THE CROCODILE, THE ELEPHANT, AND THE TRANSFORMATION
Published by New Financial Forum by Willem Vreeswijk, December 2022
It’s been over three decades of working and living as a professional wilderness and wildlife guide, and I have been privileged to have seen some some incredible places and to have met some remarkable people. Space and moments that have inspired, changed and shaped my life. One such encounter occurred in the Okavango Delta in Botswana about 25 years ago. A moment of transformation. And i remember it as clear as the water of the Okavango itself.
The company I was working for at the time owned two safari camps in the Delta, separated by about fifty kilometers of river. As part of the experience we used to do motorboat transfers between the camps, enjoying the beautiful scenery and wildlife so typical of the majestic Okavango Delta. The boat transfer could take about four hours and we would stop on forested islands for picnics, birdwatch and detour through lagoons and backwaters in search of hippo and other game along the floodplains. It was an idyllic time indeed. It was one September evening in paradise that the idea came to me. Why not paddle a canoe along the river? Why not explore the same stretch of water but do it more intimately, in silence and self-propelled? It made all the sense in the world. Besides, it had never been done before, and for a young explorer living in the Delta, this was a perfect opportunity to break new ground. I decided that as soon as I had some off-time, I would do the trip. So a short while thereafter I was sitting in a canoe paddling silently with the river. Without the intrusive sound and smell of the outboard engine, i could approach up to birds and animals much closer, and sitting low on the water and gently running my hand across the surface and velvety blue and yellow lotus lilies, I felt more connected than ever before. I felt totally guided by the river, alive to its gentle yet forceful flow and captivated by the crystal clarity of the water.
The serenity however was short-lived.
About halfway through the expedition, I paddled around a wide bend of the river alongside an island of tall palm trees. Beyond the trees was a grassy plain with a well worn hippo path that led to the river edge, and it was there in the shallow water that I first noticed the partially submerged crocodile. There is a way to estimate the size of a crocodile by measuring the width and girth of the head and my first impression was that this was a large, possibly +4 meters long crocodile. The hair on the back of my neck prickled.
Upon noticing me, the giant reptile dropped beneath the surface and purposefully began swimming in my direction. As the water deepened he broke the surface with a ‘ssssssssss’ sound and in a matter of seconds he had closed the distance between us. “How could something move so fast?” I thought. Before I had anytime to assess the situation the crocodile surfaced beneath my canoe, lifting the bow clear into the air and nearly knocking me off backwards into the water. As the canoe dropped and I regained my balance, the crocodile emerged behind me and I saw a cold, arresting yellow eye. An eye of an animal that has been around for millions of years, and one supremely adapted and evolved to life on earth like no other. This was the ultimate predator. Lost in these moments of time, or timelessness, I was frozen to my spot in the back of an impossibly small and flimsy canoe. One which at this time, was beginning to take on water.
For a moment fuzz your focus and let the enormity of the moment sink in. The early lineage of crocodiles first appeared some 240 million years ago, possibly even before the emergence of the dinosaur age. That is some 100 million years before the development of modern day mammals as we know them. And that would also include you and I. Human beings are relatively recent cast members in this rather old play of time. This insignificance, while looking deeply into the yellow eye of time, was certainly not lost on me.
Furthermore, for me, crocodiles represent far more than a mere timeline of an evolutionary clock. They have a head-start of say, a 100 million years of evolution on us, and the ancestors of the very crocodile behind me have been hunting and living in these habitats for twice as long. And in the process surviving two ice ages. Because of this head-start on the timeline, everything we have become, both consciously and unconsciously, has emerged with them present on our landscapes. There is this ancientness to them. Add to this their supreme predatory habits, their habitat of cold dirty deep water which is completely alien to us, their aura as a fearsome ‘predator of our murky depths,’ crocodiles are quite the package. As a result we tend to park the sum total of our fears, anxieties, insecurities or unknown outcomes - the darkness within us, on creatures such as crocodiles.
The yellow eye watched as I slowly paddled away. I was shaken and had to get off the water and found a shallow inlet and thankfully some dry land and safety. I glanced back toward the river and the crocodile had vanished from sight. A short distance away was a beautiful grove of jackalberry trees, an ideal spot to get my back to a wall and to camp for the night. It would be dark soon and there was no way I was venturing out on the river again. With trembling hands I managed to start a fire and began to boil a kettle for tea. Leaning back against the tree I began to calm.
Then it happened.
A small herd of elephant, about ten or so, emerged from the forest behind and began walking toward my campsite. Quite obviously aware i was there, yet showing no fear nor malice, the elephants fed on the jackalberry trees and would hardly move for the next few hours. At one point, as darkness fell, the entire herd was positioned between me and the water. I was left with very little doubt that the elephants knew what had transpired and what I was feeling. A welcoming stillness and peace cocooned me, with a warmth of contentedness like I had never felt before, nor have I felt since. I was completely safe. This was a catalyst of many more meaningful elephant encounters to come, those which leave no room to doubt their intelligence, wonder and mysterious connection. One that frequently crosses the boundary between what is logical and what is naturally intuitive. The elephant changed my life and have been an integral part of it ever since.
Perched at my campfire surrounded by the soothing presence of the herd, an understanding of the crocodile attack slowly began to emerge. One of respect. Of wonder and humility, and in ecological terms, a recognition of my own inconsequence. My journey that day, along the river of life, brought me to a great awareness of elephant and access to a secret and universally inspiring dialect of the heart. The Okavango, and life, became more beautiful, her waters sweeter, her air fresher and her colours brighter. But I first had to face this living dinosaur and what it represents to the human psyche. It was an appointment with the darkness of my own inner crocodile, and those present around every bend of my river of life. To learn how to paddle with more conscious care and reverence, always alert to my own impact on my environment and other residents of it. To return for some inner tea at the campfire of the present moment. To recognise and effectively integrate my species’ fundamental reliance on the ancient order of life that nature allows. And from that moment onward, I have always smiled admiringly at the beauty of the yellow eye. At this point I feel compelled to mention how unusual the incident with the crocodile is. In over thirty years of guiding in the Okavango and other African rivers, with thousands of kilometers spent in dugout canoes, it was the first and only time it has happened to me. Our wilderness trails in Okavango traverse entirely different habitats and shallow water, with much lower crocodile densities. I have indeed cut my fingers on can openers more often than I have encounters crocodiles like this. So its not to discourage you from considering exploring the wild at all. In fact it would be just the opposite: to encourage you to connect with a hidden and welcome world of understanding. One where caution is relevant but fear is not a limiting factor. Simply put, we need to rewrite our story of relationships with and our co-dependance on our nature world. And perhaps the only way to do is to immerse oneself within her. To allow oneself the privilege of being vulnerable and of discovering new paradigms. Transitions. Not for one moment am I suggesting that one needs to be attacked by a crocodile to transform oneself. But what I do understand is that we would do well to experience a relationship with the previously unknown, and to see life and nature for what it it is: one of inter-being.