The Lion Tracker’s Guide to Life

By Boyd Varty

2019

Nonfiction

“My whole life I have been afflicted and blessed with a sense that there is a way in which life delivers us to a place ordered by some intelligence beyond our own.”

“I don’t know where I’m going, but I know exactly how to get there.”

Boyd Varty is something of a contradiction. No one would dispute his success in the modern world, being an internationally renowned speaker, life coach and author. Yet the things he shares are rooted far in the past, in a more archaic time, and a way of life that most of us have long forgotten: the way of the tracker. Who would have thought that the skills one learned growing up in the African Bushveld, where Shangaan tribespeople and wildlife are your mentors, would help find meaning in this technologically-driven world? If we saw the way of the tracker as no longer applicable to us we would be doing it, and ourselves, a great disservice. I have said many times and I’ll say it again: Irony is a force of nature. And in this case, it’s the idea that the hard-won wisdom of a tribe of African trackers might contain the antidote to the malaise of the modern era. There are some truths that never go away, no matter how many screens come between us. One way to be reminded is by putting yourself in sight of a lion’s teeth.

The essence of this book is that the answers to the questions What must I do? How do I get there? How do I live? Are out there, but will never be found by making lists, endless rumination, mindless scrolling or any of the artforms we’ve perfected in our modern times. Our essence, our path, is to be found the same way the Shangaan people of South Africa can track a single lion across the landscape. If we are to discover who we are and what we’re supposed to do, we all have to become trackers.

It’s told as a story, the recounting of a single day in which Boyd, having just returned to the bushveld after some time away, reunites with two of his oldest and wisest friends in the predawn hours for a good old fashioned lion track. Eventually, they hear a distant roar, and the adventure begins. As the day progresses, the narrative changes around between Boyd’s upbringing, his relationship with his father, the history of the land they now walk, Boyd’s own musings on the nature of finding one’s way, and the present moment, as the trio progress through the bushveld, finding the lion’s trail, losing it, and finding it again. 

No story is complete without good characters. Boyd’s friends, Alex and Renias, are maybe my favorite thing about the book. More than simply friends, Alex and Renias are both expert trackers who mentored Boyd throughout his youth and taught him everything he knows about the art. They are friends, comrades, mentors, and teachers. Alex is a short, mischievous, white South Afrikaner who acts as a living bridge between the indigenous Shangaan people of the plain and the outside world. They gave him his nickname, ‘Small Boots.’ He speaks the Shangaan language, often surprising and delighting Shangaan shopkeepers and elderly folks in the region when they hear their language spoken beautifully by this scruffy white fellow. The author described him as ten years older than me, close enough to get into trouble together, old enough to guide me out of it.

Next up on the ladder of tracking legends is Renias. He’s one of those larger than life figures who seems to jump off the page and inhabit your imagination the same way he inhabits the bushveld. He arrives in true Renias style, in a state of pure joy. As one of the last true Shangaan trackers, his connection to the natural world is pure, uninterrupted, and almost otherworldly. Boyd has often considered that he might be enlightened. A mentor to both Boyd and Alex, he belongs to the bushveld just as much as the lions they set out to find. He laughs intensely at his own jokes, he finds treadmills utterly ridiculous, and he has no sense of saving money. When the track goes cold, or when faced with a lack of information, he repeats the same thing: “Hi ta swi kuma.” We will get. (my new motto)  He is the embodiment of all the wisdom contained in this book. There’s a brilliant section where Boyd tells the story of a time when Alex, then a young safari guide full of swagger and confidence, unwittingly walked into a leopard’s den, tripped and dropped his rifle. Renias, through his calm presence, his body language and a hand on Alex’s shoulder, was able to control the situation and guide them both away from an enraged mother leopard and a gruesome death. From then on, Alex’s arrogance was completely vaporized and he was committed to learning everything he could from Ren. He recognized in him a true master and knew that his path, his track, was in following this man. As the story goes along, the way Boyd described watching these two lifelong friends track and adventure together in a state of wordless communication and understanding struck me as, among other things, male bonding at its purest and most sacred.

I could go on but I don’t want to say too much. This was a wonderful little book. It’s all about the idea that the answers to life aren’t written on the wall but up to us to discover, and the way we do that is by paying attention to our lives the way Renias pays attention to the bush: with faith and diligence. I don’t think anyone, no matter how distracted by modern life, truly believes in their heart of hearts that we are totally separate from the world, though it certainly feels like that sometimes. And in the western worldview that many of us share, there is no logical reason to believe that we are connected to, or a part of nature. If anything, this book is asking us to revisit that notion, to consider that the answers to our most profound questions lie not in to-do lists but in the art of quietly paying attention to exactly where we are in this moment. Once we pay attention, we notice the little things that were there all along but that we were too fussed to see. A bent blade of grass. A clawmark in the earth. A pang of longing. A perk of interest. We all have a lion to track. There is no map, no surefire route to finding it. We are all standing on our doorsteps before dawn, listening to the dark, with nothing but a faint roar and some broken twigs to guide us.

Hi ta swi kuma. We will get.