Track Your Life with Boyd Varty

Expedition 2 - Intuitive knowing

June 28th, 2020  |  Season 2  |  11 mins 16 secs

boyd varty, intuition, plaque rock, ptsd, ww2

Journal entry.
Intuitive is defined as: using or based on what one feels to be true even without conscious reasoning; instinctive
I think this is why I have always liked sacred sites because when you are at one “you are beyond conscious reasoning” you sense something in the air.
and I like it there because for me there has always been more life beyond conscious reasoning.
You only need to fall in love to understand the truth in that.
There are different ways of knowing.
On native medicine wheels there was always body, mind , heart , spirit.
It was understood the mind was only one way of relating to or experiencing life.

Expedition 1 - Symphony of Stillness

June 26th, 2020  |  Season 2  |  14 mins 27 secs

beer, bushbaby, memory, starlight, teenager, tingwe camp

Journal entry
It all begins with sketchy reports of a very rare black rhino that was seen in the far north of the reserve. I drive out with my gear motivated by some deep tracking lore…. If there is a rare animal out there I must go and look for it.
The inclination to seek out and find what is rare is fundamental to the tracker.

Expedition Delayed

June 22nd, 2020  |  Season 2  |  11 mins 15 secs

expedition, raining, religion

The original purpose of religion was to bring sacredness to life. Imagine a time (whether prehistorical or transhistorical) when human beings lived moment-to-moment in the presence of the sacred. Religion was unnecessary. There was no separation between spirituality and life, no distinction between the sacred and the mundane, no division of the Godly and the worldly. When we lost the ongoing and immediate sense of sacredness, then we needed religion to bring us back to it. "Religion," after all, means "that which renews our connection."

Sacred Sites Preparation Day

June 20th, 2020  |  Season 2  |  11 mins 16 secs

Intention

June 16th, 2020  |  Season 2  |  10 mins 56 secs

intention, sacred, sacred sites

In a setting with almost no connotation for me to the sacred.
The sacred is not just places but what happens in places.

I will start with what I can. I will work with the track I have.

Dispatches from the Boundary Walk

June 12th, 2020  |  Season 1  |  12 mins 2 secs

boundary walk, londolozi, long walk

Notes on Reentry

May 15th, 2020  |  Season 1  |  11 mins 22 secs

awareness, ceremony, decompression, home, integration, lion, lockdown, londolozi, south africa, tracking, uncertainty

The truth is we can’t really plan. We don’t know where this thing lands or ends. There is so much uncertainty as to how to proceed. The art of re-entry from what a tree teaches us is to go slowly.
Track moment to moment. Make everything in your day an event, mindfully tending to it.

Day 40 - Searching for the Spirit of the Great Heart

May 11th, 2020  |  Season 1  |  7 mins 1 sec

40 days, 40 nights, africa, johnny clegg, spirit of the great heart, tree

And then all of sudden we were there. The face of the people I love. Saying goodbye with immense gratitude to the tree and this beautiful place on the river. The last dawn from inside this experience on the river. I know this is not the end but the beginning. You will be hearing from me. There is so much life for us all to live. I’m not going to try and summarize of sign off well. I have said what I need to say. I will leave you with an anthem by the late great South Africa Johnny Clegg. Volume up, listen to the words.

Day 39 - Reflection

May 10th, 2020  |  Season 1  |  11 mins 38 secs

anxiety, buddha, ceremony, connection, contemplation, cover, culture, eden, gratitude, jesus, londolozi, love story, mystic, nature, normal, peace, reflection, remember, tree

Covid has been so hard for so many people but it also gave me a glimpse back in time. This reserve has been an empty Eden and I am Adam. What will it mean in 30 years to have lived with wild animals? Will it all be gone or will be wake up? Would you find it very hard to understand if I said that I’m learning to be at peace with both? Wherever we land, it will be there.

Day 38 - Push

May 9th, 2020  |  Season 1  |  9 mins 54 secs

alex, food, lion, moon, presence, push, renias, retreats, tracking

A few days ago I left the trail of the lion when the sun climbed high in the sky and the light grew flat and white. I needed to go back on the track and be certain the trail was lost over the border which it was. Courage is knowing when the hold on and knowing when to let go. I need to be here all the way until the end.

Day 37 - The Two Paths

May 8th, 2020  |  Season 1  |  12 mins 19 secs

alex, carl jung, community, joseph campbell, left path, mentee, mentor, mythology, renias, right path, tracking, twin, wild

Jung had this idea of there being two paths. The right path and the left path. The right path is the one of society. A structured path forward that is laid outside and with its pursuit comes a position in the world with pursuit and structure. The right path is beautiful. The left path is different. It is the path of creation. You look into the world and you don’t see anything that is for you. It’s like living towards a feeling of aliveness. It requires a lot of reaching for the wild twin. Joseph Campbell says of the left path, it’s a challenge because you will not be respected by society by you will be in our own authenticity.

Day 36 - Never Punch a Monkey

May 7th, 2020  |  Season 1  |  11 mins 31 secs

anthony bourdain, lions, mating, monkey, scops owl, tracking, tracks, urine

In line with my family tradition I walked in the moonlight down the road to the camp. The moon was so bright I cast a shadow. I knew if the lions were mating I only need wait a bit and I would hear them again. I stood in silence listening to the Scops owls call all around. Then the sound again. I moved fast towards the lions as I knew they would not hear me. Then I saw them. The air was very cool and the cats stood and began to walk away from me on a hippo path towards the river. Watching them in the night and to be alone was something astonishingly private. No one would every understand how close I felt to them that night. I went back to the fire and just sat there for sometime.