The Hippo Oracle

You find yourself in a game room with shelves stacked high with every board game you can imagine. Running your fingers along the boxes, you read their titles. Some you recognize, some you don’t. Some are antiques, others are vintage games you played as a child, a few brand new ones still in their shrink wrap.

You can’t explain it but somehow you know you need to spend some time here looking at these games, touching the wood and cardboard and plastic that makes up their storage containers. Something in this room is important to you, right here, right now.

And so you go along, title after title, games flat packed dozens of layers high. You lean back to look at the ones well above your head and you’re doing just that when your hand snags on a box corner. As it tumbles to the ground, the lid opens, spilling its contents onto the rug on the floor.

When you bend to scoop it up, the spirit of an ancient hippo rises from the pile of colorful plastic playing pieces. It sticks its neck out and chomps its mouth at you with a determined smile on its face, getting closer with its jaws snapping open and shut. You step easily out of reach before it swallows you whole and it rests, gazing at you with an expectant smile.

You have found The Hippo oracle, and it has a story to share with you today.

The Hippo Oracle says:

The hippo is so very, very hungry. It could eat a whole game board, a whole swamp, a whole house, a whole you. Your arms, legs, brains, heart, spirit, energy, and all. And so quick too, the quickest! Before you even realize what’s happening, it would all be gone nom nom nom.

Hippo energy wants a lot from you. If you’re not careful, it will take and take until you don’t have anything left and its belly is full. It doesn’t concern itself with whether you still have enough for you: The hippo consumes until it has devoured everything available.

The thing is, the hippo assumes you’re doing the same. That you’re snapping up everything available to you without compunction also. The hippo would be surprised to know that you didn’t get even one bite for yourself when there was so much there for the gobbling, that it ate its portion and yours and everyone else’s, too.

Hippos come in many forms. Certain family, friends, romantic partners, children, jobs, volunteer groups, community organizations - any relationship, place, structure or system where exchange is in play. Hippos are friendly takers. They’re protectors of their own territory, energy, and snack plate. But they expect that you are as well. They don’t know how to be any other way. In their world, they’ve got what they could snap up and you’ve got what you could snap up and the rest is all fun and games.

This is the danger of over giving to hippo energy: You become the feast. Your time becomes the appetizer. Your labor becomes dessert. Your energy becomes the main course.

But at the same time, playing with hippo energy can be fun. It doesn’t feel draining at first. You don’t notice yourself being eaten alive. There’s community and excitement and laughter as the hippo splashes everyone in reach and takes in everything around it so large and in charge.

And when the hippo leaves, that huge energy goes with it. So if you gave all your marbles to the hippo while you were playing around, you’ll have nothing left for you.

The hippo is not evil, mostly anyway. There are evil hippos, but that’s another story. The hippo is probably downright friendly with you, likes you, has fun with you, wants to play together often. You probably feel the same way about the hippo, too.

However, the hippo is not a sensitive being. If you were to bring up to the hippo that it didn’t leave enough for you - that, in fact, it took unfairly from you - its flabbers would truly be gasted. The hippo didn’t know it was its job to leave enough for you. It didn’t know that it was supposed to watch your plate and its own plate at the same time. It thought it was your job to get your marbles. The hippo cannot fathom giving all of your own marbles away so that someone else could win the game.

And, if we’re being honest here, the hippo wouldn’t be totally wrong. The hippo simply trusts that others will keep their marbles. It respects you enough to believe that you’ll manage your pile in the way that’s best for you.

For the hippo’s part, it does the same. It takes what’s offered and then sees some more and takes that, too. How do you think the hippo got so expansive in the first place, so behemoth in its presence? It swirls everything it can into its own sphere.

To survive the hippo - and enjoy yourself while you’re at it - means you think a little bit like the hippo, too. You take up your full space, feel your own enormity. You allow your own wake to be felt. You give less freely from your plate. You stand on your own ground. You keep an eye on your own internal levels, your own inner flow. And you take what’s there for the taking. You chomp chomp chomp. Without guilt or second guessing. With speed and sure movement.

If you’re not a hippo, this might not be in your nature. You may be an empathic and generous person. You may look around and make sure others have enough, always. That is a beautiful thing that you do. The hippo is a teacher in making sure that you do it for yourself, too.

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About the Artist
Bailey Lewis is an experiential storytelling artist (MFA, University of South Carolina) who combines words, images, and reimagined materials to create intuitive story experiences. Her art has been exhibited and published internationally, and she is the author of award-winning stories which have been featured in The Wigleaf Top 50 and nominated for the Pushcart Prize. 

Visit the Bailey Sends Word Story Studio site to see more of Bailey’s work.