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

Expedition 5 - The Sacred Enemy

Boyd Varty — Thu, 16 Jul 2020 14:00:00 +0200

Followed a rhino bull, but he led me in circles. I couldn’t shake the distinct feeling that a rhino was trying to shake me off his tail. To add to the confusion there were also tracks of a female rhino from the night before.

If the rhino was my nemesis then he was my sacred enemy. The difficulty he was providing was causing untold growth in my tracking ability.

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Day 34 - So Many More Elephants

Boyd Varty — Tue, 05 May 2020 01:00:00 +0200

At dawn I awaken breathing misty breath up into the branches of the tree. At midday a dust devil skids across the water spreading a rainbow across the sky. At night I am still visited by a lone firefly.

In Jungian dream analysis, everything in the dream is a symbol of the self. The way to interpret the dream is to speak as it. I imagine everything I encounter is a symbol that I talk with and let it answer. Who are you I ask? I am the wind on the water. Describe yourself with three adjectives. What is your purpose? How are you trying to help Boyd?
I always find the language strangely particular as you answer as the symbol. In this way your own subconscious feeds the information to you.

I decided to walk in the afternoon with a water container. Immediately I realized it was much hotter than expected. When I was friends with the soldier Irwin, we would go on a 40km march with Irwin just sucking on a stone to keep the saliva in his lips.

There were many elephants which required a certain type of bushcraft. What had meant to be a stroll through open clearings had turned into a tactical maneuver. In the outdoors dangerous situations often happen long before the danger. They happen through unexpected sliding variables. Assumptions you had made no longer fit the moment. Experience in some ways is the ability to arrest the preconceived ideas and assumptions to make new decisions out of those assumptions.

My post lunch stroll had once again educated me about any post lapses of concentration.

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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 15 - Storming

Boyd Varty — Thu, 16 Apr 2020 13:00:00 +0200

If I thought I was getting into cruise mode, Day 15 took care of that. I was out of the camp early looking for tracks of lions which I followed. The confidence to make choices that stretch your flexibility
My body felt weak like it needed fuel. When the lions turned off the road the trouble began. I couldn’t get onto the line of their movement. The lions moved erratically, I moved erratically. Tracking is about rhythm and flow and there was none of that today.

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

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Find out more about Londolozi
Website | https://www.londolozi.com/en/
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Day 9 - Jurassic Park

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

If you have ever wondered what’s it like living in a tree during 36 hours of rain…its pretty lousy. But truth be told I don’t mind. I feel closer to the animals and respect their resilience.

Neurosis is a substitute for suffering. Out here I feel alive, I feel like life is making me.
I have noticed that I spend a lot of time just sitting. Being is the frequency of nature. So in my world all is calm.

The Franciscan consciousness. A mystic deeply connected to nature. The contemplation of nature is to see that there is an intelligence running through all things. Letting it all be. The day just unfolds without my to do list.

Reverence cannot happen at high speed. It seems impossible to be both reverent and in a rush. The speed of modern life keeps us from deeply respecting it.

People think that rhinos may have been the birth of the mythology of the unicorn.

The feeling of being in another time has persisted. I guess I am 9 days away from modern life. I will not preach but prefer to speak to myself and the community is still to come.

We have forgotten how to live. Your phone is not making your life more convenient. Delete Netflix. Stop watching the news. Turn off your wifi. Go to places where there is no power. Focus on nature and community. Have ceremonies. Explore. Induce reverence for life.

Find the others who really want to live. Don’t fight the system, just abandon it.

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Day 4 - Safety Third

Boyd Varty — Sun, 05 Apr 2020 11:00:00 +0200

Journal Entry - Elephant, Buffalo, Bushbuck, Nyala, Giraffe, Rhino, Monkey
Status Report - Very damp with plenty of spiders weaving their webs around camp. I wonder if they are weaving me in? What order of emergent order weaves webs through spiders?

Today I will run through the bush like people have always done. There are tricks to running in the African bush.
Its good to run when its how and animals are less active. There are three phases to being safe when running in the wilderness.

Phase 1: Mindset and awareness you live in that is forward thinking, route planning, route assessment, knowing the terrain, local knowledge
Phase 2: How you handle the dangerous situation
Phase 3: The safety itself as a result of the first two phases.

I think of the idea that we live inside the mind of God?
Safety in the wilderness, has been a place where I have practiced mindfulness for years without knowing it. Slow deliberate awareness.
The highest form of martial arts if the avoidance of conflict and in this way animals are black belt.
Returning to camp means that I have to keep my presence and awareness up. Safety is a mindset. We need to find out how to go beyond safe spaces with more awareness.
The wild has a way and I need to transfer this into other parts of my life. Not needing to be safe but willing to go with open alertness and guidance where life happens safely.

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Day 3 - Watch Out For The Small Things

Boyd Varty — Sat, 04 Apr 2020 10:00:00 +0200

Safety check
Sat by the fire listening to night sounds
Think of all the ones you love
Book: Mike Boon - Zambezi. Arriving with humility to the greater rhythms of nature
Rhino bull tracks: notice follow listen decipher. Level the scores with the rhino.

Buffalo bulls sleep in the river, genet cat investigating, mouse at the fire pit, kingfishers up and down the river. Flock of doves drinking at the same time in the evening. These are the rhythms and patterns of behavior.
Developing an intimacy with my family place

Then things went south...An unexpected encounter with an animal.

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