Track Your Life with Boyd Varty

Journal entry

In this case this results in an entire afternoon alone in heat and burning midday light scouting. It’s not romantic…..it's solo trudging…..self motivated. No one to make a show for. It comes out of a place in me.

I'm tracking but I'm not tracking….

At certain levels of any practice or artform …..what you are doing gives way to who you are being.

I feel this now as I trudge around with no sign of a rhino.

Martha Beck, my mentor, used to say to me “how you do one thing you do everything.”

I am developing my capacity for symphony……

My ability to allow seemingly unrelated parts of life come together.

This quest for the sacred is of course more than that….. It's about living towards the track of my life.

This understanding is what motivates me when after four hours I have not seen one fresh track.

The koppie where I planned to sleep is off limits as someone has just sighted a leopard with a cub on it.

I change my plan and drive south to another old platform in a tree called tingwe camp.

The camp is set in a beautiful dry river bed…….dense with tamboti trees.

Night is falling fast and the sky turns pink while the second the sun drops behind the horizon it gets cold.

Up the river from me a pack of wild dogs has made a den in an old termite mound. Occasionally I hear the young pups squealing at their parents for meat.

The night rushes in and with it cold.

Before you ask yourself questions of spirit like.

The answer to that question may be an indication of if you are really ready for the other two.

Around me the birds roost it clicks and tsks

The fire starts and the night crashes onto me. Black.

In the shadows of the fire there are ghosts of other nights I spent here.

A July winter when I was 15 with my best friend.

In my twenties as safari guides on nights off we would come and sleep attingwe camp. by now we were beer drinking pros and I remember a night when a kind of wild fire dance culminated in about 20 of us covering ourselves in mud stealing back to the main lodge camp like special forces and abducting all other staff out their rooms to come and party with us. To be fair they didn’t resist much. In fact I recall a Land Rover full of muddy rangers, beautiful hostesses and other hostages packed to the brim. In the confusion of the raid someone had put a standing exercise bike on the bonnet of the land rover and now a ranger was pedaling it as it drove everyone back to the tree house

The camp had been a place where many young guides in training had slept out in the wild for the first time. It was the place many young men and women under the stars for the first time had heard a lion roar at midnight.

I tell you all of this because as I sat around that small fire last night…. I understood that part of why this spot is sacred to me is that it was dense with memory.

I had been engaged to be married once….and after that fell apart I had come back to this spot fundamentally confused by the dilemmas of love and compatibility.

If the arrow of time is not linear. If time is in fact a flat circle where everything is actually occurring simultaneously then as I sat by that fire I sat with versions of myself in time just a veil of perception away.

Was the sacred coming into me from the place or finally coming out me to make the place.

All through the night that almost oppressive stillness remained. The star's crystal with cold above me. oppressive is the wrong word…..but never have i felt a calm of that intensity.

At dawn a three legged hyena slunk eerily through the camp.

I share this.

But understand also that there is so much space between the magic.. where I am operating alone and self reliant. There is always the potential for danger and it is not so much romantic as it requires attention and the discomfort that comes with growth.

Wow i'm really not sure how to say this.

Let me try this.

When I was facilitating a lot of ceremony work……the schedule would be intense. A different group every night in a different city.

That work…..

So yes I am searching for the sacred in wild places.

But more than that I am trying to find what calls me forth. Because I feel like living towards that with motivation and discipline might be the sacred that is not a place.

40- out

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The original purpose of religion was to bring sacredness to life. Imagine a time (whether prehistorical or transhistorical) when human beings lived moment-to-moment in the presence of the sacred. Religion was unnecessary. There was no separation between spirituality and life, no distinction between the sacred and the mundane, no division of the Godly and the worldly. When we lost the ongoing and immediate sense of sacredness, then we needed religion to bring us back to it. "Religion," after all, means "that which renews our connection."

Then suddenly it was the day of the first expedition.

I had dragged my feet enough…it was time to gear up and go.

I was done planning……

Its time for action.

But it was raining

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Anthony Bourdain once said “I know theres a guy inside me who wants to lay in bed all day and eat donuts. My life is a series or strategems to avoid and outwit that guy”.

If you’re an artist you know this place.

I wake up at 4 30 every day and meditate for an Hour.

The dragon of resistance.

In truth resistance is its own powerful force.

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In a setting with almost no connotation for me to the Sacred.

I will start with what I can. I will work with the track I have.

I will walk alone to specific places on the land……. Sleep on the ground…… meditate….and ask those places to help me understand. I will go unnassisted on my own two feet to the places that call me.

You have to understand I am not a beaded necklaces kind of guy. I am open to the mystry but I am not a hippy. Its not all good vibrations with me. In fact I tend to be turned off by to much heart clutching incence burning. I'm allergic to anything that feels like we are contriving our way to a show of depth

But I want to remember life in that way.

I want to know it when I see it.

I want to understand the secret of the Sacred.

I might not find anything

As I sit here I can think of five places that are calling me.

I could go to them.

The whole ying yang.

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Boyd Varty decides to walk around the full boundary of Londolozi (no mean feet), and shares with us his adventure as he takes on this mission with Londolozi’s General Manager, Duncan MacLarty, Digital Storyteller and Ranger James Tyrrell and Head Ranger, James Souchon.

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:

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Notes on Re-entry

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.

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And then all of sudden we were there. The face of the people I love. Saying goodbye with immense gratitude to the tree and this beautiful place on the river. The last dawn from inside this experience on the river. I know this is not the end but the beginning. You will be hearing from me. There is so much life for us all to live. I’m not going to try and summarize of sign off well. I have said what I need to say. I will leave you with an anthem by the late great South Africa Johnny Clegg. Volume up, listen to the words:

The world is full of strange behavior

I'm searching for the spirit of the great heart

There's a highway of stars across the heavens

I'm searching for the spirit of the great heart

I'm searching for the spirit of the great heart

I'm searching for the spirit of the great heart

Songwriters: Jonathan Paul Clegg

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A ceremony is a place to remember to remember. As I walk through my last 39 days I have a lot to reflect on. I remember the resistance that arose before leaving home. I remember the anxiety of the first few days when six weeks seemed like an eternity. I must remember to sit with anxiety with compassion. I remember the feeling of a shell being taken off after one week. How do I work with this after I return back? Optimization for me comes out of consistency. I must remember to sometimes just start.

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.

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.

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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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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.

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.

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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