December 16th - 10:10

Title: December 16th - 10:10 Medium: Super-8 film Aspect Ratio: 4:3 Resolution: 2880 x 2160 File Type: H.264 Codec / MP4. Comments: Nonthawit & Wannisa picked me up in the morning to go meet a family of elephants in the forest outside of town. Just like horseback riding you can ride an Elephant. We fed them and met the baby elephant that was born earlier in the year. I paid for the lovely couple to ride together while I stood on the ground below walking beside them with the elephants to make their portraits. It was a calming and peaceful ride, and I was able to make a ton of photographs and the perfect shot of the couple in different perspectives. Even though the ride was over the place was empty so the elephants owner let me sit on top of the elephant. I pet her head and felt the thick skin and strong hairs on top of its skull. I deeply connect with the elephant spirit as I am an admirer of Ganesha, the remover of obstacles. And even though I smoked a lot of weed in my life from an early age, I have a memory like an elephant. Elephants are gentle and they are like humans in a way. When one of their pack dies they grieve their loss. They revisit the place that the elephant died or is buried. The way animals think and behave seem foreign to us, but really they feel what we feel. Love, pain, anger, dare I say hope? We too are animals, just the dumb ones who think they are smarter than the rest of the animal kingdom. Perhaps we need to remove the ego, step out of time, and look deeply into the eyes and hearts of other living creatures. Sure we may be smarter than a chicken or a goat, but are we sweeter than those animals? In Buddhism, they teach us to be vegetarian because we do not want to consume or create suffering of another living thing. How do we create empathy if we do not look at these souls with eyes of understanding? We are not better or worse, we are just different. We think differently, we see ourselves and think we know ourselves. But do we? We are, humans. And humans are part of the animal kingdom. Top of the food chain, right? We built tools and weapons to hunt and kill to eat and live; but we too can also create farms and agriculture. There are animals with bigger brains like dolphins, and stronger than us like elephants. Yet, they are kind. How can humans become kinder to other species. Kinder to ourselves? To see an animal not as food but as a friend. On Earth, in the garden of Eden we are all equal life forces with a soul and a heart that beats. The elephants teach us humility, in a way they can teach us how to be even more human on how they look out for one another, and for their offspring. Elephants are gentle giants. What does that make us?