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
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• Visit Boyd's website for more.

Simplicity is abundance and the desert calls for a beautiful simplicity. I always know when I'm in an important experience because the experience itself starts to constellate new thought processes. I start to daydream about how to ignite the collective psychological abundance in our culture. What can we do to instill a sense of abundance in people?
I don’t know what we will find on our expedition - but I am excited about simplicity. I hope with the Bushmen people, I can touch an older way of life that might teach me how to live in this one.

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.

-- Boyd makes reference to the book Boiling Energy, by Richard Katz

Timestamps

(4.26) - Learning about the life of the Bushmen people
(6.14) - Modern life structures
(7.41) - Simplicity in the desert

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.

When I was working as a safari guide, I would notice that a story could always shift the group's energetic momentum towards you, which is important when you are guiding. More than being a momentum shifter, a well-crafted story could, in the right moment, be profoundly transcendent.

If you cultivate your capacity as a storyteller, you cultivate your life. If you are becoming a storyteller, you're working on your life as much as you're working in it. Stepping back to work on, and develop, the multiple stories that make up your life is important work. It will radically leverage your life and your impact in almost any setting.

Humans are narrative creatures. This has been true since the first people told stories around the fire. When you become a master of narrative, you become a world maker.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Visit Londolozi

• The Tracker Academy was established to preserve the indigenous knowledge of wildlife tracking.

• Connect with Andreas Sitole

• Learn more about David Rattray and Fugitives Drift

Timestamps

(5:35) David Rattray, South African Historian, and the story that set him apart
(15.32) - Working on your personal story
(19.57) - Andreas Sitole’s story ‘Into the Unknown’

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.

There is a strangely universal truth that the more in touch you are with your own unique personal essence, the more what you have to say becomes universally meaningful. The most private things are the most universal things.

Any type of trying to be commercially successful or thinking about the end user while you work will kill an artist's freedom. Yet if you are a storyteller, you want the story to be listener friendly. I always think about how a listener could put their own story into my stories. This is not a rule but rather an orientation. Like a compass, I point personal story towards a subtextual, universal story. A story always has an archetypal core.

Mentioned in this episode

Londolozi - https://boydvarty.com/retreats/visit-londolozi/
Learn more about the Tsalala pride at Londolozi - https://blog.londolozi.com/2021/12/07/the-legacy-of-the-tsalala-pride/

Timestamps

(3.30) The Tsalala pride
(06:43) Universal energies
(08:42) Living with severe depression and anxiety

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.

Storytelling is about providing context and meaning. It's a discipline of attention, a way of helping others understand the world around them.

Mentioned in this episode

• Listen to Boyd’s epic account of 40 days and 40 nights spent alone in a treehouse in the wild eastern part of South Africa. https://boydvarty.com/about/40-days-40-nights/ Learn more about Londolozi

Timestamps

(02:04) Barry, the Buffalo
(08:00) Safari storytelling tradition

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 and X

• Visit Boyd's website for more.

This podcast series emerged out of a time when I had retreated back into the wild african bushveld, after three years of almost endless travel. I wanted to disappear for a while. I have come to think of anonymity as one of life’s deepest gifts. Almost instinctively, after a period of time, I found myself chasing stories again.

This is how I became a Story Hunter.

Timestamps

(3:34) Martha Beck: Creative people bounce
(06:48) Going back to the wild

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.

• Learn more about the work of Dr Martha Beck: https://marthabeck.com/

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.

Links:

• Uncover the track of your life through Boyd's online guided retreat- Track Your Life.
• Discover Boyd's books
• Experience Africa. Immerse your senses and awaken your spirit on a Londolozi Safari
• Dr Martha Beck

The reason for walking, describes Boyd, was the classic intention of masculinity, and a desire to challenge yourself. Boyd who is used to walking 25km, was a bit anxious about doing double that on this particular boundary walk (equating to 31 miles). This group of four men, were both good walkers and good talkers and so many stories were shared over this time period. It is said that talking while walking leads to much deeper conservations and this was true for these four. It was the groups job to lift the individuals no matter how sore you felt. There is something wild and both mentally restful about being on your feet, describes Boyd.

Listen as Boyd walks through different sceneries and passes various wildlife, including the Nstevu Pride of lions… Their day had been about walking, but in truth their day had been about so much more, listen below for some classic African storytelling:

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/

Bedrooms are strange. I look at the thatch roof with gratitude and a touch of contempt. Before I get to that I would like to tell you something that happened on the last evening. I was on a crest, the land fell away and 3 rhino we feeding in a clearing. It was beautifully serene and I felt so still. I was ready to leave the tree. Far away from me a lion roared and I had to go and look.

Quickly the clearing gave way to a sandveld bush. I let myself stop thinking about where that lion may be and let my body go where it wanted. Purposeful action towards and unknown purpose. The lion was my purpose. Purposeful navigation towards and unknown destination. I don’t know where I’m going but I know exactly how to get there.

It takes so doing to walk in a straight Line through a thicket but it takes some doing. One quickly gets subtly off course. Eventually the bush gave way ti riverine vegetation. A little bit before sunset I suddenly broke out of the thicket. IN front of me was a thickly reeded marsh that gave way to golden grassland. My body stopped and my mind felt incredibly quiet. Something inside of me said this is the place. For a time there was nothing but stillness. I thought I had gone mad but then across the reed bed a dark maned lion rose across the golden grass.

I was taken by joy, the presence. For six weeks in the tree everything I was searching for was there in a moment. The mystic, the tracker, the lion and me.

I tell you this because everything is astoundingly different. It’s really hard to describe how to walk back into your life with more awareness.

Lockdown is a state of mind.

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.

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/

All through the day I intend to reflect on all these moments. In my experience re-entry is its own journey and art form. You have to remember that in change processes we spiral forward. We sometimes go back but on a different rung on the spiral.
The key is to notice yourself, watch yourself and pay attention without judgement. That will create the awareness to shift from.

Our inner world shapes our outer world. Imagination, creativity, enchantment, tracking, storytelling and pattern interruption. Nature is the deepest teacher.

The gratitude I feel for the land here is impossible to put into words. Beauty to the point where I feel overwhelmed. Elephants, rhinos, leopards, starry skies, storms. I will miss the elephants mid-morning arrival at the river. And of course the tree is a love story all of its own. I have been a part of its ecosystem all on my own. This tree has taught me so much. It has been the host of one of the most transformational experiences of my life. In native cultures everything is alive, it is a being and I understand that now. This tree has been a true friend and will continue to be.

In gratitude I also turn to all of you who came along for the ride and sent me notes of support. To be able to do this alone and with you was perfect. We are all connected. We know why we are here. To learn to heal to bring back the new old ways. To have fun and reach out and not let it all be too serious and to remember what living actually is.

What if what we made here is the real world. The most natural scape is the real world. Its just a deep sense of the sacred which makes me reflective. Jesus is often depicted with his eyes open. Buddha is often shown with his eyes closed. In truth we need contemplation in action. No enlightenment has any power unless it is lived.

I am also full of a very simple desire to do the best work I can do towards the transformation of consciousness. Today I am going to run as far as I can. Slowly relishing the feeling of the land under me. I am going to swim in the river and sit by the fire. There is a time to reflect on our reflections and PS its probably good I’m close to the end as I have a tooth that is killing me.

I guess the lasting question is that in a matter of time, all of our lives will go back to normal. What do we want that normal to be? The treehouse is like a nest, my books tarpaulin, clothes and yoga mat is all around me. It’s quiet in the way of nature where the sounds make the silence rather than break it.

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.

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/

Byron Katie says the only things that’s ever happening is what you are thinking and believing and I was definitely in a storm of thinking.
(https://thework.com/)

In truth I couldn’t find some tracks in a beautiful wilderness. I was lost but it wasn’t like life and death.
I was in old thoughts and judgements brought to this moment: “This is total waste of time. You’re no good at this.” I went from zero to irrationally judgmental fast.

My sister believes that certain existential crisis can be solved with a sandwich and a nap.

Wen tracking a few hours later and cut the track of two rhinos. They were huffing and puffing in a magic guar thicket. The wind was in my favor as they moved towards me. I climbed into the tree and sat quiet and still in the branches as they meandered below me blissfully unaware of my presence.
In these moments I feel a tremendous amount of gratitude. The game is so abundant after being protected all these years now.

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!

I sat in a totally clean fear for four hours. I thought about the hymn ‘How Great Thou Art’.
I was truly scared as a grown man. It makes you feel so human to experience that fear.
It was so wet water was coming from underneath me.

Day 15, you showed me who is boss. That’s my report. I’m still afraid of dying and being burnt. This mystic has not put those puppies to bed, but I’m wilder for sure.

With thanks to Chris Rice for the Song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cc0QVWzCv9k

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/
Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/londolozi/
Twitter | https://twitter.com/londolozi
Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/londolozigamereserve/

Boyd reflects on Day 1 of his 40 day, 40 night journey into the wilderness. He sets up camp at the Treehouse and takes us through his daily routine

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/
Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/londolozi/
Twitter | https://twitter.com/londolozi
Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/londolozigamereserve/

Boyd discusses books that he is considering taking out to the treehosue with him. Some titles include:

• The Call of the Wild - Jack London
• The Ivory Trail - Cecil Barnard and T. V. Bulpin
• West with the Night - Beryl Markham
• The Overstory - Richard Powers
• St Francis of Assisi - Richard Rohr

Boyd tells the story of Shangaan tracker Winnis Mathebula and some of his ingenious bushcraft borne from a life of simplicity.

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/
Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/londolozi/
Twitter | https://twitter.com/londolozi
Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/londolozigamereserve/

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/
Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/londolozi/
Twitter | https://twitter.com/londolozi
Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/londolozigamereserve/