Day 31 - Dialogue with Silence

Boyd Varty — Sat, 02 May 2020 10:00:00 +0200

There was once a BBC report, maybe before the second world war. This is the BBC on the hour, there is no news on the hour. Day 31, there are no new stories at this time. That’s not true, its just that I’m going to a place underneath stories. I see friends across the world, around the fire. Friends in Canberra, California, Charleston, Bath.

In stillness I know the exact moment of when a friendship would change me. Friendship is a dialogue in silence.

As I write this the herd of elephants have arrived to drink at the river. They are standing in the shining reflection of the sun. They suck up water in their trunks, they fling coarse river sand over their backs. To me there is a geometry as to how they stand. The water that touched them is already gone on its journey east into the Kruger National Park.

A river is how life befriends itself. Yesterday I walked down the banks of the river at midday. Africa’s witching hour. I walked through a stillness that was sensual in its depth. In a Rockpool of rain water I took my clothes off and slipped into another place. Floating in the silence on the surface. I was wrapped in stillness. Nothing was happening, but finally everything was happening. Not a place in the sky, not a Landrover, not a voice, yet there was a dialogue with the silence. I am friend it said.

In ceremony I see men and women weep for something they didnt even know they had lost. And when the weeping stopped, something deep down says I am friend.

Our presence here is ruining the great mountainsides and we are falling out with the rivers. I a ma person complicit without choosing in the way of the world. You are of the same silence, made in the same love. Its breaking my heart when it will be too hot to go outside. All death is the beginngon of something new, love what is dying because I am friend it said.

I see you there on all sides of life. A friend in infinity can withstand an industrial blink of ignorance.
This is why we are here, I have become certain of it. We are here to befriend ourselves as the people of nature. Wake up where you are. Nothing else is the worth the time. When the mind finally embraces itself in that deepening compassion, you will see that awakening was all that we are doing anyway and not even that was happening in the stillness.

Each day I have sit in stillness with the absolute certainty I will die. The ones I love will leave me or I will leave them. I will not hide from that last veil to love. You can hurt me love or teach me the truth. Trust this life that made this river. Trust that I will find this river. Take me to those shores of grace I ask, I have so far to go and I am afraid of storms and loss. Take me to the peace that passeth. I don’t know the way but I sense it there from beyond the edges.

I cannot report entertainingly from this place, I can only pray in a way that I never before understood. It is a prayer that does not come from me. There is no news except that I am on that current brushing against the legs of elephants and reed beds. I wonder if I will lose you here. I hope I don’t even though someone else’s devotion can leave us cold. Still with all that’s holding us, if I did I trust that would be right too. I am friend it said.

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Day 25 - Sidetracked

Boyd Varty — Sun, 26 Apr 2020 10:00:00 +0200

I am missing all my friends. In my mind I find myself composing long legends of the fall type letters on a typewriter. Dear friends….the nights grow colder, I think of you often.

There is something deep about missing people and staying in the feeling of missing people rather than turning to WhatsApp.

The daily presence of elephants has become something I look forward to. I went up into the tree and had a kettle shower and in between the late afternoon light and endorphins from the run I had a moment of elation.
I still usually eat one meal a day and then around that eat fruit, avocados and raisins.

Barring a few noticeable days when I have been tired I have a steady stream of energy. I only mention that because its noteworthy.
The feeling you have when you open your eyes in the morning is the marker of your balance.

My clothes have to have reached a truly feral point until I wash them. I go to sleep early and wake up early. I watch the movements of the stars across the skies.

I keep thinking about how St Frances was a renunciate yet he is still the primary driver of the economy. Who knows life has its very unexpected plan to us.

The news of the day is that a mating pair of leopards was sighted. The female was very agitated at the males interest. She would saunter over to the male and lash his face with her tail. Once she even clawed him on the head.
On two occasions the male actually made it onto his feet but ran out of energy and flopped down again. Once mating commences they will mate every few minutes for a number of days.

There is a distinctive growl that is made when mating actually commences.

If the mating is successful, in about 110 days the mother will find a secluded space and give birth to her cubs.

My quest to track a big bull elephant has still not happened. It keeps getting interrupted by lion tracks and pegasus rhino. Still this is a mission that remains high on my priority list. An animal like that has presence who has walked the ancient paths of his ancestors. There are myths of elephants who used to frequent the eastern seaboards of Southern Africa and commune with whales. These animals exist in a conscious that is beyond the verbal mind. There is no future and no past.

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Track Your Life with Boyd Varty - Episodes Tagged with “Elephants”

Day 31 - Dialogue with Silence

Day 25 - Sidetracked