While drawing without intention - relaxed without thought - there appeared in an abstract way several elephants and a whale on the same page of my notebook. The elephants appeared to be within the whale's mind. I was listening via Youtube.com today to a version of 'Matte Kudasai', originally created by the band King Crimson. Some of the sound effects of the instruments were like the calls of whales; some like those of elephants. So I'm thinking about whales and elephants together.
Elephants are very large mammals, and so are whales. Their habitats are very different, though, the elephants on land, the whales at sea. Whales and elephants both when in their natural habitats, migrate in clans. The whales swim in pods. The elephants hike in a line, trunk clasping tail. Both species communicate among themselves in many ways - the whales make complex sounds, language perhaps, that travel long distances through the water. Elephants are expressive aloud as well, but they have other means of connection. Long ago, I think it was in Smithsonian magazine, I read of elephants that travel on foot from different locations across long distances in Africa, and meet up on the same day at what was described as an elephant graveyard, as though for a planned reunion. In the night, the article stated, the elephants circle and dance beneath the moon. They part the next day.
Could elephants enter the dream of a whale?
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