Elephant Strength Quotes

There are some things about myself I can’t explain to anyone. There are some things I don’t understand at all. I can’t tell what I think about things or what I’m after. I don’t know what my strengths are or what I’m supposed to do about them. But if I start thinking about these things in too much detail the whole thing gets scary. And if I get scared I can only think about myself. I become really self-centered, and without meaning to, I hurt people. So I’m not such a wonderful human being.

Ego Tripping I was born in the congo I walked to the fertile crescent and built the sphinx I designed a pyramid so tough that a star that only glows every one hundred years falls into the center giving divine perfect light I am bad I sat on the throne drinking nectar with allah I got hot and sent an ice age to europe to cool my thirst My oldest daughter is nefertiti the tears from my birth pains created the nile I am a beautiful woman I gazed on the forest and burned out the sahara desert with a packet of goat's meat and a change of clothes I crossed it in two hours I am a gazelle so swift so swift you can't catch me For a birthday present when he was three I gave my son hannibal an elephant He gave me rome for mother's day My strength flows ever on My son noah built new/ark and I stood proudly at the helm as we sailed on a soft summer day I turned myself into myself and was jesus men intone my loving name All praises All praises I am the one who would save I sowed diamonds in my back yard My bowels deliver uranium the filings from my fingernails are semi-precious jewels On a trip north I caught a cold and blew My nose giving oil to the arab world I am so hip even my errors are correct I sailed west to reach east and had to round off the earth as I went The hair from my head thinned and gold was laid across three continents I am so perfect so divine so ethereal so surreal I cannot be comprehended except by my permission I mean...I...can fly like a bird in the sky...

The fundamental defect of the female character is a lack of a sense of justice. This originates first and foremost in their want of rationality and capacity for reflexion but it is strengthened by the fact that, as the weaker sex, they are driven to rely not on force but on cunning: hence their instinctive subtlety and their ineradicable tendency to tell lies: for, as nature has equipped the lion with claws and teeth, the elephant with tusks, the wild boar with fangs, the bull with horns and the cuttlefish with ink, so it has equipped woman with the power of dissimulation as her means of attack and defence, and has transformed into this gift all the strength it has bestowed on man in the form of physical strength and the power of reasoning. Dissimulation is thus inborn in her and consequently to be found in the stupid woman almost as often as in the clever one. To make use of it at every opportunity is as natural to her as it is for an animal to employ its means of defence whenever it is attacked, and when she does so she feels that to some extent she is only exercising her rights. A completely truthful woman who does not practice dissimulation is perhaps an impossibility, which is why women see through the dissimulation of others so easily it is inadvisable to attempt it with them. – But this fundamental defect which I have said they possess, together with all that is associated with it, gives rise to falsity, unfaithfulness, treachery, ingratitude, etc. Women are guilty of perjury far more often than men. It is questionable whether they ought to be allowed to take an oath at all.

Have the mind of a fox, the heart of a lion, the tongue of a serpent, the flair of a swan, and the soul of a dove. Have the fortitude of a camel, the courage of a bear, the strength of a bull, the fierceness of a wolf, and the might of an elephant.

He mad no moral judgements. He accepted mankind as he found it, and looked for the profit to be made from its strengths or weaknesses.

Trans women are juvenile elephants. We are much stronger and more powerful than we understand. We are fifteen thousand pounds of muscle and bone forged from rage and trauma, armed with ivory spears and faces unique in nature, living in grasslands where any of the ubiquitous humans may or may not be a poacher. With our strength, we can destroy each other with ease. But we are a lost generation. We have no elders, no stable groups, no one to teach us to countenance pain. No matriarchs to tell the young girls to knock it off or show off their own long lives lived happily and well.

For centuries poets, some poets, have tried to give a voice to the animals, and readers, some readers, have felt empathy and sorrow. If animals did have voices, and they could speak with the tongues of angels--at the very least with the tongues of angels--they would be unable to save themselves from us. What good would language do? Their mysterious otherness has not saved them, nor have their beautiful songs and coats and skins and shells and eyes. We discover the remarkable intelligence of the whale, the wolf, the elephant--it does not save them, nor does our awareness of the complexity of their lives. Their strength, their skills, their swiftness, the beauty of their flights. It matters not, it seems, whether they are large or small, proud or shy, docile or fierce, wild or domesticated, whether they nurse their young or brood patiently on eggs. If they eat meat, we decry their viciousness; if they eat grasses and seeds, we dismiss them as weak. There is not one of them, not even the songbird who cannot, who does not, conflict with man and his perceived needs and desires. St. Francis converted the wolf of Gubbio to reason, but he performed this miracle only once and as miracles go, it didn’t seem to capture the public’s fancy. Humans don’t want animals to reason with them. It would be a disturbing, unnerving, diminishing experience; it would bring about all manner of awkwardness and guilt.

There are some things about myself I can’t explain to anyone. There are some things I don’t understand at all. I can’t tell what I think about things or what I’m after. I don’t know what my strengths are or what I’m supposed to do about them. But if I start thinking about these things in too much detail, the whole thing gets scary. And if I get scared, I can only think about myself. I become really self-centered, and without meaning to, I hurt people. So I’m not such a wonderful human being.

The Hebrew word, qeren (#H7161 קֶ֣רֶן), is a horn of a bull, or is sometimes used to describe the tusk of an elephant. The English translation here is, “might.” In either case, the business-end of either animal is the symbol of its strength. pg 41

We all know the old adage about why an elephant with all its power can be held in place by a small rope and peg. This is because elephants remember when they were babies and did not have the strength to pull the peg out of the ground. In short, elephants remain captive because their memories lie to them. They tell them that their past is their future—that what they experienced before will always be the reality that is before them.

An elephant does not need to pick a fight to let the whole jungle know of its strength.

Three blind men were shown an elephant. They touched it with their hands to determine what the creature was. The first man felt the trunk, and claimed the elephant was like a snake. The second man touched its leg and claimed the elephant was like a tree. The third man touched its tail, and claimed that the elephant was like a slender rope.” I nodded. “Oh, I get it. All of them were right. All of them were wrong. They couldn't get the whole picture.” Shiro nodded. “Precisely. I am just another blind man. I do not get the whole picture of what transpires in all places. I am blind and limited. I would be a fool to think myself wise. And so, not knowing what the universe means, I can only try to be responsible with the knowledge, the strength, and the time given to me. I must be true to my heart.

A mouse can fall down a mine shaft a third of a mile deep without injury. A rat falling the same distance would break his bones; a man would simply splash ... Elephants have their legs thickened to an extent that seems disproportionate to us, but this is necessary if their unwieldy bulk is to be moved at all ... A 60-ft. man would weigh 1000 times as much as a normal man, but his thigh bone would have its area increased by only 100 times ... Consequently such an unfortunate monster would break his legs the moment he tried to move. [Expressing, in picturesque terms, the strength of an organism relative to its bulk.]

Sometimes, he thought of himself as an elephant walking through the china store, breaking everything in his path and still expecting people not to be angry with the damage he made, but rather to admire his strength and his endurance.

The way circus elephants are trained demonstrates this dynamic well: When young, they are attached by heavy chains to large stakes driven deep into the ground. They pull and yank and strain and struggle, but the chain is too strong, the stake too rooted. One day they give up, having learned that they cannot pull free, and from that day forward they can be “chained” with a slender rope. When this enormous animal feels any resistance, though it has the strength to pull the whole circus tent over, it stops trying. Because it believes it cannot, it cannot.

The particular strangeness of Mormon beliefs, for example, testifies to the exceptional strength of the Mormon moral community. To maintain such stigmatizing beliefs in the modern era, in the face of science, the news media, and the Internet, is quite the feat of solidarity. And while many people (perhaps even many of our readers) would enjoy being part of such a community, how many are willing to “pay their dues” by adopting a worldview that conflicts with so many of their other beliefs, and which nonbelievers are apt to ridicule? These high costs are exactly the point. Joining a religious community isn’t like signing up for a website; you can’t just hop in on a lark. You have to get socialized into it, coaxed in through social ties and slowly acculturated to the belief system. And when this process plays out naturally, it won’t even feel like a painful sacrifice because you’ll be getting more out of it than you give up.

We think and believe that we are exceptional. We have created so many stories around how exceptional humans are. We were created by the hands of the divine, and the universe is our gift. We believe that it was all created to serve us, but the reality of the matter is, we are not exceptional except for our ability to kill beauty and destroy. We are not as fast as the gazelle or a cheetah; we can't fly like birds; we don't have fur to protect us in the cold; we don't have natural strength to lift heavy objects like a gorilla or an elephant. We created fables to explain our presence, even scientific ones that we can't prove. It is all unproven theories, on all sides. We are not exceptional; we are only exceptional when we work together and in sync with nature like every other creature.

Where, then, is the discretion or the reason in loading burdens on the backs of those whose strength has not first been tested to make sure that the tasks assigned to human beings are in line with their natural constitutions? Would anyone give a donkey the same load as an elephant? Or the young or very old the same loads as full adults? Can the frail bear as much as the hardy, or the sickly as much as the well?

If I was a flower, I would sell perfume. If I was a plant, I would sell herbs. If I was a seed, I would sell wood. If I was a tree, I would sell forests. If I was a garden, I would sell beauty. If I was a plant, I would sell medicine. If I was a fish, I would sell oceans. If I was a bee, I would sell honey. If I was a spider, I would sell silk. If I was a firebug, I would sell light. If I was a sheep, I would sell wool. If I was a rabbit, I would sell carrots. If I was a cow, I would sell leather. If I was a hen, I would sell eggs. If I was a stream, I would sell lakes. If I was a river, I would sell seas. If I was a bird, I would sell skies. If I was a monkey, I would sell trees. If I was a dog, I would sell plains. If I was a bear, I would sell caves. If I was a goat, I would sell mountains. If I was a fox, I would sell wit. If I was a dove, I would sell peace. If I was a bear, I would sell valor. If I was a camel, I would sell grit. If I was an owl, I would sell wisdom. If I was a lion, I would sell strength. If I was an elephant, I would sell might.

Basically, live foods are those that are created through the natural interaction of the sun, air, soil and water. What I’m talking about here is a vegetarian diet. Fill your plate with fresh vegetables, fruits and grains and you might just live forever.” “Is that possible?” “Most of the sages were well over one hundred and they showed no signs of slowing down, and just last week I read in the paper about a group of people living on the tiny island of Okinawa in the East China Sea. Researchers are flocking to the island because they are fascinated by the fact that it holds the largest concentration of centenarians in the world.” “What have they learned?” “That a vegetarian diet is one of their main longevity secrets.” “But is this type of diet healthy? You wouldn’t think that it would give you much strength. Remember, I’m still a busy litigator, Julian.” “This is the diet that nature intended. It is alive, vital and supremely healthy. The sages have lived by this diet for many thousands of years. They call it a sattvic, or pure diet. And as to your concern about strength, the most powerful animals on the planet, ranging from gorillas to elephants, wear the badge of proud vegetarians. Did you know that a gorilla has about thirty times the strength of a man?

About his madmen Mr. Lecky was no more certain. He knew less than the little to be learned of the causes or even of the results of madness. Yet for practical purposes one can imagine all that is necessary. As long as maniacs walk like men, you must come close to them to penetrate so excellent a disguise. Once close, you have joined the true werewolf. Pick for your companion a manic-depressive, afflicted by any of the various degrees of mania - chronic, acute, delirious. Usually more man than wolf, he will be instructive. His disorder lies in the very process of his thinking, rather than in the content of his thought. He cannot wait a minute for the satisfaction of his fleeting desires or the fulfillment of his innumerable schemes. Nor can he, for two minutes, be certain of his intention or constant in any plan or agreement. Presently you may hear his failing made manifest in the crazy concatenation of his thinking aloud, which psychiatrists call "flight of ideas." Exhausted suddenly by this riotous expense of speech and spirit, he may subside in an apathy dangerous and morose, which you will be well advised not to disturb. Let the man you meet be, instead, a paretic. He has taken a secret departure from your world. He dwells amidst choicest, most dispendious superlatives. In his arm he has the strength to lift ten elephants. He is already two hundred years old. He is more than nine feet high; his chest is of iron, his right leg is silver, his incomparable head is one whole ruby. Husband of a thousand wives, he has begotten on them ten thousand children. Nothing is mean about him; his urine is white wine; his faeces are always soft gold. However, despite his splendor and his extraordinary attainments, he cannot successfully pronounce the words: electricity, Methodist Episcopal, organization, third cavalry brigade. Avoid them. Infuriated by your demonstration of any accomplishment not his, he may suddenly kill you. Now choose for your friend a paranoiac, and beware of the wolf! His back is to the wall, his implacable enemies are crowding on him. He gets no rest. He finds no starting hole to hide him. Ten times oftener than the Apostle, he has been, through the violence of the unswerving malice which pursues him, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of his own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren, in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. Now that, face to face with him, you simulate innocence and come within his reach, what pity can you expect? You showed him none; he will certainly not show you any. Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, 0 Lord; and by thy great mercy defend us from all the perils and dangers of this night; for the love of thy only Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen. Mr. Lecky's maniacs lay in wait to slash a man's head half off, to perform some erotic atrocity of disembowelment on a woman. Here, they fed thoughtlessly on human flesh; there, wishing to play with him, they plucked the mangled Tybalt from his shroud. The beastly cunning of their approach, the fantastic capriciousness of their intention could not be very well met or provided for. In his makeshift fort everywhere encircled by darkness, Mr. Lecky did not care to meditate further on the subject.

All aboard," the Sicilian said. (This was before trains, but the expression comes originally from carpenters loading lumber, and this was well after carpenters.) With that the Turk began to climb. It was at least a thousand feet and he was carrying the three, but he was not worried. When it came to power, nothing worried him. When it came to reading, he got knots in the middle of his stomach, and when it came to writing, he broke out in a cold sweat, and when addition was mentioned or, worse, long division, he always changed the subject right away. But strength had never been his enemy. He could take the kick of a horse on his chest and not fall backward. He could take a hundred-pound flour sack between his legs and scissor it open without thinking. He had once held an elephant aloft using only the muscles in his back. But his real might lay in his arms. There had never, not in a thousand years, been arms to match Fezzik's. (For that was his name.) The arms were not only Gargantuan and totally obedient and surprisingly quick, but they were also, and this is why he never worried, tireless. If you gave him an ax and told him to chop down a forest, his legs might give out from having to support so much weight for so long, or the ax might shatter from the punishment of killing so many trees, but Fezzik's arms would be as fresh tomorrow as today. And so, even with the Sicilian on his neck and the Princess around his shoulders and the Spaniard at his waist, Fezzik did not feel in the least bit put upon. He was actually quite happy, because it was only when he was requested to use his might that he felt he wasn't a bother to everybody.

After a long and arduous search, the scientists found fuel in December, with the help of remote cameras poking through a long hole drilled into a wall. It was still emitting 10,000 roentgens-per-hour. “It made us treat it with the utmost respect,” remembers Yuri Buzulukov, another expedition scientist. “To approach it meant certain death.”245 The two-meter-wide mass, which was discovered deep in the basement and quite a lateral distance from the reactor, had poured through a hole in the ceiling and cooled into a dark, glassy substance. They named it ‘The Elephant’s Foot’ due to its wrinkled, circular appearance. The fuel alone couldn’t have done this; the glassy effect was a major breakthrough. Samples were required for study, but the miniature robots sent to chip off pieces didn’t have sufficient strength to damage the Elephant’s Foot.

Before we can change the world we first have to change ourselves – we need to localise our first-aid. This often means having to mend our own faults, but before we can do this of course we have first to admit them, if only to ourselves. Many of us cannot bear to see the truth; the brightness blinds us so we look away. We hide from the truth by using unconscious defence mechanisms (as explained more precisely in my book Small Wars). We often qualify our weaknesses by rationalising them, projecting them, displacing them, suppressing or repressing them etc. This has to stop. Looking at ‘us’ without the rose-tinted spectacles of Freudian defence mechanisms is not a pretty sight at times I have to tell you. But it is only when you accept the weaknesses of ‘self ’ that you can exorcise them and build strength and integrity where weakness and frailty once reigned.

Who would hold her hand and guide her through that darkness? ‘Am I not here, my girl?’ The affectionate words of Mother Earth gave her the strength of a thousand elephants. Her mother was independent. She would go to her mother. Her mother was omnipotent. So she could take Sita into her embrace. Sita had now seen it all—sons, fathers, sons’ obedience to fathers, wives’ faithfulness to husbands, motherhood. But there was one thing she had not seen. Nor had Ahalya, Surpanakha or Urmila experienced it. It was what Renuka had faced—the brutality of her own son. She had seen the dharma-bound cruelty of her son who, taking his father’s word as the word of the Vedas, was ready to hack her head off. She then realized what the foundation of that cruelty was. How many whirlpools must have stirred in her heart then? And how deep they must have been? In fact, so deep as to challenge Arya Dharma itself.

Ames, having explained the condition of juvenile elephants, drew this metaphor: Trans women are juvenile elephants. We are much stronger and more powerful than we understand. We are fifteen thousand pounds of muscle and bone forged from rage and trauma, armed with ivory spears and faces unique in nature, living in grasslands where any of the ubiquitous humans may or may not be a poacher. With our strength, we can destroy each other with ease. But we are a lost generation. We have no elders, no stable groups, no one to teach us to countenance pain. No matriarchs to tell the young girls to knock it off or show off their own long lives lived happily and well. Those older generations of trans women died of HIV, poverty, suicide, repression, or disappeared to pathologized medicalization and stealth lives - and that's if they were lucky enough to be white. They left behind only scattered exhausted voices to tell the angry lost young when and how the pain might end - to tell us what will be lost when we lash out with our considerable strength, or use the fragile shards of what remain of our social networks to ostracize, punish, and retaliate against those who behave in a traumatized manner. "And so we become what we have seen. How could we know not to? Have you seen many orphaned juvenile elephants behaving otherwise?

The U.S. Marine Corps, for example, advertises itself as a place to build strength and character. In doing so, it’s not advertising only to potential recruits; it’s also reminding civilians that the people who serve in the Marines have strength and character.

…trust requires much more than affection; it depends on mutual confidence—strength, not niceness.

What gives prayer its power and effectiveness is less about the people who pray or the system of prayer they use, but rather God the Father who delights in turning His children’s weakness into great strength.

The way circus elephants are trained demonstrates this dynamic well: When young, they are attached by heavy chains to large stakes driven deep into the ground. They pull and yank and strain and struggle, but the chain is too strong, the stake too rooted. One day they give up, having learned that they cannot pull free, and from that day forward they can be “chained” with a slender rope. When this enormous animal feels any resistance, though it has the strength to pull the whole circus tent over, it stops trying. Because it believes it cannot, it cannot. “You’ll never amount to anything;” “You can’t sing;” “You’re not smart enough;” “Without money, you’re nothing;” “Who’d want you?;” “You’re just a loser;” “You should have more realistic goals;” “You’re the reason our marriage broke up;” “Without you kids I’d have had a chance;” “You’re worthless”—this opera is being sung in homes all over America right now, the stakes driven into the ground, the heavy chains attached, the children reaching the point they believe they cannot pull free. And at that point, they cannot. Unless and until something changes their view, unless they grasp the striking fact that they are tied with a thread, that the chain is an illusion, that they were fooled, and ultimately, that whoever so fooled them was wrong about them and that they were wrong about themselves—unless all this happens, these children are not likely to show society their positive attributes as adults. There’s more involved, of course, than just parenting. Some of the factors are so small they cannot be seen and yet so important they cannot be ignored: They are human genes. The one known as D4DR may influence the thrill-seeking behavior displayed by many violent criminals. Along with the influences of environment and upbringing, an elongated D4DR gene will likely be present in someone who grows up to be an assassin or a bank robber (or a daredevil). Behavioral geneticist Irving Gottesman: “Under a different scenario and in a different environment, that same person could become a hero in Bosnia.” In the future, genetics will play a much greater role in behavioral predictions. We’ll probably be able to genetically map personality traits as precisely as physical characteristics like height and weight. Though it will generate much controversy, parents may someday be able to use prenatal testing to identify children with unwanted personality genes, including those that make violence more likely. Until then, however, we’ll have to settle for a simpler, low-tech strategy for reducing violence: treating children lovingly and humanely.

Our soul is a lot like the African elephant’s memory. Our soul intuitively remembers where it has buried the richest part of our life’s story even in the future chapters that haven’t been written yet by the light of our awareness. The soul knows. It remembers. It never forgets. The process of remembering becomes a lesson for us in the power of surrendering our limited perspective that only see what’s in front of us, and what we think may be waiting for us in some future moment. However, our soul sees deep into the distance of some future horizon of a time period that is waiting on the gift of time to mature to its fullness, to blossom on its own – outside of our own expectations and envisioned dreams because it is all part of our life’s predetermined story; a script carved in infinite time. That process of remembering becomes a lesson in the divine gift of believing, believing that the next moment is there waiting on us because our soul has already visited this path before, yet the lesson in it for us is that any future moment remains always just out of our reach, as we entrust our soul’s strength of memory to guide us on blind faith and firm footing to where our story needs to go to encourage our highest learning potential. We will thus forever be known by the tracks that we refollow when we follow the memory of our soul’s original path left on the dust of time. A lesson inspired by the mighty African elephant in what it means to surrender to life...

The basic progressive vision is of community—of America as family, a caring, responsible family. We envision an America where people care about each other, not just themselves, and act responsibly both for themselves and their fellow citizens with strength and effectiveness.

Progressive values are the best of traditional American values. Stand up for your values with dignity and strength. You are a true patriot because of your values.

Those things belong to the darkness. We must rely on God. We must ask Him to make us strong, unafraid. To give us the strength to band together, to defeat these devils.” She makes the sign of the cross. “God will guide us through this.

The lion’s blessing is in his strength; the monkey’s blessing is in his cunning; and the elephant’s blessing is in his might.

We must rely on God. We must ask Him to make us strong, unafraid. To give us the strength to band together, to defeat these devils.” She makes the sign of the cross. “God will guide us through this.

Julius Caesar saw wild aurochs for the first time during his invasion of Gaul, and he was besotted. He somewhat hyperbolically claimed, “They are a little less than elephants in size . . . Their strength and speed are extraordinary. They spare neither man nor wild beast that they have espied. They cannot be brought to endure the sight of men,

She followed them underwater until she could no longer breathe and swam back for air. Until she could no longer see anything in those depths. Until she no longer had strength to keep diving down. And she tried. Swimming, screaming, fighting. She tried her very best. To drown herself along with them. To feel what they felt. As she had been trying to all her life.

The Rooster taught me to wake up early and be a leader. The Butterfly encouraged me to allow a period of struggles to develop strong and look beautiful. The Squirrel showed me to be alert and fast all the time. The Dog influenced me to give up my life for my best friend. The Cat told me to exercise every day. Otherwise, I will be lazy and crazy. The Fox illustrated me to be subtle and keep my place organized and neat. The Snake demonstrated to me to hold my peace even if I am capable of attack, harm, or kill. The Monkey stimulated me to be vocal and communicate. The Tiger cultivated me to be active and fast. The Lion cultured me not to be lazy especially if I have strength and power that could be used. The Eagle was my sample for patience, beauty, courage, bravery, honor, pride, grace, and determination. The Rat skilled me to find my way out no matter what or how long it takes. The Chameleon revealed to me the ability to change my color for beauty and protection. The Fish display to live in peace even if I have to live a short life. The Delphin enhanced me to be the source of kindness, peace, harmony, and protection. The Shark enthused me to live as active and restful as I can be. The Octopus exhibited me to be silent and intelligent. The Elephant experienced me with the value of cooperation and family. To care for others and respect elders. The Pig indicated to me to act smart, clean, and shameless. The Panda appears to me as life is full of white and black times but my thick fur will enable me to survive. The Kangaroo enthused me to live with pride even if I am unable to walk backward. The Penguin influenced me to never underestimate a person. The Deer reveals the ability to sense the presence of hunters before they sense you. The Turtle brightened me to realize that I will get there no matter how long it takes me while having a shell of protection above me. The Rabbit reassured me to allow myself to be playful and silly. The Bat proved to me that I can fly even in darkness. The Alligator/crocodile alerted me that threat exists. The Ant moved me to be organized, active, and social with others. The Bee educated me to be the source of honey and cure for others. The Horse my best intelligent friend with who I bond. Trained me to recover fast from tough conditions. The Whale prompted me to take care of my young ones and show them life abilities. The Crab/Lobster enlightened me not to follow them when they make resolutions depending on previous undesirable events.

I’ve always yearned to be a black man, to have a black man’s soul, a black man's laughter. You know why? Because I thought you were diflFerent from us. Yes, I thought you were something special, something difiFerent on this sad earth of ours. I wanted to escape with you from the white man’s hollow materialism, from his lack of faith, his humble and frustrated sexuality, from his lack of joy, of laughter, of magic, of faith in the richness of after-life. encouragement and signs of gratitude or recognition have been very few, if any, along my road. If humanity can be compared to a tribe, then you may say I’m completely de-tribalized. You love Negroes out of sheer misanthropy, because you think they aren’t really men. in the end all human faces look alike with nothing bright or hopeful around me, except those distant stars— and even there, let’s be frank: it’s only their distance that gives them that purity and beauty ideals don't die— obliged to live on shit sometimes, but don’t die! the company a great cause always keeps: men of good will and those who exploit them your skin, you know, is worth no more than the elephants’ hide. In Gennany, at Belsen, during the war, it seems we used to make lampshades out of human skin— for your information. And don’t forget, Monsieur Saint- Denis, that we Germans have always been forerunners in everything ‘Women,’ I concluded rather bitterly, ‘have at their command certain means of persuasion which the best- organized police forces do not possess.’ The number of animals who lived in cruel suffering, sometimes for years, with bullets in their bodies, wounds growing deeper and deeper, gangrenous and swarming with ticks and flies, could not be estimated to change species, to come over to the elephants and live in the wilds among honest animals Always cheerful, with the cheerfulness of a man who has gone deep down into things and come back reassured. No one knew the desert better than Scholscher, who had spent so many nights alone there on the starlit dunes, and no one understood better than he did that need for protection which sometimes grips men’s hearts and drives them to give a dog the affection they dream so desperately of receiving themselves. by ‘defending the splendors of nature . . .’ He meant liberty.” Islam calls that ’the roots of heaven.’ and to the Mexican Indians it is of life’— the thing that makes both of them fall on their knees and raise their eyes and beat their tormented breasts. A need for protection and company, from which obstinate people like Morel try to escape by means of petitions, fighting committees, by trying to take the protection of species in their own hands. Our needs- for justice, for freedom and dignity— are roots of heaven that are deeply imbedded in our hearts, but of heaven itself men know nothing but the gripping roots ...” . . . And that girl sitting there in front of him with her legs crossed, with her nylon stockings and cigarette and that silent gaze, in which could be read that stubborn need, not so different from what Morel had seen in the eyes of the stray dogs at the pound. but not even all that was comic and childish about him could deprive him of the dignity conferred upon him by his love for his Maker. that human mass whose physical strength was nothing compared to the faith and spirit that dwelt in him. Three quarters of the Oul6 traditions and magic rites had to do with war or hunting while it's easy to suppress a magic tradition it's difficult to fill up the strange voids which it leaves in what you call the primitive psychology and what I call the human soul The roots of heaven are forever planted in their hearts, yet of heaven itself they seem to know nothing but the gripping roots It must be very consoling to take refuge in cynicism and to try and drown your own remorse in a consoling vision of universal swinishness, and you can always

Women do not leave situations like this: we push up our sleeves, lean in closer, and say, "What do you need? Tell me what you need and by God I will do it." I believe that the souls of women flatten and anchor themselves in times of adversity, lay in for the stay. I've heard that when elephants are attacked they often run, not away, but toward each other. Perhaps it is because they are a matriarchal society.

Suddenly, like an elephant who has just found his anger and lifts his trunk over the heads of the little men who want his teeth or his hide or his flesh or his amazing strength, Pilate trumpeted for the sky itself to hear, “And she was loved!” It startled one of the sympathetic winos in the vestibule and he dropped his bottle, spurting emerald glass and jungle-red wine everywhere.

And now let me collect my strength and my thoughts and focus with everything I have on the horror of our earthly existence, on the imperfection of the world, on the myriad lives torn asunder, on the beasts that devour one another, on the snake that bites a stag as it grazes in the shade, on the wolves that slaughter sheep, on the mantises that consume their males, on the bees that die once they sting, on the mothers who labor to bring us into the world, on the blind kittens children toss into rivers, on the terror of the fish in the whale's entrails and the terror of the beaching whale, on the sadness of an elephant dying of old age, on the butterfly's fleeting joy, on the deceptive beauty of the flower, on the fleeting illusion of a lover's embrace, on the horror of spilt seed, on the impotence of the aging tiger, on the rotting of teeth in the mouth, on the myriad dead leaves lining the forest floor, on the fear of the fledgling when its mother pushes it out of the nest, on the infernal torture of the worm baking in the sun as if roasting in living fire, on the anguish of a lover's parting, on the horror known by lepers, on the hideous metamorphoses of women's breasts, on wounds, on the pain of the blind...

How you react to any situation, is up to you. It’s your choice. It comes down to Yes, or No. Yes, I choose to show up for my family, remain positive, show strength, enjoy every moment and day like tomorrow was promised and there was no pink elephant. All while I was still struggling with my own feelings. I decided to embrace the adversity as something to grow from, it must be for a higher good we were experiencing this illness in our life.

Humans believe they are special; that they possess special abilities and gifts. They do not. They believe because they invented the light bulb and the car that it gives them purpose but it only serves to make their lives more comfortable in an uncomfortable existence. They cannot fly, like the bird, or possess great strength, like the elephant. They cannot leap into a tree like a cat. Humans evolved from crustaceans that excrete serotonin in the brain just as they do and yet humans eat them for pleasure. Human beings have devolved into eating their own. How ironic. The human is an anomaly that needs to return to non-existence and leave the earth be. Then and only then will there be peace. Only the fearful and arrogant would say otherwise.

There is no use of an elephant if he is unaware of his strength and doesn't believe in its skill.

Who ever said that elephants were stronger than mules?

princes continued walking in the forest with the sage. They stopped at a place where the rivers, Saryu and Ganges met. They crossed the river in a boat. After that they reached another dense forest. They could only hear the sounds of animals and birds. The sage said, “The forest is essentially a peaceful area except from the danger of Tadaka and her sons. Suketu, a powerful Yaksha, performed a penance for a son. Pleased with him, Lord Brahma offered him a boon that he would have a child. Suketu brought up Tadaka like a son as she was blessed with the strength of thousand elephants. Since he wanted a son, Tadaka married Sunda and had two sons, Maricha and Subahu. Once, Sunda irked Sage Agastya so the sage cursed him to death. Angered with this, Tadaka and Maricha troubled the sage, who cursed them too that she and Maricha would become demons. Since then, Tadaka, Maricha and Subahu began to destroy the beautiful forest and frightened those who came there.

As the elephant grows, it gains more than enough power and strength to pull out the stake, but it remains tied up by something as inconsequential as a rope and a flimsy piece of metal because of what it learned as a baby. In psychology, it’s called learned helplessness.

Talk about claustrophobia! ... So in the end I had an idea. When I couldn’t stand it any longer, I would close my eyes and think of the herds of elephants at liberty, running freely across Africa, hundreds and hundreds of magnificent animals that nothing can resist— no cement wall, no barbed wire, nothing: they rush forward over the great open spaces and smash everything in their way, and nothing can stop them. That s liberty, I tell you! So when you begin to suffer from claustrophobia, or the barbed wire fences, the reinforced concrete, the absolute materialism, just imagine this: herds of elephants charging across the wide open spaces of Africa. Follow them with your eyes closed, keep their image inside you, and you’ll see, you’ll feel better and happier, and stronger . . .

Night seemed to have evolved her. Hers was a strength no man could deny. And yet it was vulnerable, accessible, capable of being damaged and never show it. Because real power doesn’t protect itself. Real power allows itself to be used for something greater.