The day before Solstice I was getting ready for pilgrimage. A yearly trip I take with a group of people that I guide on Pilgrim’s Path (St Jacques de Compostelle in France). I picked up a book that fell into my hand, which was given to me ages ago. It was called “Silent thunder- The hidden voice of the elephants”. As I was reading it on the flight, I realized it was about elephants communicating through the Earth by infrasound; low sounds that are like rumblings beyond the hearing of the human ear. I learnt that the elephants have an intricate communication system through the Earth and that they can communicate with each other for miles and miles in an incredible sophisticated way that we don’t really understand yet.
On the Solstice we gathered as a group to collect the strands for this particular journey. We decided to use the resources in the space we were meeting in – a bookshelf full of books in different languages to tap into themes beyond our consciousness. Each of us blindfolded took a random book from the shelf, opened it at a random page and read a random paragraph to see what messages we would receive from beyond what we were consciously carrying.
When my turn came, I blindfolded picked up a book from the top shelf. It was a very big book called “Elephant Song”. This was just quite incredible to me – a second message from the elephants – letting me know that it was really important that I connected with them and that they were coming with us.
The paragraph I read was : “ Here was a warm, loving and lovable people, pictured against the awe inspiring grandeur of the great forest. A merry people, wonderfully in tune with nature, expressing themselves with songs, dances and impish humor.
So here a picture was being painted about a culture of people living in harmony with nature, with the forest, with the Earth, which was exactly one of the strands that we had been with and that the elephants were confirming.
During our walk we ended up feeling as if elephants were walking with us and it was a strange feeling because, for our minds, it didn’t make sense, but somewhere we just trusted. In many places elephant pictures turned up as if to confirm the connection.
On the last day of our 7 day journey, we visited one of the ancient caves of Southern France. Pech Merle is one of the caves that is 25000 years old displaying the original cave paintings from atime that predates what we usually call ‘history’.
One of the paintings on the wall of the cave was that of a woolly mammoth and in an instant we all realized that the elephants had been the messengers of this time, for a species that had lived on this land a long time ago, but was still here energetically and was reaching across space and time from 22000 years past. We had the sensation of the consciousness of the Mammoth making contact with us from a time when there was another shift, an epoch came to an end, an epoch of Earth changes – the end of the age when the mammoth existed on the earth in physical form. I felt as if the mammoth had come back to walk with us at this time when the Earth was going through another huge change. They were letting us know that they are with us, that they are still here – their energy still connected with the pathways of the ancients they had been walking eons ago.
We were deeply touched and we knew there was more to this.
So at the end of the journey I was left with an open question.
In late December 2014, six months later, the journey with the elephant continued.
Shortly after Solstice, just before the New Year, I was deeply, deeply moved to drop into a place where I connected with the wilderness inside me, with the wild animals, with the wild places, the places that are not tamed.
Most of our environment is tamed in our culture and there is hardly any space to access the wilderness in ourselves and in nature. Fewer and fewer places of wilderness or wildness truly exist on this Planet anymore. So this energy, that raw passion and power, that really is intrinsically connected to the deep, deep Earth knowing is less accessible to us. IT seems veiled from us in the western world.
And so as this really deep calling rose up in me around the winter solstice 2014 I began to look at how I can more deeply connect with that part within me. I was guided to do some animal communication training and start communicating with animals, both tamed and wild.
On the last day of 2013, in a particular meditation, I became present in my inner sanctuary in which I meet the animals. I opened myself to whichever animal wanted to come forth at that time and immediately the elephant showed up. I knew this was the elephant that has been calling me and had wanted to make contact for a while.
So in this inner sanctuary, the space changed and opened into a wide, spacious dry savanna. A large elephant entered into the space with a force, a huge presence and I recognized her as a matriarch. She was walking around pulling up trees and generally moving in a way that seemed quite angry and forceful as if she wanted to let me know her incredible strength, determination and power. I also felt a huge amount of clarity and awareness of her region and of the Earth as a whole.
When I asked her where she lived, she showed me a vast area of forest, savanna, desert, but also many areas on her ancestral path, where humans have insensitively encroached and cut off essential song lines, pathways that the elephants used to walk and take care of that were part of their habitat. And she showed me how many areas on most continents that used to be walked by the elephants were no longer being able to be walked by them.
She then showed me how elephants take care of their areas. She showed me energy lines that are like meridians of the Earth. I saw the elephants walking in measured rhythm along these lines that I could only describe as song lines. I perceived that as the elephants moved along them energy was able to flow and move and even adapt in intensity or volume. It’s very hard to describe, but it felt as if they are an intrinsic part of the health of the landscape.
And so the Matriarch showed me that – as elephants heard walk on the Earth, they have this beautiful function that feels like stroking the Earth that keeps subtle energy moving in a healthy way in any landscape. I could see the comparison with the human meridian system and the meridian massage that some healing modalities use to move blocked energy and re-establish balanced flow.
So at that point I was really moved and I asked the elephant why she called me.
In that Moment for the first time, she turns and faces me directly in a way that she shows me her forehead and she invites me to join her consciousness. She picks me up with her trunk and puts me on her back so that we are more closely connected. Then, I feel her opening her consciousness to me and I merge with her as best as I can, while still maintaining awareness of myself. I feel her/ us sensing and feeling the Earth as a living, beating heart beat and pulse. It is so powerful, I can hardly contain the energy. And as I scan that pulse, I can feel the vitality at the core of the Earth and I can also feel the many woundings in many, many areas. It is nearly too much for me to hold and to stay present with, but I sense as the elephant walks I become one with her. She walks in harmony and rhythm with that pulse of the Earth and along the energy lines, following the pulse. It feels like a beautiful joining and enhancing the rhythm and the pulse of the Earth herself.
I can now sense how the walk of the elephants as the herd moves the energy along the meridian lines , and how the sound of the elephants move energy along the song lines. It is like as if the land is being tuned by the sound.
And so, as I leave the consciousness of this beautiful matriarch elephant, she invites me to come back and nurture this connection. I realize I need to expand my capacity which will allow me to join the efforts to assist the Earth , the flow of energy and the tuning of the song lines of the Earth.
As I enter into my inner sanctuary in meditation I am feeling that I need to reconnect and continue the exchange with the elephants. This time, the matriarch elephant enters wagging her head eagerly approaching me. She comes towards me and I feel a greeting and connecting. She offers to pick me up again and as I adjust myself on her back she starts to walk.
The rhythm of her walk puts me into a very open trance like spacious consciousness and I hear the lilting melodies of what might be other elephant riders. The scene changes, as she walks into what seems to be an atmosphere of cold, fear and violence. I see a scene of elephant hunters with dead elephants. The men are taking the tusks.
I find that what is required of me is to be in a state of consciousness that is a witness; a witness that has compassion for the human state that is so disconnected. Compassion for humans who in their disconnection, desperation, pain and emptiness harm and kill, grab and destroy. I realize that the elephant is asking me to hold this consciousness of witness and compassion, which is very hard. But I feel a shift in the vibration of the cold, the fear and the violence and I feel that, as I am holding that compassion, a warmth and a different possibility is coming into the space, just through this other presence. So I am challenged to the core to hold that greater consciousness while feeling all the pain.
I ask the elephant what she would like to ask of me. She is taking me to a place in the woods. I feel as if I need to let go of resistance and receive whatever is asked or shown.
In the last communication, the last message was: “Follow the invitations”.
Now I enter my sanctuary and I feel the elephants coming in. Not just one, many! As if they have been waiting. They are storming in and stop, creating a half circle around me. I sense there are other people with me. I am aware of them, but don’t see them. The elephants invite me/ us on a journey. We are riding on their backs, a whole herd of elephants. As we walk or ride, I feel the Earth’s heart beat. I hear it and it is getting louder as if we are walking towards it. We are walking through a dry landscape. There are trees and this heart beat. It is getting louder and louder until it is nearly deafening.
And suddenly we come to a huge chasm in the Earth. There are machines, noise, there is mining going on. It’s a big wound in the body of the Earth. I don’t know what exactly is being mined here, but I feel and sense that here, where it is so raw, so seemingly horrid and disconnected, we are invited through the wound to connect. Through the wound of the Earth, through the wound of the body of the Earth connect! Be present and connect more deeply than ever to the Heart beat, through the wound.