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September 25, 2015

An Apology to Elephants, with love from Humans.

Lazurite/Flickr

There are 12 notes in an octave.

On the piano, five of the keys are skinny and black and the other seven are white—people used to kill elephants to make them. People probably still do because people aren’t so great all the time. Elephants are mostly great all the time.

I’m glad the elephants aren’t a part of my piano.

Music must never be used as an excuse to destroy an endangered species. Music should be a celebration of life—not an instrument of death. ~ Billy Joel

What part of the human condition looks at an elephant, and does not want to just watch it be an elephant. To listen to it elephanting. To be slightly afraid and mostly in awe and just love the elephant for being a flipping elephant.

What makes an elephant unworthy of the respect that we give humans?

On that note, what makes seemingly everything unworthy of the respect we expect—demand—for ourselves? Plants. Bees. Small rodents. Water. Soil. Whales. Cows. The moon. Other humans—small humans. Humans different than ourselves?

I want to have children when I’m more adult. I want to take these little humans and stand them at a safe distance from an elephant one day. Watch them stand in awe of such a large creature with big floppy ears and grey wrinkles covered in mud. I daydream of that moment often.

That moment won’t happen unless there are some elephants around. And some bees. And water. And the moon.

Can we not? Can we get over ourselves? Can we adventure this world without breaking everything?

Can we make music without having to hurt the universe?

The universe sure knows how to make music without hurting us.

~

Relephant read: 

How to Save the Elephant With Our Wallets.

~

Author: Ruby Mary Gill

Editor: Ashleigh Hitchcock

Photo: flickr/Lazurite

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