The Mahut tradition of elephant training is an occupation inherited as it is passed from generation to generation in Thailand. The boys and men train elephants primarily to move felled trees in forests and bring lumber out from locations inaccessible to vehicles. The young disciples don’t learn this practice in formal schools or training camps. When a boy is approximately ten years old, he is matched with an elephant of roughly the same age. They unite in an enduring bond that has the newly formed team sleeping and living in close proximity, often, for the rest of their lives.

In this image, the intimacy of the boy in the river with his animal was so striking. So meditative. At later moments, the atmosphere changed entirely when the elephant would lift its trunk and the boy would do backflips into the water. I was a kid who had a menagerie of snakes, toads, frogs, tarantulas and even an African bullfrog that was bigger than a dinner plate. I had dogs and cats and all of those relationships satisfied a curiosity I had about the variety of beings existing in the world.

The nucleus of the image is in the cheek to forehead contact: the Pacific culture of touching forehead to forehead—or here, the cheek—is about reaching an elevated consciousness. It’s a meeting filled with grace, not unlike a touching of hearts. Texture is another unifying element that demonstrates a wholistic patterning I find in the world. The striations in the water and the elephant’s wrinkled skin mirror each other, as does the fabric of the boy’s shorts and the white patch on the elephant’s trunk. In the smallest way, those ripples contain the energy of all sentient beings, of nature and its elements forming cohesive connection.