A Circle of Trust

In the days following April 14, this spring, social media and news reports were filled with a most heartwarming story about a herd of elephants at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, in California.

That day, a magnitude 5.2 earthquake shook the region. Video footage from the park captured the moment the elephants felt the earthquake and reacted to it. 

What was seen captured millions of people’s sense of wonder and awe.

Even before humans could feel the ground beneath them shaking, the adult elephants - Ndlula, Umngani, and Khosi - felt the quaking and immediately were moved to action. 

They instinctively ran toward one another and formed a circle around a smaller female elephant - a seven-year old calf, Mkhaya - to protect her from the potential danger around them. A seven-year old male calf - Zuli - was also initially surrounded, too. But he moved closer to the edge of the circle quickly, perhaps with his own instinct to be protective. Khosi, who helped raise Zuli, was also seen gently tapping him on the back and face with her trunk. This was to comfort Zuli and also to encourage him to stay within the circle, according to Zoo officials. The elephants remained in that formation for several minutes after the shaking stopped, before they went back to their normal routines. 

This is typical of how African elephants in the wild react when they are faced with potential dangers and threats. The matriarch of the herd, usually the oldest female, alerts the herd with low or trumpeting sounds. Elephants have acute sensitivity in their feet and trunks that enable them to feel and sense danger and threats quickly and deeply. 

The circle they formed that day is often called an “alert circle” and also a “circle of trust”.

What they showed the world that day was a beautiful and inspiring example of care and concern for one another, especially for those among them who were most vulnerable and in need of protection, reassurance, and support.

We humans can learn from their instinctive example of how to care for one another in our vulnerabilities, fears, and moments of distress.

Symbolically and metaphorically, Someone To Tell It To also forms circles of trust around others when we are alerted to their pain, losses, grief, fears, regrets, uncertainties, and challenges. Our listening work, the trainings we lead, and the educating we do to help others to understand the relationship-enhancing and life-changing power of listening, surrounds people to show them that they - and we - are not alone in the very human emotions we have and the challenges we experience in our lives. 

We form connections to enhance our common humanness. We share our genuine interest in others’ lives - their worries and their frustrations, as well as their joys, too. We give them our presence, undivided and attentive. We reassure them that they do not have to face anything without support and empathy. We show them what compassion and kindness look like. 

We, ultimately, show them what love is - patient, gentle, gracious, unconditional, and uplifting. 

We enable them to trust that they are encircled by others who care about them and want what is best for them in life. 

Isn’t that what all of us want and need to be our best in this life we all share?

Photo by Glen Carrie on Unsplash