to its fate and in absolute harmony with the planet. Their attention is focused totally outwards. Humans, on the other hand, tend to focus introspectively on their own lives too often, brooding and magnifying problems that the animal kingdom would not waste a millisecond of energy upon. To most people, the magnificent order of the natural world where life and death actually mean something has become unrecognizable.

clandestine.

surreptitiously

Emboldened

tagati

Sangomas

charlatans

inyangas

tokoloshe

Loki,

mi...

carrion.

vultures

muthi

Muthi is a collective Zulu term given both to magic spells and to the foul-tasting potions prepared by sangomas.

Mnumzane

primordial

veldt

They say you get out of life what you put in, but that is only true if you can understand what it is that you are getting.

But perhaps the most important lesson I learned is that there are no walls between humans and the elephants except those we put up ourselves, and that until we allow not only elephants, but all living creatures their place in the sun, we can never be whole ourselves.