Track Your Life with Boyd Varty

Is there something you know that lights you on fire, that somehow you keep falling asleep to? I am reminded that the wild has my heart. I reflect on how my work is, in some ways, to inhabit and remember wildness, in an ever more domestic world. I must not forget this secret art of my life - to be in tune with wilderness. Our organic plans to meet with the Bushmen people are coming together. I am ready and excited to learn from the Bushmen people - who are renowned trackers and people of the land. Mentioned in this episode: The San people is the broad term for the name of many clans that make up the Bushmen. I will refer to the people I met with the term Bushmen because that is how they asked me to refer to them. Timestamps (05:22 - - 06:08) The intersection of energy of the trackers and the energy of the Shaman Resources: Online Courses: Become a Story Hunter - Sign up for the Story Hunter Online Course. (https://boydvarty.com/story-hunter-online-course/) Uncover the track of your life through the Track Your Life Online Guided Retreat. (https://boydvarty.com/course-listing/) Discover Boyd's books: https://boydvarty.com/book/ Come to Africa. Visit Londolozi (https://boydvarty.com/retreats/visit-londolozi/) Join Boyd’s community: Follow the journey - Subscribe to the Track your Life Podcast and never miss an episode. Sign up to Boyd’s newsletter. (https://boydvarty.com/contact/) Follow Boyd on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/boyd_varty/) X (https://twitter.com/BoydVarty) Visit Boyd's website (https://boydvarty.com/) for more.

At sunrise, we cut the tracks of a male lion. This episode follows our pursuit of this majestic animal through wild and dangerous terrain. Deep down, I feel my own hunter - a desire to compete and survive. I feel a million-year-old drive to find what I'm tracking. I feel how in the wild, there is no margin for error. A mistake out here can mean instant death. And this proximity to real death is paradoxically full of life. There is an intimacy to tracking. To walk in an animal's footsteps all day is to know that animal on a different level. And the beginning of a transformation and a deeper understanding of our own agency in the world. Tracking takes us on a journey of mastery and perseverance that challenges us to question the crafting of our experiences in the pursuit of what it means to truly be alive. Mentioned in this episode: The San people is the broad term for the name of many clans that make up the Bushmen. I will refer to the people I met with the term Bushmen because that is how they asked me to refer to them. Timestamps (02:24) The alertness to lion tracking 3.37 - Archetypal energies of tracking 08.58 - Different worlds 10.22 - Finding the lions Resources: Online Courses: Become a Story Hunter - Sign up for the Story Hunter Online Course. (https://boydvarty.com/story-hunter-online-course/) Uncover the track of your life through the Track Your Life Online Guided Retreat. (https://boydvarty.com/course-listing/) Discover Boyd's books: https://boydvarty.com/book/ Come to Africa. Visit Londolozi (https://boydvarty.com/retreats/visit-londolozi/) Join Boyd’s community: Follow the journey - Subscribe to the Track your Life Podcast and never miss an episode. Sign up to Boyd’s newsletter. (https://boydvarty.com/contact/) Follow Boyd on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/boyd_varty/) X (https://twitter.com/BoydVarty) Visit Boyd's website (https://boydvarty.com/) for more.

Our first morning of tracking in the Delta starts early - following the tracks of a lonely hyena track with lacklustre enthusiasm. Suddenly, our morning takes an exhilarating turn and the energy of the group shifts, as we find ourselves on the trail of a pack of Wild Dogs - also known as African Wolves, or Painted Wolves. In most places, we wouldn’t bother following the tracks of wild dogs as the ground they cover is too vast. But here, in the Delta we have no boundaries or time constraint. We feel the vitality and the movement of the wild dogs and we begin to move as a pack. The hours pass and we follow onwards into a massive wilderness. We are interacting with the wild like few people can. The wild has started to shape us. Mentioned in this episode: The San people is the broad term for the name of many clans that make up the Bushmen. I will refer to the people I met with the term Bushmen because that is how they asked me to refer to them. Timestamps 1.34 - On the track of Wild Dogs 09.22 - Losing the track 12.35 - We will always remember this track Resources: Online Courses: Become a Story Hunter - Sign up for the Story Hunter Online Course. (https://boydvarty.com/story-hunter-online-course/) Uncover the track of your life through the Track Your Life Online Guided Retreat. (https://boydvarty.com/course-listing/) Discover Boyd's books: https://boydvarty.com/book/ Come to Africa. Visit Londolozi (https://boydvarty.com/retreats/visit-londolozi/) Join Boyd’s community: Follow the journey - Subscribe to the Track your Life Podcast and never miss an episode. Sign up to Boyd’s newsletter. (https://boydvarty.com/contact/) Follow Boyd on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/boyd_varty/) X (https://twitter.com/BoydVarty) Visit Boyd's website (https://boydvarty.com/) for more.

The Okavango Delta is an incredible natural phenomenon that can be seen from space. When we land in Maune, we meet up with two fellow trackers, and graduates of the Tracker Academy, Otto James and Innocent Ngwenya. Personally, there is something very satisfying as a tracker to meeting up with other elite trackers on the edge of a massive wilderness. I couldn't be more excited. There is a feeling of adventure in the air. Before we head south to meet with the Bushman, we visit a leopard habituation programme, pioneered by the Tracker Academy. What has been achieved with the leopard habituation programme is remarkable and has had a profound impact on conservation. We drive north from Maun over dusty wild roads into the Delta. It's a vast and beautiful wilderness. It's hard to describe, but it feels like the deeper we go into the wild, the more at home we feel. Mentioned in this episode: The San people is the broad term for the name of many clans that make up the Bushmen. I will refer to the people I met with the term Bushmen because that is how they asked me to refer to them. Leopard Habituation Habituation is when a tracker spends months and months tracking a leopard, slowly building a relationship of trust with that animal. It's important to stress that habituation is not taming. The animal remains as wild as ever. The process starts by finding the animal on foot using tracking over time, you show it you mean it no harm. Eventually the animal becomes calmer, and relaxed enough through the constant presence of trustworthy humans, to allow itself to be seen. The result of having wild leopards that allow themselves to be seen is almost impossible for a game reserve to quantify. If the habituation process is successful, suddenly whole reserves (wild areas where animals are being protected) become viable. Tourists come from everywhere to see the leopard, one of the world’s most elusive animals. This results in not only the ultimate protection of the land, but also the development of a local economy. Habituation is about rebuilding the relationship between humanity and nature. Learn more here. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCSe6YpNgQM) -- Tracker Academy (https://www.trackeracademy.co.za/) was established to preserve the indigenous knowledge of wildlife tracking. Resources: Online Courses: Become a Story Hunter - Sign up for the Story Hunter Online Course. (https://boydvarty.com/story-hunter-online-course/) Uncover the track of your life through the Track Your Life Online Guided Retreat. (https://boydvarty.com/course-listing/) Discover Boyd's books: https://boydvarty.com/book/ Come to Africa. Visit Londolozi (https://boydvarty.com/retreats/visit-londolozi/) Join Boyd’s community: Follow the journey - Subscribe to the Track your Life Podcast and never miss an episode. Sign up to Boyd’s newsletter. (https://boydvarty.com/contact/) Follow Boyd on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/boyd_varty/) X (https://twitter.com/BoydVarty) Visit Boyd's website (https://boydvarty.com/) for more.

Imagine a time when nature was our storehouse. When we knew how to share and to simply be. We knew we didn’t need much for our expedition to the Kalahari. For the Bushmen people, food surpluses are not prominent, as the environment itself acts as a storehouse - imagine a sense of deep psychological abundance and knowing you will always be provided for. Simplicity is abundance and the desert calls for a beautiful simplicity. I always know when I'm in an important experience because the experience itself starts to constellate new thought processes. I start to daydream about how to ignite the collective psychological abundance in our culture. What can we do to instill a sense of abundance in people? I don’t know what we will find on our expedition - but I am excited about simplicity. I hope with the Bushmen people, I can touch an older way of life that might teach me how to live in this one. Mentioned in this episode: The San people is the broad term for the name of many clans that make up the Bushmen. I will refer to the people I met with the term Bushmen because that is how they asked me to refer to them. -- Boyd makes reference to the book Boiling Energy, by Richard Katz (https://www.amazon.com/Boiling-Energy-Community-Healing-Kalahari/dp/0674077369) Timestamps (4.26) - Learning about the life of the Bushmen people (6.14) - Modern life structures (7.41) - Simplicity in the desert Resources: Online Courses: Become a Story Hunter - Sign up for the Story Hunter Online Course. (https://boydvarty.com/story-hunter-online-course/) Uncover the track of your life through the Track Your Life Online Guided Retreat. (https://boydvarty.com/course-listing/) Discover Boyd's books: https://boydvarty.com/book/ Come to Africa. Visit Londolozi (https://boydvarty.com/retreats/visit-londolozi/) Join Boyd’s community: Follow the journey - Subscribe to the Track your Life Podcast and never miss an episode. Sign up to Boyd’s newsletter. (https://boydvarty.com/contact/) Follow Boyd on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/boyd_varty/) X (https://twitter.com/BoydVarty) Visit Boyd's website (https://boydvarty.com/) for more.

The expedition begins with Alex van den Heever - close friend, seasoned wildlife tracker and founder of the Tracker Academy. We want to understand how closely the Bushmen people are still living in tune with nature. We want to find out what skills have been lost and what still survive. We want to understand whether the ancient hunting skills associated with the art of tracking are still being taught. To explore this place at the intersection of nature and the human psyche, is my deepest calling. To be with the Bushmen people, is to go back through time to where this intersection is closer to the surface of consciousness. We are going into a rare place in these modern times. We are going back to the wild. Mentioned in this episode: The San people is the broad term for the name of many clans that make up the Bushmen. I will refer to the people I met with the term Bushmen because that is how they asked me to refer to them. -- The Tracker Academy (https://boydvarty.com/impact/tracker-academy/) was established to preserve the indigenous knowledge of wildlife tracking. The persistence method is possibly one of the oldest forms of hunting, practiced long before the invention of bows and arrows, and the domestication of dogs. It is also known as the great dance, and together with the art of tracking, it has evolved into more sophisticated levels that are still practised today, by modern hunter-gatherers, in some parts of the world. Timestamps (0.44) Alex van Heerden, Renias Mhlongo and the Tracker Academy (9.23) Preparing for the Kalahari Resources: Online Courses: Become a Story Hunter - Sign up for the Story Hunter Online Course. (https://boydvarty.com/story-hunter-online-course/) Uncover the track of your life through the Track Your Life Online Guided Retreat. (https://boydvarty.com/course-listing/) Discover Boyd's books: https://boydvarty.com/book/ Come to Africa. Visit Londolozi (https://boydvarty.com/retreats/visit-londolozi/) Join Boyd’s community: Follow the journey - Subscribe to the Track your Life Podcast and never miss an episode. Sign up to Boyd’s newsletter. (https://boydvarty.com/contact/) Follow Boyd on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/boyd_varty/) X (https://twitter.com/BoydVarty) Visit Boyd's website (https://boydvarty.com/) for more.

A good story will set you apart in almost any setting. When I was working as a safari guide, I would notice that a story could always shift the group's energetic momentum towards you, which is important when you are guiding. More than being a momentum shifter, a well-crafted story could, in the right moment, be profoundly transcendent. If you cultivate your capacity as a storyteller, you cultivate your life. If you are becoming a storyteller, you're working on your life as much as you're working in it. Stepping back to work on, and develop, the multiple stories that make up your life is important work. It will radically leverage your life and your impact in almost any setting. Humans are narrative creatures. This has been true since the first people told stories around the fire. When you become a master of narrative, you become a world maker. Mentioned in this episode: Visit Londolozi (https://boydvarty.com/retreats/visit-londolozi/) The Tracker Academy (https://www.trackeracademy.co.za/) was established to preserve the indigenous knowledge of wildlife tracking. Connect with Andreas Sitole (https://www.instagram.com/andreasithole/) Learn more about David Rattray and Fugitives Drift (https://www.fugitivesdrift.com/david-rattray/) Timestamps (5:35) David Rattray, South African Historian, and the story that set him apart (15.32) - Working on your personal story (19.57) - Andreas Sitole’s story ‘Into the Unknown’ Resources: Online Courses: Become a Story Hunter - Sign up for the Story Hunter Online Course. (https://boydvarty.com/story-hunter-online-course/) Uncover the track of your life through the Track Your Life Online Guided Retreat. (https://boydvarty.com/course-listing/) Discover Boyd's books: https://boydvarty.com/book/ Come to Africa. Visit Londolozi (https://boydvarty.com/retreats/visit-londolozi/) Join Boyd’s community: Follow the journey - Subscribe to the Track your Life Podcast and never miss an episode. Sign up to Boyd’s newsletter. (https://boydvarty.com/contact/) Follow Boyd on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/boyd_varty/) X (https://twitter.com/BoydVarty) Visit Boyd's website (https://boydvarty.com/) for more.

If you have begun the journey of becoming a Story Hunter, you have become a character who finds characters, switched on your attention, learnt to see with the right kind of eyes, become someone who can create context. You are now ready to touch the core of what makes the story elevated. I call it the personal collective. There is a strangely universal truth that the more in touch you are with your own unique personal essence, the more what you have to say becomes universally meaningful. The most private things are the most universal things. Any type of trying to be commercially successful or thinking about the end user while you work will kill an artist's freedom. Yet if you are a storyteller, you want the story to be listener friendly. I always think about how a listener could put their own story into my stories. This is not a rule but rather an orientation. Like a compass, I point personal story towards a subtextual, universal story. A story always has an archetypal core. Mentioned in this episode Londolozi - https://boydvarty.com/retreats/visit-londolozi/ Learn more about the Tsalala pride at Londolozi - https://blog.londolozi.com/2021/12/07/the-legacy-of-the-tsalala-pride/ Timestamps (3.30) The Tsalala pride (06:43) Universal energies (08:42) Living with severe depression and anxiety Resources: Online Courses: Become a Story Hunter - Sign up for the Story Hunter Online Course. (https://boydvarty.com/story-hunter-online-course/) Uncover the track of your life through the Track Your Life Online Guided Retreat. (https://boydvarty.com/course-listing/) Discover Boyd's books: https://boydvarty.com/book/ Come to Africa. Visit Londolozi (https://boydvarty.com/retreats/visit-londolozi/) Join Boyd’s community: Follow the journey - Subscribe to the Track your Life Podcast and never miss an episode. Sign up to Boyd’s newsletter. (https://boydvarty.com/contact/) Follow Boyd on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/boyd_varty/) X (https://twitter.com/BoydVarty) Visit Boyd's website (https://boydvarty.com/) for more.

There is a deep chasm between the making of art and the experiencing of it. When I am in that chasm - a solitary path - I know I must face the resistance in the now, knowing what it can give in the future. Are you willing to do what it takes to be creative? Art is experienced by the public, in the public. But in most cases it is created in crushing solitude. At some point, if you are to produce good work, you will need to be alone in a room for a long time. Within those days there will be beautiful flow. But mostly there will be a kind of self consciousness, at times even a self hatred, of procrastination - a dull judging solitude. It is always a profound challenge to be alone long enough to create something of quality. I certainly know this as a writer. As a Story Hunter you must have the courage to be alone enough to make your art. Timestamps (03:15) David Foster Wallace - chasm of art Resources: Online Courses: Become a Story Hunter - Sign up for the Story Hunter Online Course. (https://boydvarty.com/story-hunter-online-course/) Uncover the track of your life through the Track Your Life Online Guided Retreat. (https://boydvarty.com/course-listing/) Discover Boyd's books: https://boydvarty.com/book/ Come to Africa. Visit Londolozi (https://boydvarty.com/retreats/visit-londolozi/) Join Boyd’s community: Follow the journey - Subscribe to the Track your Life Podcast and never miss an episode. Sign up to Boyd’s newsletter. (https://boydvarty.com/contact/) Follow Boyd on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/boyd_varty/) X (https://twitter.com/BoydVarty) Visit Boyd's website (https://boydvarty.com/) for more.

As a Story Hunter, I have found that remote places are often the natural habitat of wild characters. Finding characters in life is becoming harder, as life becomes more homogenized. Characters almost always have found their own uniqueness and a path to express it. They seem to fit what they’re doing - they know what lights them up. They know what they have to offer. And almost always, they know how to live in a way that is unique to them. Characters almost always have a different worldview, and they are often world class in an unusual field. When you spend time with a character who has mastered a state, your own sense of what is truly possible is expanded. Characters help you imagine a world of possibility for yourself. Timestamps (5:40) Losing an arm to a crocodile (8.10) Discovering your personal uniqueness (11.25) Good reason to find characters Resources: Online Courses: Become a Story Hunter - Sign up for the Story Hunter Online Course. (https://boydvarty.com/story-hunter-online-course/) Uncover the track of your life through the Track Your Life Online Guided Retreat. (https://boydvarty.com/course-listing/) Discover Boyd's books: https://boydvarty.com/book/ Come to Africa. Visit Londolozi (https://boydvarty.com/retreats/visit-londolozi/) Join Boyd’s community: Follow the journey - Subscribe to the Track your Life Podcast and never miss an episode. Sign up to Boyd’s newsletter. (https://boydvarty.com/contact/) Follow Boyd on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/boyd_varty/) X (https://twitter.com/BoydVarty) Visit Boyd's website (https://boydvarty.com/) for more.