Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Elephant Girl: The Beginning of a Journey

Hello lovelies!  This will be the blog that I use to communicate, share stories, photos, and video from my adventure in Thailand.  I have so much to tell you about my adventure and it hasn't even started yet!!!  Let's start with my blog title, Elephant Girl.

The Elephant is my animal totem, and the animal that I am most fascinated by  and drawn to.  (An Animal Totem is an important symbolic object used by a person to get in touch with specific qualities found within an animal which the person needs, connects with, or feels a deep affinity toward)  Elephants have consistently appeared in my life, usually  in the form of a gift.  in fact, my first stuffed animal as a baby was a soft pink elephant that played music.  I've been gifted elephant journals, purses and pillows by friends who had no idea of my love for the mystical creature.  Almost always, they have simply felt draw to give me the gift because it was 'my taste' or 'looked like me'.

I choose this blog title from a journal entry over a year ago, where I was writing about my  dreams of Thailand.   I've had this reoccurring dream where I am sitting on the bare back of an elephant.  The feeling between us is complete and total connection, almost as if we are one.  We are completely content and peaceful, the most mature form of happiness and love exists between us.  To me, this dream represents my journey to Thailand.  Me claiming my freedom, my inner strength.  Feeling peaceful, powerful, knowing that I am enough.  Just me, without anyone or anything else.  

July 28th is only 29 days away!!!!  8-)




<----------RANDOM ELEPHANT GIFTS








I leave you with these interesting facts I discovered about elephants…
<3 Tiff

In India, the elephant is a symbol of power, patience, wisdom, success, prosperity, and benevolence. Ironically, elephants are also a symbol of both chastity and great sexual energy. And, though elephants appear heavy and clumsy, their image is also symbolic of both clouds and gracefulness. The Hmong have similar interpretations, and admonish people not to insult elephants; to do so could lead to destruction of property.

Many of these fascinating interpretations of elephant symbolism comes from the fact that elephants are fascinating creatures. They have a unique social structure in which group of females, as many as 400, band together to raise the offspring - while the males roam alone. Perhaps the most fascinating thing about elephants are their death rituals. Elephants often bury their dead with branches and dirt and, when coming upon the skeletal remains of a deceased elephant, they will pass the bones around from mouth to mouth, then return them just as they found them. No wonder Hmong legends also assume elephants lead spirits of the dead to the underworld.