Track Your Life with Boyd Varty

This morning at Dawn a spur fowl flew over me in sheer terror. A second after a goshawk came past, silent with its wings tucked. Thinking a lot about how information is transferred. Want to follow an elephant bull for a whole day. Following one took me into a grove of green grass and trees. I followed signs of crushed foliage and chewed branches. I have been alone for twenty days and have a profou...

One day before the halfway mark and I’m in a rage. In a clear blue sky a benign cloud floated over my camp and dumped everything it had on me. Everything was wet. Wet blankets, cloths, shoes which set in a whole process of drying and cleaning. The rage culminated on my run when a swarm of biting flies bit me and I exploded. I broke a branch off the tree and started to whip myself in a clearing. Th...

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...

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...

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. Experiences that are characterize by what’s not happening. The finger pointing to the moon are not the moon. 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 mi...

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. Tra...

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. Communication has been well established. An...

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...

Modem life is built on a truth and a lie. Excerpt from Braiding Sweet Grass, a beautiful book about indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge and the teaching of plant. The land is the real teacher all we need is mindfulness. 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...

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 alo...

Journal entry, Thinking of loved ones across the world. This morning I walked down to the river and a cloud of orange butterflies encircled me. Above them an aura of dragonflies and then higher a martial eagle circling. For a moment I was enclosed in a concentric interlocking sequences I was a world inside a world. Interdimensional and I was walking in nature. Iron John: An adventurer goes out to...

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 cal...

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 tem...

Journal Entry: Discovered a perfect white fluff ball of feathers. My roommate, a chinspot basis. I got to bed to roost. Living in a tree you don’t look up at birds, you are eye level. African Hawk Eagles, Chinspot Batis, Tracks, Lions, Roost, Presence, Richard Siwela, Manyelethi Why am I Here? Why have I always known I would live in a tree? Why do I track solo? Why do you know you must do that you...

Let me tell you an ancient story I just made up. Try and listen with the wild part of you. Listen close and push your rational mind away, a myth is a lie about the truth. This is a myth about Lalela, the Wildebeest and the Man. All of this because yesterday a wildebeest crossed the river. I did with great trepidation cross the river and walk the other side of the river. I cut across his tracks and...

Journal Entry: Wildebeest crosses river? Why did the wildebeest cross the river? Tree looks like Robinson Crusoe has taken residence. River sings songs to me. Its tune change with the breeze. I haven’t felt this still in years. I feel so much more connected to my life through this simplicity. I feel present and grateful. My days are simple. The joy of being in your own energy. So many people feel...

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 anim...

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...

Sounds of silence and stillness. Wind comes up, coffee undrinkable. Hyenas arrive, sunrise meditation. Giant baboon flood debris (Raymond). Minimalise my emanation of physical output is the ground from which deeper changes can emerge. Understanding and attuning to the frequencies of the animals days. Emergence of anxiety - what are those old stories and how am I making sense of them. Looking at my...

Find the track of a more purpose driven life: https://boydvarty.com/course-listing/track-your-life-online-guided-retreat/ Enroll in Boyd's Online Course Here:  https://boydvarty.com/courses/track-your-life-online-retreat/ Boyd reflects on Day 1 of his 40 day, 40 night journey into the wilderness. He sets up camp at the Treehouse and takes us through his daily routine Connect with Boyd Va...

Boyd begins preparing for his immersion into the wilderness by spending the morning tracking a pride of lions which ends in an unusual encounter. Together with the increase in temperature at the end of the summer season Boyd contemplates the impact of the weather (hot and cold, dry and wet) on his time in the wilderness. Boyd discusses books that he is considering taking out to the treehosue with...

What happens to your consciousness and being stripped away from modern life. Why did all the mystics return to nature for extended periods? What does the exploration of spirit look like in a completely natural environment? What am I and What do I become? Connect with Boyd Varty: Website | https://boydvarty.com/ Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/boyd_varty/ Twitter | https://twitter.com/BoydVar...