Melanie Davis recently reviewed and now I have read Love Heals Baby Elephants: Rebirthing Ivory Orphans myself. In addition to wonderful photos and stories of not only baby elephants but rhinos and lions, I was particularly moved when reading the last few chapters of this book. In them Dr. Mary Baures gets into larger societal issues related to slaughter, the loss of habitat, extinction and our relationship with the natural world. Here are just a few quotes:
Quotes from Love Heals Baby Elephants
“People who slaughter animals for fun and profit are the true orphans. The world’s music is not theirs to silence. They do not own animals and more than they own sunshine or rain. They have stepped out of nature and are separate from the source from which they came, Mother Earth.”
“The healing of the planet rests on us seeing that an elephant’s suffering, a rhino’s suffering, a lion’s suffering is everyone’s suffering. An elephant’s eyes reflect our own essence back to us. We can inhale the elephant’s exhaled air and know we are all a part of the same breathing Earth. With empathic engagement, we know they are not objects of our purposes.”
“Albert Einstein said that our task is to widen ‘our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature.’ When we limit self-absorption, we notice landscapes are not passive backdrops.”
“We are beginning to see that the destruction of other species by the human animal is a sign of arrogance. ‘Suffering is suffering, regardless of the type of living being experiencing it,’ says Janice Wolf. ‘We are all connected on this planet and any pain, cruelty, unkindness makes the world a colder, harsher place for all of us.’ War comes from feeling separate…Trying to show you are superior by causing suffering and death is a sick game. The condemnation of Cecil’s murder show us we are better than that.”
“It is said that when you teach a child to be kind to a mouse, you do as much for the child as you do for the mouse.” – Puja Mahajan
“As the dominant life on the planet, we need to be stewards for all species, not just humans. It is time to step up our guardianship.”
“In our frantic race for progress, we ignore the rights of other species. Our feelings of superiority cut us off from our deepest source of sustenance. Connectedness gives us mercy, compassion, and wisdom. We need to break through our self-absorption to protect the natural world.”
“Our own survival depends on us choosing the power of love over the love of power.”
Where This Book and Man Swarm Meet
Love Heals Baby Elephants is a call to end slaughter, but goes much deeper. Like Man Swarm it calls for a consciousness change – from one that is anthroprocentric, putting humans at the center of the universe, to one that values all life in the natural world equally. When we truly believe that as wildlife has just as much right to live for their own sake and not for what they can do for humans, it becomes clear how explosive human population growth is a major problem to create this equality. Not only does overpopulation have major negative impacts on human society, but, as Man Swarm‘s subtitle expresses, it is “killing the wild world.”
Thank you, Dr. Baures for your work, and efforts to create this mindset change for the survival of our world and all of the beings on it.