Yesterday I walked out onto the clearing at sunset. On the hill there is the most ancient hope of a horizon. The scene was so soft with the graceful movements of the giraffe. At dusk a hyena slink past looking guilty. Hidden in everything is the unseen masculinity but held together by the feminine energy of nature.

Animals talk with body language. A good tracker must be attuned to this.

What does it mean to be a man? It was often a question that seemed to be asked out of profound sense of something that had not been attained or out of the question is this it?

Why so many men I speak to who have attained all of the above are still asking this question?

I have two artist friends who I deeply admire: Simon Bannister (https://www.simonmaxbannister.com/) and Emily Lamb (https://www.emilylamb.co.uk/). True Artists. In them I have seen a ferocity of commitment who I deeply admire. They have the courage to live as artists. It’s like a certain type of wildness is inbuilt into their calling.

As artists they are bringing the as yet unimagined into being. They first have to imagine that goal and then bring it into being. Not only set goals but imagine something new and then make that your goal.

To imagine with intention is a lost art form

This type of creation is between you and the spirit of that making. I understand there are many ways to go but for me the way of the artist, the ability go inward to the as yet undefined and the outwards spirit of life and alchemize those both is what its about.

The men I most admire built their lives, they made it up.

Instead of asking what does it mean to be a map, ask what does it mean to be myself? This is modern day activism.

Story of my father.

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Somethings are quite easy to talk about and it feels good to tell you what happened. Making notes help me to look deeply and sense how I am feeling.

Yesterday after the sun came out briefly, I shed my layers like a moth emerging from the cocoon. The storm was still in the forefront of my mind. I was lying in the deck staring out in the beautiful dark branches. I was tired after the night before and I felt myself relaxing. An absolute stillness came over me. I was gone, pure awareness. No time. The scene was dancing for a second inside the real truth.

What you are looking for is what you are looking. I would like to abide there. In Zen there are all these levels of mystical experience in meditation that the Rōshi's (老師) have mapped. The highest level is ordinariness. Miraculously I perceived the ordinariness.

David Whyte Reading.

If I had a wish for us today I would wish for us to learn how to village build. Binge on solitude to come home to binge on family/ My solitude has taught me to identify the difference between loneliness and longing. I like it here where I finally stopped.

The Ordinariness it Totally Miraculous

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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

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.

In truth I couldn’t find some tracks in a beautiful wilderness. I was lost but it wasn’t like life and death.

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.

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’.

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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One month of solitude to go…until what? The idea I could finish this experience is becoming somewhat absurd to me.

Touch wood my camp has not yet been ransacked by baboons. Everyday I bathe in this gratitude and I would like you all to put this all on your gratitude at the top.

After washing a pot in the river I came face to face with a teenage elephant.

Harmony is when, by being yourself, you form part of the greater whole. A Shaman once told me that what we are trying to do as we live is balance our harmony with the intelligence of life. We stop trying to live well and we are lived. Our path and purpose comes through us by being who we most naturally are. And to look at any of the animals it just takes you there. I am in this tree to find my harmony.

Inner work has two movements, the first is a clearing out and becoming aware of all the things that are not really you. Patterns that come from trauma, social conditioning, how you needed to be to be liked, to belong, your ideas about what made you valuable. Ideas from your culture. What you discover is a lot of who you thought you are is just conditioned response.

So if I aint that then what…who am I? There are no signposts here.

Carl Jung has this idea that the unconscious will play out in your life until it’s made conscious. That’s why certain patterns repeat over and over in people lives until they gain awareness around what’s driving it.

It seems to me that you choose to do inner work or life will choose for you. If life chooses for you it will be much harder.

My work today is on the tracks of a leopard which cut across a sandy patch of ground.

I’m alone at sunset. Into the Wild Journal Entry: Happiness only real when shared. I don’t know if I believe it but I understand the sentiment now. On his path the leopard suddenly calls. I’m asking myself what is my work? What can I learn from Londolozi and the leopards. Certainly my work is to let myself be seen, completely, maybe not by everyone but by someone. That is a true challenge.

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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 snakes are out in the post rain heat as I see their tracks crossing the roads.

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.

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.

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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Modem life is built on a truth and a lie.

It is surprising to me how much time giraffes spend down by the river. Like an artist I’m trying to see things differently. I look beyond them walking to a geometry.

The trick to transformational processes is how to interrupt and shape patterns, in order to do this you must look at the spaces between things. How everything is touching everything else in relation.

Down in the river the leopards continue their passions. I have not felt compelled to go and find them.

I’m developing a theory on why mystics went to nature. Imagine you are two people: a fanatic city dweller and a wild person. When the mystic goes to nature they find that wild person who knows a different rhythm. The one that gets attention becomes abiding.

Today my body was tired and I ebbed into a lower level of frequency.

In my masculine excitement I’m drawn to activity, but right now its the meditation that is calling me.

A side note on tracking. Right now it seems that all four of the prides of lions that frequent the Londolozi are on neighboring properties. There is an air of excitement about this at it means that they will be sure to return in a couple of days.

Learning to See: A many called Ken Tinley once tuaght my father how to see a tree. There is a difference between how something works and what it means.

“When you look at a tree, see the soil that holds it. Understand that soil feeds it and the tree also enriches the soil. It’s shade invites shade grass and its stem alkalizes fruit which bring in monkeys which cause leave to fall which cause antelope to browse below.

Wouldn’t it be interesting iff we all spent some time looking at nature this way. Or at your relationships or garden.

In native culture, ceremonies are a time to remember what we remember.

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Day 11 - Paradise Lost

I suspect things get a little wierder from here. Or a little mysterious depending on how you look at it. The leopards are still mating up and down the river, as if living next door to a noisy couple.

I know I must resist to fall all the way into the poetic, but its difficult, everything is so beautiful.

Lourens van der Post- Story after the war. Van Der Post came to camp alone in this wild Eastern region.

In the heat of the day I was cooking my pap by the base of the tree with two dish towels drying on the branch. For a moment the site of them took me into a state of absolute clarity.

Memories of growing up in a Shangaan village. Looking at the two dish towels I swear I was innocent again. The loss of innocence occurs the moment you become self-conscious.

One of the biggest differences between people and animals is that people behave differently in private whilst animals don’t. Shame happens when your feelings are not safe. Here though there is no one to judge or compare.

Clean Anger and Dirty Anger

Where your attention goes your life goes. After last 11 days I have been returning my attention back to nature, curiosity and being. I have changed and I so want this for you. To the felt presence of something great unfolding.

When we wake up in our lives, what do we wake up out of? The challenge is to discover your own limitations and belief. People attune to new possibilities.

Unless we keep reimagining the possibility of life we will keep teaching our children to do the wrong things.

Tonight I want you to turn off all the lights and light a fire. Ask yourself when did I feel most alive? How did I find the limit and go beyond it.

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Journal entry,

Iron John: An adventurer goes out to find out why people disappear when they go into a forest. He finds a pool and at the bottom of it he finds a wild man. He captures the wild man and puts him in a cage. Our job is to break him out. With his freedom comes more vitality, more life.

I am involved now in purposeful action towards an unknown purpose. Maybe there is an island out there. The Polynesian Wayfinders would sit on the front of a canoe and without any navigational tools would feel for an island of water. Homing. Ultimately you must captain your own canoe towards it intuitively must be.

Sometimes you meet people who help you on the way. There was Ian Thomas who was Intense, disciplined and fit. He is a brilliant tracker, a natural teacher, formidable but open. It is within shared endeavor that we can go beyond ourselves. I like adventures where you can learn many things at once. It was as if you were at the doorway beyond comprehension.

The wild man inside of us is not a savage. So that we may understand the spirit of our gifts and our wounding so that we may bring them to the world with more light.

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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.

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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My troubles all began with a frog. Actually it started when a grasshopper head butted me whilst using the toilet. I understand why people who live close to the earth belief in the changing moods of nature.

The elephant cow was unnerved by me, but I saw that she had run into a musty bull which was causing her agitation. At the last minute they crashed down the river bank instead of into me.

The temperature rose so much that it felt like I was at the devil’s for a barbecue. Then the wind came up and the temperature went from devil’s barbecue to Narnia within 6 hours. I felt like I was at sea in a storm.

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