One weekend last month, an elephant attacked my TPC classroom where I train teachers each week. I did not see the attack, but witnessed its effects. The elephant, who escaped from a local Thai village and walked freely over the nearby hills, ate much of the thatched leaves of the classroom roof and thrust a hole into the side of the wall with its trunk. It actually let more light in.
If you are solitary, you can remember that all beauty in animals and plants is a silent, enduring form of love and yearning, and you can see animals, as you see plants, patiently and willingly uniting and increasing and growing, not out of physical pleasure, not out of physical pain, but bowing to necessities that are far greater and more powerful than will and understanding. If only human beings could more humbly receive this mystery – which the world is filled with, even in its smallest things – could bear it, endure it, more solemnly feel how terribly heavy it is, instead of taking it lightly. If only they could be more reverent towards their own fruitfulness, which is essentially one. – Rilke
