Elephants aren’t seen very often in Idaho, except in zoos. But for Jim Banholzer, they recently arrived in a synchronistic cluster. We meant to put up this post on 12/12, Jim’s B-Day, but we’ve had some scheduling mishaps on the dashboard. Anyhow, happy belated birthday, Jim.
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Here’s what the twelfth totem says:
“Throughout history elephants have been prized for their power and strength. They are extremely intelligence and honored by many cultures. Elephants are the largest land animals and among the longest lived, with life spans of 60 years or more. According to Buddhist tradition, the Buddha chose the form of a white elephant as one of his many incarnations and the rare appearance of a white elephant is still heralded as a manifestation of the gods. The Hindu god Ganesh, the remover of obstacles, is depicted with the head of an elephant.
Despite their great weight, elephants walk almost noiselessly. Their stride is exceptionally graceful and rhythmic. Their hearing, smell, taste and touch is acute. This compensates for their poor eyesight. Their eyes are small in relation to the enormous head, which can only turn slightly from side to side. This limited movement results in restricted side vision. Those with this medicine feel things deeply and respond to those feelings from a place of inner knowing. Because their peripheral vision is limited, they have a tendency to look straight ahead and not always see what is around them. Learning to shift ones focus to encompass the whole is helpful.
Loyal and affectionate elephants are willing to risk their life for the sake of others in a family group. Wild elephants have been known to grieve and even shed tears over the death of a family member. They have excellent memories and when mistreated they often seek revenge.
Elephants have four teeth, all molars. The first pair of molars is located toward the front of the mouth. When they wear down, they drop out and the two molars in the back shift forward. Two new molars emerge in the back of the mouth to replace those that have moved forward. Elephants replace back molars six times throughout their life. When the last set wears out, they are unable to chew and die of starvation.
Teeth have great symbolism. They are considered receivers and transmitters of energy linked by connecting paths throughout the astral body. Because the elephant is highly intelligent, those with this totem make excellent researchers and alternative scientists. The complex study of numbers, energy meridians and the tie in between the physical brain, the teeth locations, and the major and minor head chakras is fascinating as well as beneficial.
Elephant tusks point backwards, are used as weapons and for digging edible roots. From a spiritual point of view, this suggests an ability to uncover the secrets left behind you and bring them to the consciousness for evaluation and healing.
These beautiful creatures hold the teachings of compassion, loyalty, strength, intelligence, discernment and power to name a few. If this is your medicine, these virtues are a part of your natural character. By applying these gifts in your life soul evolution is achieved.”
As I began identifying with this elephant talk, it resonated within; that the best part of my 50th birthday (12/12) is that close friends have sent me this synchronicity – practically on a silver platter – and the fact that I could recognize their big gifts so readily.
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Addendum: Here’s a followup on Jim’s elephant tales.
“As I was walking around town with the personalized elephant greeting cards in my van, I crossed paths with the proprietor of one of our local coffeehouses. While I told her about your blog and my recent elephant anecdote, she reminded me that only a few weeks before, she, too, shared a large elephant synchronicity with me. While watching this video of an elephant birth, she invited me to sit down and listen to the audio of the elephant birth on her headphones. After doing so, it reminded me, that long ago, I had tagged my own blog with the following photo of an elephant in the womb, which I e-mailed to her later that evening.
Ironically, I had forgotten that she and I had shared the special synchronicity, which being about elephants, animal totems and good memories, adds an element of humor. Which also leads me to my first good excuse of my fifties: With elephants crowding me, so fast from the four directions, I lost track of one of them.
-Jim
P.S. The elephant in the above video was born on 09/09/09
& here are more great elephant in the womb photos
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Cool, Ray! I'm beginning to think you're a synchro attractor! Maybe we all are.
The Blog and comments are way interestng. When I scrolled down and saw the name Ganesh I looked below the right corner of my monitor to look at the dashboard Ganesh totem given to me by friend of mine who was born in India.
Another simple Synchronicity. Wow! as I scrolled down I saw the word verification "halig." I looked it up on Google and it is translated as Holy and sometimes as God or in Beowolf as a god.
Ray
I’ve read "When Elephants Weep", very moving.
Funny, Jim, that you should mention teeth since the word tusk (tunthskaz) comes from the same root word as tooth. Fact is that tusks are actually incisors.
Elephants have what appears to be supernatural hearing via a method called infrasound– low frequency vibrations which they emit that travel through the earth and detected through their feet, allowing them to communicate even a hundred miles away.
Another interesting tidbit is that only one bird- the Magpie, shares a particular attribute identical to elephants, humans, apes and bottlenose dolphins – each species of animal having passed mirror self recognition tests, an indication of self awareness and cognition- considered to be the basis for empathy, altruism and higher social interactions. I have some doubts as to the validity of this research though, magpies tend to be nasty birds not to mention the dark side of human nature… let’s just say that there's a long way to go before we can make that claim.
Ganesha is popularly worshipped as a remover of obstacles, though in earlier tradition was known to place obstacles in the path of those who need to be checked.
Looking forward to reading “On Ice”, Trish.
On Ice! That was many moons ago, Toumai, like mid-90s or something. Interesting that I mentioned Jung. Love your take on the elephants. If anyone wants to read a fantastic book on these magnificent creatures, check out When Elephants Weep.
I stand corrected, sir. 🙂
Not the same thing, Dale. Feather and Dot is a congenial and acceptable way of distinguishing between Indians and Indians. YOu can find fit the term in the Urban Dictionary, and even on t-shirts and coffee cups. Not derogatory at all.
what a great post!!! elephants have always held such fascination to me – particularly because of their social/familial structures and individual behavior patterns –
Good point, but that observation is a bit dicey, like Lisa Lampanelli's distinction between 'Casino Indians' and 'Slurpee Indians', and I really don't want to offend anybody if I can help it. 🙂
Whip Warrior, If I were writing it, Indy would speak with a bit more irony related to finding to the elephant head at a Mayan pyramid site. He would note the trans-cultural link to Ganesha, but would add something like: "Very interesting that Ganesha found his way, like Columbus, to the wrong Indians – Feathers, when he belongs with the Dots.
BTW, I regularly see a painted Ganesha on the wall of the Moksha yoga studio here in Wellington, and that's pretty unusual for Welly-World, known more for winter equestrian and polo than elephants.
I love this! I also love, love, love elephants, and have one sitting next to my bed. I worry about them in the wild. They are up against such terrible odds.
Amazing story!
Speaking of birds, I find it interesting how owl characteristics compare with those of elephants. For instance, owls have supernatural eyesight and can crane their necks quite far around, yet they cannot move their eyes within their sockets. Elephants on the other hand “have small eyes in relation to their enormous heads, which can only turn slightly from side to side.” The teeth symbolism stands out powerfully too, especially in light of the fact that in the news recently, doctors implanted a tooth to restore a woman’s eyesight!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aN-H_i6Lviw
This is interesting (perhaps synchronicity in lieu of my comment above): on Dec. 8 just before setting up for our next Show Cath and I walked from our hotel to a particular Bank. On the way we found an interesting second hand book store which I thought might have something on Jung so we popped in. I purchased “Jung’s Psychology and Its Social meaning” by Ira Progoff and also a novel – “ON ICE” by Trish MacGregor. As we continued making our way to the Bank I mention to Cath how odd that the building we’re looking for happens to be directly across from 555 Bank Street.
I should mention that as I`m writing this, Cath is reading “ON ICE” and has just stopped to tell me that Trish mentions Jung in her novel.
Out of curiosity I revisited your post of 11/ 11. It consists of a “double” post— another story of Jim’s stories- “The Black Bird and Jim’s Ear” (!!) and also — 11-11-2009=11-11-11 which is a repost of June 22’s “11:11”.
Revisiting these stories and comments casts an interesting light.
Oddly too that on September 22 (Tuesday), I had posted a story on my blog called – “The Black Swan Theory and the “S” of Synchronicity” (also includes story of a ‘black bird”).
When things like this happen, I look around for other possible connections in an attempt to perhaps unlock a deeper meaning (as per trying to decipher the cryptic language from the world of synchronicity).
The word "elephant" had struck a chord with me not that long ago (re: 11:11 time synchro discussions) in relation to the word "eleven". The phonetic similarity between eleven and elephant is obvious so I naturally followed up with an etymology check, but no historical relationship was noted.
Buttt… origins on the word ‘elephant’ connect more specifically to meaning "ivory" (via "alb"-white). The connection becomes clearer when noting the Old English word for swan- "elfet" (literally, "white bird"). Dating even back to Neolithic times, mammoth ivory was used to fashion spears and to create ornate figures. Also interesting is the Proto Indo European word “alb” (meaning “hill”-hence “Alp”). In looking for an ancient connection between the two definitions of “alb” (ivory white and hill), what comes to mind are great hills of long ago— miles high of ice (looks like ivory) that covered a good portion of our planet during the last glacial event.
I find it interesting that at this very moment I am away on a craft show circuit with the last two shows being back to back and each being 11 days long (with one day off- today). Perhaps the trickster purposely got in the way of you posting Jim`s story on 12/12 so that they could then bring attention to 11/11—ELEVEN/ELEPHANT.
Okay, now THIS is a synchronicity, Rob! Last week I just finished my latest chapter of Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, where Indy and company discover a stone elephant head statue in the Mayan pyramid (as in the original 1992 game). The British archaeologist Charles Sternhart asks Indy what he makes of it, and Indy mentions Ganesh, the Hindu elephant god. I accidentally stumbled across the deity while researching elephants in ancient cultures on Wikipedia. And now you mention it in your blog! What a coincidence!
Here is the URL of the latest chapter, in case you're interested: https://newsradiofanfic.angelfire.com/Atlantis08.html