Track Your Life with Boyd Varty

New addition to the list of animals seen from the camp, but I will get to that. One thing about living outside is that it makes you’re more hardy. You get scrapes and bites and sometimes if can fee…

There is a line in the Book of Mormon where a Ugandan women is singing about the Utopia that can be found in Salt Lake City. At first it seems like another comedic line, but it’s actually profound. …

I am missing all my friends. In my mind I find myself composing long legends of the fall type letters on a typewriter. Dear friends….the nights grow colder, I think of you often.

There is somethin…

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 incid…

Fresh tracks of a pride of lions in the predawn light behind the camp. Its been strangely cool, almost like a cold winter has been knocking on the door. Tracks cut down into the river and onto a be…

Last night I had a dream. I was walking around the premises of the boarding school I went to when I was ten. I could see the dull linoleum floors and the fluorescent light hallways. There I would …

Waking up I felt no motivation to get out of bed. So I just lay there.
I thought of all the years I suffered from depression when I woke with the dreaded weight on me.

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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…

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…

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 re…

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…

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 h…

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 flexi…

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 thi…

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 tho…

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 a…

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 ne…

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 …

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.

Neuro…

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…