Using animal archetypes to connect with Nature: The Elephant

Animal archetypes play an important part in allowing us to experience the intelligence of nature. What is interesting about animals as archetypes is that it's not about imitating the animals.

Animals as archetypes are very interesting, particularly in terms of archetypal dance. We might think that we are simply imitating an animal, we may think that the dance is about looking like the lion or walking like the lion or walking like the elephant. But, it’s more than that. The dance, in fact, has a somewhat nonlinear relationship, which means it's not simply mirroring what the animal is doing, because dance is always about the dynamics of its movement. And it is done in such a way that it connects to Nature.

A generous offering of the archetypal traditions is to reveal to us how can we participate within nature. So how can we be within the body of nature? How can we move and breathe and flow within nature, rather than an imitation where you are observing nature, when you're separate to nature, and you're observing nature, this is much more than that. It's like you get into the skin of nature when every dimension of nature offers a teaching. And that teaching comes when we don't hold ourselves separate to Nature. But we have a way in which we can jump into that consciousness or we can become part of the consciousness of that aspect of nature. In this video I'm going to show you or share with you the physicality of the elephant in archetypal dance. And if you feel so called, I invite you to do this with me because truly talking about dance is not the same as dancing. So please join me in this invocation of the elephant physicality.