This episode follows our pursuit of this majestic animal through wild and dangerous terrain. Deep down, I feel my own hunter - a desire to compete and survive. I feel a million-year-old drive to find what I'm tracking. I feel how in the wild, there is no margin for error. A mistake out here can mean instant death. And this proximity to real death is paradoxically full of life.

There is an intimacy to tracking. To walk in an animal's footsteps all day is to know that animal on a different level. And the beginning of a transformation and a deeper understanding of our own agency in the world. Tracking takes us on a journey of mastery and perseverance that challenges us to question the crafting of our experiences in the pursuit of what it means to truly be alive.

Mentioned in this episode:

• The San people is the broad term for the name of many clans that make up the Bushmen. I will refer to the people I met with the term Bushmen because that is how they asked me to refer to them.

Timestamps

(02:24) The alertness to lion tracking
3.37 - Archetypal energies of tracking
08.58 - Different worlds
10.22 - Finding the lions

Resources:

Online Courses:

• Become a Story Hunter - Sign up for the Story Hunter Online Course.

• Uncover the track of your life through the Track Your Life Online Guided Retreat.

Discover Boyd's books:
https://boydvarty.com/book/

Come to Africa. Visit Londolozi

Join Boyd’s community:

• Follow the journey - Subscribe to the Track your Life Podcast and never miss an episode.

• Sign up to Boyd’s newsletter.

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In most places, we wouldn’t bother following the tracks of wild dogs as the ground they cover is too vast. But here, in the Delta we have no boundaries or time constraint. We feel the vitality and the movement of the wild dogs and we begin to move as a pack. The hours pass and we follow onwards into a massive wilderness. We are interacting with the wild like few people can. The wild has started to shape us.

Mentioned in this episode:

• The San people is the broad term for the name of many clans that make up the Bushmen. I will refer to the people I met with the term Bushmen because that is how they asked me to refer to them.

Timestamps

1.34 - On the track of Wild Dogs
09.22 - Losing the track
12.35 - We will always remember this track

Resources:

Online Courses:

• Become a Story Hunter - Sign up for the Story Hunter Online Course.

• Uncover the track of your life through the Track Your Life Online Guided Retreat.

Discover Boyd's books:
https://boydvarty.com/book/

Come to Africa. Visit Londolozi

Join Boyd’s community:

• Follow the journey - Subscribe to the Track your Life Podcast and never miss an episode.

• Sign up to Boyd’s newsletter.

• Follow Boyd on
  Instagram
  X

• Visit Boyd's website for more.

In this episode, I share my experience of being lost, tracking lions with group of guests on a Track Your Life retreat.

Stories are layered with meaning. Meaning is almost always a constellation of thoughts and beliefs that weave into a story - and retreat participants were pulled into an unfolding co-created story, making meaning out of the experience. They had learnt a basic universal lesson: there is always something unfolding as it should.

I learnt a lot during those few hours of being lost. In particular, I had learnt that nothing bad ever happened to a storyhunter.

Mentioned in this episode

-The Track your Life Retreat is an extraordinary experience of self discovery. Find out more: https://trackyourlife.co.za/

• Learn more about Londolozi

Timestamps

(02:06) Lost in lion country
(08:54) Making meaning of stories
(12:23) Run in the wild

Resources:

Online Courses:

• Become a Story Hunter - Sign up for the Story Hunter Online Course.

• Uncover the track of your life through the Track Your Life Online Guided Retreat.

Discover Boyd's books:
https://boydvarty.com/book/

Visit Africa. Visit Londolozi

Join Boyd’s community:

• Follow the journey - Subscribe to the Track your Life Podcast and never miss an episode.

• Sign up to Boyd’s newsletter.

• Follow Boyd on
  Instagram
  X

• Visit Boyd's website for more.

I cross the river just after dawn moving on instinct to where I though the sound of the lions roaring is. I would need time to crack this code as the tracks go in all direction. But up on the crest of the clearing, impala are alarming. Then a lion roars. I walk up to Ximpalapala koppie and then see a big black maned lion up on the hillside. The plains below them are full of zebra and wildebeest.

In front of me steam is billowing out of a chimney spout like breath on the morning air. Underground the work of thousands of termite is causing the termite mound to release energy and heat.

Every elephant’s foot is cracked like a fingerprint. But it’s too difficult in a mess of tracks. The key with elephants right now is freshness. If you get onto a bull and the tracks are less than an hour or two old and you may have a chance. Sometimes I just speculate on a direction, full of doubt but going for it nonetheless. Today I am right, a bull feeds in the clearing on a termite mound. He walks through the ground and then lopes through the grass. He feeds almost continuously, sleeps standing during midday in the shade.

He will live to about sixty, chew his way through multiple sets of teeth, cover thousands of miles, pollenate plants, cause awe and fear and still there is a different between what something does and what it means. What an elephant’s presence means in our world is utterly impossible to say.

In the late afternoon another herd comes through camp, close to the fire pit. It’s like they expect me here. Two young bulls wrestle with each other. I walk out with my cup of tea in my hand, they look at me and move forward but with no intent.

In late January I tracked a small elephant bull with a group of close friends. We tracked the bull for a few hours, seeing his huge tracks and into the dry riverbed. At different times a different person tracked. Each of them acquainted themselves with the elephant. As each member of the group trailed that elephant we became harmonized in perfect unfolding. We feel into intimacy with the elephant and each other. Where he had rested in the shade so did we. As we followed we started to know each other. Whatever happened after that day, there was an elephant we knew. We found him at sunset and not a word was said.

Connect with Boyd Varty:
Website | https://boydvarty.com/
Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/boyd_varty/
Twitter | https://twitter.com/BoydVarty

Find out more about Londolozi
Website | https://www.londolozi.com/en/
Impact | https://londolozi.africa
Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/londolozi/
Twitter | https://twitter.com/londolozi
Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/londolozigamereserve/