Track Your Life with Boyd Varty

Day 17 - On the Trail of the Wild Man

April 18th, 2020  |  Season 1  |  15 mins 38 secs

emily lamb, horizon, imagine, intention, masculinity, men, porcupine, simon bannister, wild man

What does it mean to be a man? It was often a question that seemed to be asked out of profound sense of something that had not been attained or out of the question is this it? That question is only ever asked in modern culture where all our definitions are from outside of us. Society makes us but what does it make if society is flawed.

Day 16 - Glimpses

April 17th, 2020  |  Season 1  |  11 mins 35 secs

david whyte, lion tracks, miraculous, ordinary, raymond, roshi, storm, zen

Day 15 - Storming

April 16th, 2020  |  Season 1  |  19 mins 29 secs

byron katie, chris rice, death, fear, how great thou art, life, lightning, lions, londolozi, rhino, scared, storm, the work, thunder

Then the world fell on my head. At 11pm I sat bolt upright and smelt the storm on the breeze and felt it in my body. It was windy instinctual but I got up and erected the tarp. I’ve watched myself learn fast how to handle the rain. My body had a current of energy running through it, it was like I could feel the future. Then came the mother and father of a thunderstorm. The volume was turned up to holy shit!

Day 14 - Compass Not Culture

April 15th, 2020  |  Season 1  |  13 mins 18 secs

baboons, braiding sweet grass, carl jung, harmony, inner work, leopard

Harmony is when, by being yourself, you form part of the greater whole. A Shaman once told me that what we are trying to do as we live is balance our harmony with the intelligence of life. We stop trying to live well and we are lived. Our path and purpose comes through us by being who we most naturally are. And to look at any of the animals it just takes you there. I am in this tree to find my harmony.

Day 13 - Define Progress

April 14th, 2020  |  Season 1  |  12 mins 15 secs

cultivate satisfaction, harry kirkman, ian player, luddite, premembering, renias, snakes, stars, technology

Have you ever had a memory of your future? Preremebering is an art form. It’s imagining out of a deep knowing what your life ought to be.
I’m interested what the future of human life could be and how we can create it.
We are poised for a great premembering.

Day 12 - Learning To See

April 13th, 2020  |  Season 1  |  11 mins 53 secs

ceremony, giraffes, ken tinley, leopards mating, pride of lions, shaman, tracking, transformation, tree, truth

The trick to transformational processes is how to interrupt and shape patterns, in order to do this you must look at the spaces between things. How everything is touching everything else in relation.
A many called Ken Tinley once tuaght my father how to see a tree. There is a difference between how something works and what it means.

Day 11 - Paradise Lost

April 12th, 2020  |  Season 1  |  12 mins 9 secs

dish towels, innocence, leopards mating, lourens van der post, mysterious, self conscious, shangaan village

Day 10 - Wayfinding

April 11th, 2020  |  Season 1  |  12 mins 49 secs

butterflies, hudson valley, ian thomas, iron john, irwin, martial eagle, peter, polynesian, wayfinder, wild man

I am involved now in purposeful action towards an unknown purpose. Maybe there is an island out there. The Polynesian Wayfinders would sit on the front of a canoe and without any navigational tools would feel for an island of water. Homing. Ultimately you must captain your own canoe towards it intuitively must be.

Day 9 - Jurassic Park

April 10th, 2020  |  Season 1  |  13 mins 8 secs

franciscan, mystic, rhino, sweet potato, unicorn

We have forgotten how to live. Your phone is not making your life more convenient. Delete Netflix. Stop watching the news. Turn off your wifi. Go to places where there is no power. Focus on nature and community. Have ceremonies. Explore. Induce reverence for life. Find the others who really want to live. Don’t fight the system, just abandon it.

Day 8 - Thank God for the Spade

April 9th, 2020  |  Season 1  |  9 mins 2 secs

bull, elephant, frog, grasshopper, heat, hyena, spade, storm

Day 8 - Thank God for the Spade

My troubles all began with a frog. Actually it started when a grasshopper head butted me whilst using the toilet. I understand why people who live close to the earth belief in the changing moods of nature.

The elephant cow was unnerved by me, but I saw that she had run into a musty bull which was causing her agitation. At the last minute they crashed down the river bank instead of into me.

The temperature rose so much that it felt like I was at the devil’s for a barbecue. Then the wind came up and the temperature went from devil’s barbecue to Narnia within 6 hours. I felt like I was at sea in a storm.

Day 7 - Solo

April 8th, 2020  |  Season 1  |  14 mins 21 secs

african hawk eagles, chinspot batis, lions, manyelethi, presence, richard siwela, roost, tracks

Why am I Here?
Why have I always known I would live in a tree?
Why do I track solo?
Why do you know you must do that you have not rational reason to?
Out here I do one thing at a time. If you are into being present, I would give it a try.

Day 6 - Myth Making Tree Trickster

April 7th, 2020  |  Season 1  |  12 mins 28 secs

crocodile, lalela, lawrence van der post, man, myth, tracker, wildebeest

Let me tell you an ancient story I just made up. Try and listen with the wild part of you. Listen close and push your rational mind away, a myth is a lie about the truth.
This is a myth about Lalela, the Wildebeest and the Man.