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

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 37 - The Two Paths

Boyd Varty — Fri, 08 May 2020 04:00:00 +0200

Wow we made it to day 37. In so many mythological stories there is an idea that when you were born a twin was born with you. It was thrown out the cot and becomes your wild twin. It’s a scallywag, an outlaw, a rogue. IT slips chocolates to your nieces and nephews before supper. It’s willing to act outside the bounds of the rational. It doesn’t give a hoot about what anyone else thinks and can be relied upon to do something totally essential. It knows how to grieve, it does not control the longings of the heart.

Jung had this idea of there being two paths. The right path and the left path. The right path is the one of society. A structured path forward that is laid outside and with its pursuit comes a position in the world with pursuit and structure. The right path is beautiful. The left path is different. It is the path of creation. You look into the world and you don’t see anything that is for you. It’s like living towards a feeling of aliveness. It requires a lot of reaching for the wild twin. Joseph Campbell says of the left path, it’s a challenge because you will not be respected by society by you will be in our own authenticity.

Right pathers do very well until the age of 46. Then they start to wonder if its what they really wanted. They come to a place where they feel they are missing something of themselves.
Left pathers struggle to ground themselves in the world, the options are paralyzing, the money is tight. Some can’t get through the drift of constantly drifting. But those who learn their process emerge around 46, after a harrowing run, fully alive and autonomous.

I’ve always wondered if there is a path between? Where both pathers got in touch with the other somewhere in between. The only way a central path becomes available is through mentorship.
Rates of download can be incredibly high between people who have integrated aspects of the other path.

Mentorship is truly magical when it spontaneously occurs. Often in true mentorship there is no explicit instruction. Real mentorship is a shared presence. I was lucky to be mentored by Alex and Renias until I would go out tracking a lion thinking about what Alex and Renias would be doing in that particular situation. To be either a Mentor or a Mentee takes inner work. We can cultivate the ground in ourselves to create more sharing in our work and community. To be a mentor you need excellence, confidence and a map of having done it. You need to have a passion for what you do that is beyond you. A love for the art form itself. This requires a personal sense of abundance as you will give away some of what you have. This can be a challenge but when I have been shared with like that I knew something sacred was happening. The source never needs to really claim its the source.

The Mentee needs humility, to be real with themselves as to where they are at and respect of what has been given. The role of a true Mentee is to learn it and evolve it. That is the responsibility bigger of you.

So what does it mean to be wild. It certainly doesn’t mean doing whatever you want and asking to nobody. Dimensions of self come from attention. You have unconsciously found and expressed your talents and gifts. You have met your wild twin and are friends. It means your nature is not clouded by layers of other peoples rules. You have to pay attention and listen to what is being asked of you by life. The more you do your inner work the easier it gets.

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Day 13 - Define Progress

Boyd Varty — Tue, 14 Apr 2020 10:00:00 +0200

I’m gonna give this one a bit of a go but it is a bit of a tongue twister….Those who bagged their game and made their camp snug and secure bedded down with contentment.
The adventurer contentedly thought that the hard life was well worth it.

The snakes are out in the post rain heat as I see their tracks crossing the roads.
The patterns of movement are stored in me that way.

I’m becoming very good at pinpointing sounds. The trick is to gauge a distance to a sound across a woodland. I imagine throwing a pebble across the terrain and trying the land it where the sound came from.

I keep thinking of the idea of the difference between how something works and what I means. Surely we are so good at the first and losing the second.

Story of Harry Kirkman.

This experience could turn me into something of a luddite.

Story of Ian Player who understood what wilderness meant to the wellbeing of the world. Founder of the Wilderness Leadership institute.
There are profound unintended consequences to a lantern.

Right I just need to personally redefine progress.

Once when I was driving along with Renias we came to a waterhole. A small herd of impala was just arriving at the waters edge.

I’m asking myself, what actually creates satisfaction and how do I cultivate it daily. Not more, but more of what I actually want.

Have you ever had a memory of your future? Preremebering is an art form. It’s imagining out of a deep knowing what your life ought to be.
I’m interested what the future of human life could be and how we can create it.
We are poised for a great premembering.

Back to a mindful relationship with nature if certainly underway. If you are listening to this you are already part of it.

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