All episodes of Track Your Life with Boyd Varty

The Great Dance

There is a beautiful feeling to driving into the middle of nowhere, and frankly anywhere west of Hukunsi is the middle of nowhere. The land is vast and empty. White desert sand, tall camel thorn trees, rolling plains of dry grass, that just goes on and on and on. The temperature gauge on the vehicle gives a casual outside reading of 46 degrees at three in the afternoon. We bump along dirt roads into a wildlife concession roughly the size of Switzerland that not a single tourist visits. This...

Published 11/28/24

Track Your Life with Boyd Varty

Published 11/28/24

Cheetah

In this episode we embark on what feels like a masterclass in desert tracking. The first light of dawn hadn't yet cracked the horizon when I found myself breathless, feet sinking into the sands of the Kalahari, trying to match the pace of Kecao, Hamku, and Tamai, on the tracks of a cheetah. In this story, experience the rush of the intense pursuit, unmatched tracking skills and exhilarating enthusiasm. The vast landscape challenges every ounce of our stamina while we learn the language...

Published 11/21/24

The road South

We have begun our journey South. In Ghanzi we are warmly greeted by Anneli, who is a descendant of the Dorsland Trekkers, and can be described as the salt of the earth. She shares her knowledge with all the complexities and nuances that only a local can offer and offers a small window of insight into the complex interactions between traditional and modern ways of life in the Kalahari. I'm quickly learning that in this profoundly complicated world,, we often miss the multiple layers and...

Published 11/14/24

Last night in the Delta

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...

Published 11/07/24

Pride

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...

Published 10/31/24

Power of the pack

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...

Published 10/24/24

Into the Delta

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...

Published 10/17/24

Simplicity is abundance

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...

Published 10/10/24

The expedition begins

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...

Published 10/03/24

A story apart

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...

Published 09/19/24

The personal collective

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....

Published 09/12/24

The unseen solitary path

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...

Published 09/05/24

Seek out characters to become one

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...

Published 08/29/24

Nothing bad ever happened to a Story Hunter

Being lost is part of being found. In this episode, I share my experience of being lost, tracking lions with group of guests on a Track Your Life retreat. Stories are layered with meaning. Meaning is almost always a constellation of thoughts and beliefs that weave into a story - and retreat participants were pulled into an unfolding co-created story, making meaning out of the experience. They had learnt a basic universal lesson: there is always something unfolding as it should. I...

Published 08/22/24

Stories are attention

If the truth is stranger than fiction, then the art of storytelling is not to make something up, but rather to really see what is there. Reality, if you look close enough, is almost always hilarious. Storytelling is about providing context and meaning. It's a discipline of attention, a way of helping others understand the world around them. Mentioned in this episode Listen to Boyd’s epic account of 40 days and 40 nights spent alone in a treehouse in the wild eastern part of South...

Published 08/15/24

Be someone stories happen around

If you are to become a storyhunter you must live stories. You must find a way to say yes to life beyond the known. Seek out people and places that resonate with things you're naturally curious about. Curiosity will pull you into unknown circles. If you can be in those spaces, adventures will emerge. Make friends with people who will pull your life into stories. Say yes to something you normally wouldn’t. There is a story across town, if you can learn to say yes to...

Published 08/08/24

How it started

A person who can tell a story is gifted with the ability to help people understand and feel. A truly brilliant storyteller is structuring awareness - they are an instrument for meaning. This is why storytelling - an ancient shamanic art - is magic. This podcast series emerged out of a time when I had retreated back into the wild african bushveld, after three years of almost endless travel. I wanted to disappear for a while. I have come to think of anonymity as one of life’s deepest gifts....

Published 08/08/24

Activating the Campfire Consciousness