It's bedtime now.
Time to snuggle into bed and let your eyes softly close.
Let's take three deep breaths together.
Ready?
Good.
Notice how warm and safe and comfortable you feel.
Keeping your eyes closed,
Allow your mind to travel with the sound of my voice.
Beneath you,
Your bed has transformed and you find yourself snuggled up with your mom and aunties under a huge canopy of towering trees.
The ground is soft,
Warm and a little damp under your belly.
Your herd is rousing,
Waking up and making deep sonorous sounds.
You are still just a little one so you stick very close to your matriarchal herd as each member laboriously and loudly stand on all four feet and begin the search for something to eat.
As herbivores,
You are fortunate to live in the African rainforest and the rainforest depends on you to keep it healthy.
Your kind is considered a keystone species.
This means that you play a crucial role in ensuring the survival of the ecosystem.
The morning sun is peeking through the canopy.
Beams of light illuminate the path you will take through the gigantic trees.
Your forest holds the largest trees in the world,
Capable of storing tons of carbon and releasing immense amounts of fresh oxygen.
You take a deep breath,
Smelling the earthy air.
As you sniff the air,
You catch the smell of some delicious bark.
Your herd has caught the scent too and all 16 of you are headed in the direction of a wide copse of trees.
Your feet make a thunderous noise only matched by the other various ways you communicate.
The matriarch trumpets loudly and each of you gather around the trees.
Using the two fingers on the end of your long nose,
You strip bark off of the tree and lift it into your mouth.
You use all 24 enormous molars to grind the bark,
Enjoying the feeling of the hard bark softening between your teeth.
The flavor of the wood is rich and somewhat nutty.
Your mother pushes you with her forefoot and urges you away from the tree to follow the herd.
You can feel something in your bones rumbling up through the ground.
It feels like water.
Staying right by your mother's side,
You listen as your family speaks in tones so low humans cannot hear them.
The seismic signals coming from the earth let you know that you are getting closer and closer to the water.
You imagine the pure water dancing over the rocks as it flows downstream and you pick up speed and anticipation.
You splash your way into the refreshing water,
Only stopping when the water has reached your knees.
You delight in the feeling of the water trickling down your throat.
The sweet taste of the mineral rich liquid.
Now that you are fully awake and have had a bit of breakfast,
You are ready to play.
You drop your long trunk into the water and use all 40,
000 muscles to fill it as full as possible.
Then you spray it all over your mother.
She shakes her long head and her enormous oval-shaped ears flap side to side as she trumpets a fuss at you.
The herd is moving on now.
Eating is a full-time job for your kind.
Most days you spend between 12 and 18 hours munching on grasses,
Leaves,
Tree bark,
Seeds,
And fruit.
This is one reason why you are called the mega gardener of the forest.
It's a big job.
Lucky for you,
You are one of the largest animals in the world,
Though you are the smallest of your genus.
You have a few distinctive differences that make your species different from your distant relatives,
The African bush elephant and the Asian elephant.
For instance,
You have five toenails on each forefoot and four on your hind feet.
You are smaller,
Your skin is darker,
And your ears are more rounded in shape than your relatives.
Your tusks are also quite different.
They are straighter and longer,
And rather than looking whitish,
They have more of a yellowish or pinkish hue.
You use your tusks to dig up dry riverbeds and create watering holes that all of the rainforest requires for its immense biodiversity.
The heat of the rainforest and all of your playing and foraging has made you quite tired.
Your herd has found a spot in the shade of an enormous hardwood tree to rest.
You roll onto your side,
Relieving your feet from supporting your immense weight.
You use your trunk and your tail to swat away a few annoying flies while taking several deep breaths and settling into the soft dirt beneath you.
Your eyelids become heavy and you gently let them close.
Your breathing becomes deep and soft and effortless.
You are completely comfortable in the shade of the tree.
You can smell the water and the grass and the earth.
Your body is fully supported by the ground beneath you.
You are completely relaxed and you let yourself drift off to sleep.
Good night,
Little African forest elephant.
