Day 24 - Pegasus

Boyd Varty — Sat, 25 Apr 2020 10:00:00 +0200

My decision to suspend all river bathing has been vindicated. Last night I shone my torch into the river and saw not one but two crocodiles in the water.

I will tell you now about the curious incident of the rhino in the day. I went out for elephants but cut across the track of a rhino bull. A beautiful dinosaur three leaf clover tracker. The bull had left an impressive size of dung. I am a very good rhino tracker, if anything happens in life I always have rhino tracking total back on.
But in this case I lost the rhino track and could not find it. Now I began to unleash my considerable skill set. Yet still nothing.

Rhinos are routine creatures, you can almost see the moment one of their daily routines appear in their mind before them./ I was certain this bull was making his round so I though to just walk ahead and easily cut his track on the road ahead. I checked every patch of open ground but nothing. I walked zig zag lines on game paths but still nothing.

Eventually I went back to the dung and made sure I set off on the right course. I saw the same tracks and then the vanishing. Its pretty frustrating to lose a 2 ton animals in open sandy terrain.

I started to lose my cool a bit. Just recently I was a lion tracking, river crossing savant now this crap.
Eventually I went back to the pile of dung and put my small pack down. I would now go very slowly and redo everything I had just done.

Moving in slow motion I crouched down to study the earth.
I remember running a workshop on retreat about how looking for a rhino could be like looking for your mission and purpose in life.

Losing tracks is part of tracking. Losing yourself is part of life. I consoled myself with knowing that some of Londolozi’s elite trackers lose the tracks from time to time. St Frances said wherever you go preach the gospel but only where absolutely necessary use words.

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Day 18 - Golden

Boyd Varty — Sun, 19 Apr 2020 11:00:00 +0200

Day 18 - Golden

People have a saying in South Africa, we are looking golden. Well if this experience has its own ebbs of fortune, emotionality and joy then we are looking golden.

The lions have returned to Londolozi and I could see the tracks of the pride heading further west into the bush. They cut off the road and I scratched around a bit on their line o movement. The light was beautiful and the smell of a fresh morning was invigorating. I was feeling totally in tune with their movement.

Tracking in these moments is a beautiful combination of skill, concentrations and even somatic intelligence as your body feels the terrain.

I though of that tracking saying “I don’t know where I’m going but I know how to get there.:

Here on this beautiful morning I am trying to keep this dying art form alive inside of myself. What a strange thing, an art that does not live on a wall, an art that lives inside a person. If you keep tracking alive you keep a thread to a way we used to be, to another time.

The track cut further north and I’m flying along now in total flow. No trying, no mind just flow state.
I come across the land manager who is following a male leopard in his vehicle. I see his vehicle through the bushes and crouch down in the long grass and watch them go by me no more than 20 meters away. They do not notice me and when they are gone I continue on the tracks of the lions.

The lions cut through a dry water course. Two other guides arrive by chance and are also looking for lions. They want to join the tracking. The 3 of us set off and only 60 meters later we hear a squirrel alarm. James behind me starts to click. My eyes come up off the ground and there is a big male lion and a lioness looking at us. Gold cats in golden lights….Golden. The male snarls without any real intention and we move back. The rest of the pride is in the long grass all around them. There is something so satisfying about finding something in a huge wilderness using just your skills.

I had been waiting for this morning of tracking. What else do I feel? What do you want from life? What is life asking of you? What would you hear if you listened? It Is 7:30 am and I have lived the aliveness of 10 years. More presence is more life. Not doing more. Something so tangible.

I would like to write a book called the dynamics of satisfaction. Scene of man in the wild making himself water to bathe with.

I’m also aware of how I have objectified myself. We think of ourselves as an object on a scale. We should be much further ahead or I’m not where I should be. I’m talking about a continuous comparative dynamic that is structured into a culture where everything is automated and commodities until your own psyche makes you a thing and judges that thing comparatively. Just think about how you drive yourself when you are exhausted. Just watch what you do to yourself when you start duding yourself.

Inside that mind all the dimension of person gives way to something terribly binary. Good bad, failing winning or losing.

All I want you to know from me out here is that it is not you. It is structured into the psyche in the modern life.

Buffalo Story

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

Day 24 - Pegasus

Day 18 - Golden