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I love Zebras. When I saw them wild in the Maasai Mara I felt an immediate affinity with them- like they had something to teach me. Its funny, I am usually adamant about how I didn’t come here to see animals, but the beauty of Kenya’s natural world will seduce you beyond any silly ideologies.
Zebras are thick! They have big bellies and big behinds, they are healthy and fit and round. It’s sad that my culture has so impressed on me that Healthy =Thin, that even seeing an animal out in the wild who is not as slim and dainty as her antelope friends makes an impact on my psyche. Zebras are social and friendly, they hang out with antelope, elephants, and giraffe, and they join in the wildebeest migration, speckling the savannah with flecks of black and white amidst a sea of brown bucking beasts. They even find their way into the suburbs of Nairobi- supposedly you can see them welcoming you as you arrive from the airport. I love that they can not be called either black or white, they are categorically both, not one any more than the other. They seem so naturally chill, they have the same easy going relaxed nature of the donkeys in town- who are by far my favorite domestic animal here. Only zebras are beautiful in a way that seems extreme, exorbitant, like God was having a playful moment and wanted to show off. What possible evolutionary advantage could there be to having bright black and white stripes? * Only a God with a sense of humor and a little flair could have created a zebra. Zebras are common but never ordinary. You can see them over and over again, but they will still catch your eye, with their cool Mohawk hairdos, sleek striped designs, and their playful ambling about. Despite the fact that they seem virtually the same in demeanor to donkeys, people must have just found them too beautiful to domesticate. (the web says-too unpredictable-which is also a nice trait).
There’s a way of seeing things in the natural world that can help you see yourself. I too, even when healthy and fit, am decidedly round and thick. I find joy in being in family groups, and in being social with those totally different then me, surrounded by languages I don’t understand. I also love being caught up in a herd, in the power of the group, in the movement of many in motion. I am a little bit striped, hard to put in a box, call me exactly black or white, I’ve tried for a long time now and it hasn’t worked, I’m finally giving in. I am peaceful, and playful, and at the same time not as domesticated as you might think, and sometimes more unpredictable then expected. I am working to see myself as beautiful, for being somehow strange, striking, unusual, unique. Myself. As what ever G-d made me in a moment of laughter and curious playful whimsy. After a lifetime of wanting to be more plain, to belong in some basic way, to find a corner of normality where I could hide; I’m learning from the zebras how to live simply in uncommon ways, to enjoy the fullness of my body that gives me the endurance I need for the experience I want in this world, and to love and live amongst whomever I like.
If you look the lessons are everywhere-so thank you zebra for a sweet lesson in self–love. May you all be blessed in the ways you beautify your own savanna :)
*For those who were wondering – there may actually be an evolutionary advantage to having black and white stripes:
Some scientists believe that the stripes act as a camouflage mechanism. This is accomplished in several ways. First, the vertical striping helps the zebra hide in grass. While seeming absurd at first glance considering that grass is neither white nor black, it is supposed to be effective against the zebra's main predator, the lion, which is color blind. Theoretically a zebra standing still in tall grass may not be noticed at all by a lion. Additionally, since zebras are herd animals, the stripes may help to confuse predators - a number of zebras standing or moving close together may appear as one large animal, making it more difficult for the lion to pick out any single zebra to attack. A herd of zebras scattering to avoid a predator will also represent to that predator a confused mass of vertical stripes traveling in multiple directions making it difficult for the predator to track an individual visually as it separates from its herd-mates, although biologists have never observed lions appearing confused by zebra stripes. –(Wikipedia) - *pretty cool!
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