ELEPHANT TRACKS
PERSEVERANCE – Elephant’s Tracks
“One step at a time” has been a favorite expression in our family. Somewhere deep in my DNA substrata, my grandmother’s poem still inspires me from day to day.
Child of my love, fear not the unknown morrow,
Dread not the new demand life makes on thee.
One step you see ... then go forward boldly,
One step is far enough for faith to see …
Today this child of Africa no longer dwells on the high-bush plateau of central Angola, but after a year of criss-crossing the North American continent we have landed on the edge of the Rocky Mountains. So much packing and unpacking. Choices. Throwing away, giving away, letting go. Holding on to that which is truly precious and joy-bringing. Streams of grief and constant surprise at the unfolding of remarkable synchronicities. Five trips across country in a year. 30,000 miles traveled by road. The awe and wonder of nature's gifts, mountain majesty and wild camping delights. Our youngest son’s mountain ranch wedding. It has been a steady flow of experience that kept me busy, yet also dwelling more closely in the presence of each moment. Maybe it's just about learning how to grow older - like a wise, ancient elephant.
Curiously African elephants have felt like inner guides since my arrival at Silver Sage Village. Is it their senior wrinkled skin that attracts and mystifies me? Or their swaying gait, that ponderous movement of an elderly being? Maybe it is their enormous bulk, allurement to my unknown sensual core. Somehow, I know a kinship with these ginormous relatives. Don’t you think that even a baby elephant looks wise?! Spirit is alive and calls me through flapping ears and prehensile trunks, to say nothing about their broken tusks. I wonder how to make sense of this.
I wasn’t raised with the intriguing Ganesh wisdom stories of Hindu mythology, but there is no doubt that lone wild rogues and fierce matriarchal pachyderms are embedded in my psyche. I remember one night as a child in Hwange Game Reserve when we listened to the trumpeting of a raucous forest party after inebriated elephants had feasted on the seasonal marula fruit. That early story of my hiding under the dashboard of the car, fearful of being chased by a drunk bull while my father casually captured movie footage, no doubt has left its tracks in my memory.
My heart wails to read yesterday’s news. I can only scan the headlines; it feels too close to home. Ninety elephant carcasses found in Botswana, butchered by poachers for their tusks of ivory. Outraged to think that this peaceful country, considered a haven for these endangered beings, is now falling to horrendous eco-violence. Who will stand up and fight for the lives of these precious ones? How can I help?
I recall hearing the story of families of Angolan elephants who after suffering through the almost 30 year civil war of the last century were eventually forced to migrate to Namibia. Since 2000, they have been trying to go home. Animal refugees on the move, navigating through one of the most dangerous mine-fields of our globe. Set by human hands, meant for human destruction, these explosives blew up one elephant after another, but the wild home-body in them kept insisting on returning to their land. Elephant families have tracked new paths dodging the undetonated bombs, skirting the carcasses of their relatives using their instinctual senses. These vulnerable beasts are returning back to their ancestral homeland. I wonder how long they will find peace and refuge. If, they ever will? My birth country has alas, not been previously known as an ecological sanctuary. Maybe my writing these stories is part of my work in the world, reminding us of four footed gentle relatives who teach us the perseverance to find our way home together on this planet.
So it is that I have been walking with these African impressions, old and new, while hiking the dry Flatiron foothills these first days in Boulder. My breath and confidence in short supply as I wander in mile-high oxygen, along unfamiliar paths wondering what comes next. Where do I go from here? There is no turning back now; I’m committed to moving forward into this unknown mountain territory. Here. Right Now. In this place. Open.
I’ll be 70 next year. There is something that feels wildly out of line happening. My body has been displaced from my former home, my gentle garden and contemplative paradise left behind. Wildness bares her teeth at me in the insurmountable jagged peaks of rocks. Wind and weather changes bring desiccating heat then pack icy rain as pellets of hail blast through the leaves of my sorry-looking hosta plants which I had carefully transplanted from their East coast haven in the back seat of the truck.
Undoubtedly this wild land of Colorado seems akin to Africa, the harsh yet magnificent geography, a compelling soul guide. What voice calls from the dry and rocky slopes? Way down inside my elephantine soul, I know the most daring pilgrimage is to re-wild that inner human; that one called by name from birth as a much-loved daughter of Christian upbringing and heritage. How do we as humans find our way back home, to that which is closest and dearly sacred to our hearts? How do I stitch together a fresh path among the mine-fields of dogma and prejudice of my faith? How do I offer a less dangerous communal path for my grandchildren to follow so they can skirt the dangers of war and still raise their families in peace?
As a herd or alone, elephants never stop moving until they die. How will I persevere daily into old age in the hidden-in-plain-view tracks of the Ancestors. Will I drink marula just for the joy of it, and find my way in this season of wrinkles and steep, rocky paths full of culturally explosive mine-fields? Where does my homing instinct come from? Inside or out? Maybe that is why I write today, trusting that from all these ancient broken-off, and sought-after tusks of martyrs’ wisdom we can together make a new path - both inside and out. The sacred fire in the communal belly of a wild African herd of animals on their pilgrimage compels me to follow. I know because I contain that same fire, we are One. It has never gone out, never been extinguished by age or trials or disappointment; I feel the burn as I write these words.
One step at a time, my dear. One step at a time. Learn from the perseverance of the elephants.
Carol Kortsch
Sept 5, 2018