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

Day 38 - Push

Boyd Varty — Sat, 09 May 2020 02:45:00 +0200

If you think 6 weeks is long you should try two days. The moon rises here have been truly epic. Last night as it rose a small pearl spotted owl was perched on a Marula tree silhouetted for a moment. An astounding truth that the moon controls the tides and fertility in its cycle. The night was so bright I didn’t even need a torch.

You know you are so hungry when everything looks like food. A huge pancake, a wheel of French cheese and a ripe peach. It’s not that I’m tired but rather how you would feel at the end of a long experience. It’s a head space. I really want to shower, I really want to talk to my friends. Drink pints at the taps and get cut mercilessly before they turn on each other.

It’s the things that play on your mind like warm anticipation. You can’t do that early on as it would just derail your whole sense of presence. It makes me think of Renias and how any tracker worth his salt is just wired this way.

On a prior retreat the tracks had been tricky but were fresh. Part of the art of guiding is being able to read where people are and know where to push and when to let them go. Renias, however couldn’t leave the tracks. It offended something in his nature to let the lion tracks go.

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.

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Day 35 - Enchantment

Boyd Varty — Wed, 06 May 2020 02:00:00 +0200

I think of this experience as the slow removal as a shell. As the days went by I felt more myself. I felt the creativity coming back in, co-creating the story with nature. My energy levels return to new highs. My relationship with beauty was revived. I feel like so much of what I was trying to do before was trying to tune out, now I am trying to tune back in.

I felt I was absorbing tons of information but my minds own capacity for dynamic movement was slowing. It’s like a fasted state, you know you are much much leaner. Things I used to eat I can no longer touch. When I eat something that I shouldn’t I get an instant no. After a long run I will crave exactly the kind of salt I need. I feel that with my mind. I relish the stillness and the silence now. Don’t get me wrong, I’m watching myself and sometimes I get into bursts of frustration and rage.

In some way what I’m learning is that mystics went to nature as a set of bars. In nature you reset the bars of harmony, stillness and present. It shows you where you were, it shows you where you could be. It plants a flag. Stillness produces right action. Solitude teaches you about connection. Simplicity gives you more. Everything you want with the world is inward.

How often do you meet someone who is enchanted with life? Its pretty rare isn’t it. Out here I feel like I’m touching that at moments. Utter enchantment.

The bateleur is a long standing totem of my family. The spirit of guidance. The ways we naturally make meaning when we stand close to nature sustains us. Our relationship with life itself comes to life. That’s enchanting.

I climbed high onto a single large boulder on a hillside and watched the land below me. My mind was empty of thoughts and watched with empty perception. All I could do was take it all in. I was actually there. That’s what it takes to be enchanted…to actually be there.

Eckhart Tolle says that there are 3 levels of enlightenment.
1. Acceptance
2. Enthusiasm
3. And I forgot the third one

I spent five weeks thinking about how long it was to be alone and now I have five days left wishing it was longer.

Here is some homework, free write for at least a page on the following. Where do I see beauty? Where in life am I enchanted? What makes me feel the most alive? When was the last time I was totally on track? Who really sees me? What’s my mission? What do I complain about? Who do I complain about? What am I doing out of a sense of duty?

If you bring back to life enchantment in yourself you can awaken it within other people in your community. Enchantment is a type of activism.

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Day 26 - Define Abundance

Boyd Varty — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 09:00:00 +0200

There is a line in the Book of Mormon where a Ugandan women is singing about the Utopia that can be found in Salt Lake City. At first it seems like another comedic line, but it’s actually profound. The women is imagining utopia from her point of reference. We all imagine inside our own frames of reference. The question is what are your friendly warlords?

What is abundance? What is wealth?
Real wealth is not being rushed, stillness, enjoying your food, having places you are excited to explore, a river to swim in, being creatively engaged, quality presence with yourself and others, rest when you want to, freedom from crushing obligations, simplicity, being able to feel, connection to beauty, naps, high levels of energy, health, time, silliness, passion, the opportunity to serve, choices.

I need to think about how I can live towards this truest abundance.

There is a strange thing with success that what is built into it, but with it there is something to lose.

I never met the entrepreneur who said “I think we are big enough now”. We all want to be successful, we all want to get by.

What do you want to provide? House, education food on the table. Then it deepens into presence, time, a joyful life, aliveness and understanding what is really important. How is the way you are living your life teaching those things?

Kids don’t learn what you say, they learn how you are. I guess I’m examining the idea that just because we can we should. What I think I want versus what I actually want.

The real pillars of abundance are stillness, nature and community. I understand that none of this might be making any sense.

What else happens when you get still is that you become aware there are many places in your life where you have not showered yourself in glory. You have to face up to a certain amount of shame in your own behavior that frankly if you keep busy you can hide away. To be still means that you can really revisit those moments. Even if you don’t want to it will come up.

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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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Day 7 - Solo

Boyd Varty — Wed, 08 Apr 2020 10:30:00 +0200

Journal Entry: Discovered a perfect white fluff ball of feathers. My roommate, a chinspot basis. I got to bed to roost.
Living in a tree you don’t look up at birds, you are eye level.
African Hawk Eagles, Chinspot Batis, Tracks, Lions, Roost, Presence, Richard Siwela, Manyelethi

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.

I found a pride of lion in the Manyelethi.
Decoded the pattern of the tracks. Some young, some old. With young cub present I must be especially aware. The tracks had no night traffic. I began to follow. There is a unique feeling to following a pride of lions alone.

When tracking solo your tracking should be sufficiently good that you are not trying to track.
Now you are self reliant. If you encounter danger from the lions, the outcome will be dictated by the quality of your reactions. React slowly, do not run, do not panic. Condition yourself in advance for presence.

You are in a conversation that is communicated primarily with energy and body language. Stand your ground and then move backwards.
The general rule is to have respect and be humble.
The goal should be to see the lion before they see you.

I don’t know why I must follow but I want to follow. A tracker must follow as a form of self expression.
On a track alone, there can be a purity of self expression.

I think of my childhood hero, Richard Siwela. He was an incredible solo tracker. He was a leopard specialist. He was meticulous, judgmental and aloof by nature. He carried himself with the superiority of the superior.

Today I have been beaten by the boundary but I have enjoyed my art form.
The ability to let more life into my heart is surely a trail worth following.

Eugene Marais - Purposeful action towards an unknown purpose. Homing towards something towards their is no …..
Homing instinct in young pygmy boy.

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Day 5 - Why is Simplicity So Complicated?

Boyd Varty — Mon, 06 Apr 2020 10:00:00 +0200

Journal Entry:
Wildebeest crosses river? Why did the wildebeest cross the river?
Tree looks like Robinson Crusoe has taken residence. River sings songs to me. Its tune change with the breeze.

I haven’t felt this still in years. I feel so much more connected to my life through this simplicity. I feel present and grateful. My days are simple. The joy of being in your own energy.

So many people feel like they are living their life behind a pain of perspex. I’m certain this is related to complexity and convenience. If you want more life: simplify, simplify, simplify.

All over Africa where there tends to be less stuff I feel more generosity.

The stillness is however confronting. Without the news of the world insights arise.
Somewhere inside I’m still trying to grow up and overcome the ten year old.

When the tied is turning I must teach myself to use the most simple words.

It seems simple here to feel without running.

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