This blog was founded in 2009 with my initial trip to Southeast Asia when (among many other things) I worked at the Elephant Nature Park in Chaing Mai, Thailand. So for those of you who wanted the short, completely literal answer, read no further. The rest of you: pop that red pill and scurry down the rabbit hole with me.
Fast forward 1 year to August, 2010. Trying to shake off the nerves of going to another country for an undetermined amount of time, I went wandering and came upon a charming little elephant in the gift shop of a floral section in a grocery store. Maybe it was my state of pre-flight jitters, but something told me there would be no better way to show the world my world than with a miniature elephant leading the way.
Since then, my little traveling companion, 친구 (cheen-gu, meaning 'friend') has been a symbol of adventure, knowledge, and the traveling spirit that good things in life are not worth keeping to yourself: they're meant for sharing.
Playing With Elephants was created to visualize the idea that, like elephants, the people and things that touch our lives are much more than they initially appear to be.
“If you are brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting (which can be anything from your house to your bitter old resentments) and set out on a truth-seeking journey (either externally or internally), and if you are truly willing to regard everything that happens to you on that journey as a clue, and if you accept everyone you meet along the way as a teacher, and if you are prepared – most of all – to face (and forgive) some very difficult realities about yourself….then truth will not be withheld from you."
- The Physics of the Quest (Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat Pray Love)
