Part 2_Episode 4_The power of the pack


Story Hunter, episode four, the power of the pack. 


By 7:30am we still hadn't found any tracks. We've been out since well before dawn, and the trackers’ morale was slowly starting to wane. It was Innocent, who eventually saw fresh tracks of a lonely hyena. And, as we had failed to find leopard or lion tracks, we decided with somewhat lacklustre enthusiasm to follow the hyena for a while. We abandoned the vehicle saddled up without daypacks and set off. To be honest with you, I was sure nothing would come of it. No one was excited about following a lonely hyena track. We were at best going through the motions. It was something to do on a quiet morning in the wild. Suddenly, Alex clicked and I saw a shift in his demeanour in the thick Mopane bush ahead of us, a single zebra began to give an alarm call. Guys, there's a wild dog track here, he said. Wild Dogs or painted dogs are African wolves. They live in packs that range across huge areas. Wild Dogs are endangered as a result of the sheer scope of their home range, which often results in them coming into conflict with humans. Alex turned to follow the track and soon Innocence is on his shoulder. As I work to follow them I cut the tracks of a third dog or turn James on the track of a fourth dog. Suddenly, we are on the trail of an entire pack of wild dogs. Tracks of dogs are coming in from the side and joining the energy of our group shifts immediately. Tracks are the signal. The tracker is the receiver. Fresh tracks transfer energy into the tracker and it was beautiful to watch. These tracks look really fresh, says James. The pack's tracks run across a huge open plane. And then in terms of piney woodland, the terrain is perfect for tracking beautiful white sand game paths that snake through tall mopane trees. One only needs to throw your eyes onto the earth ahead to pick up the weaving trail of the dogs. Through the Mopane, we can move fast. The track is spread out to generate speed. If tracks cut to the left or right, a tracker will cut onto them and whistle the alarm call of a guinea fowl, which means I'm on tracks. Now as we track I feel the vitality and the movement of the wild dog pack into the group of trackers. It's like the dogs trail is transferring energy into us. Gone are the long faces, boring hyena tracks. Now we move as a pack attuned to the ground and attune to each other. We move fast weaving through the woodland.


In most places, we wouldn't even bother following dogs, as usually the ground they cover is too vast. But here in the Delta, we have no boundaries. And we have no time constraint. We can follow freely. It's a funny thing when a group of men track a lot together, they learn an almost intangible energetic code of their fellow tracker. I can glance to my left that Alex and just by the way he's holding his body, by the way he's moving I can tell if he's on tracks. Innocence’s hand positions to me too is confidence that he is on the trail. It's like not only do you learn to read the ground, but you learn to read the energy and signs of your fellow trackers. And as we follow I feel my mind entering into a deep state of attune concentration. My eyes scan the track. I deduce speed and gait of the dogs. This tells me how fast they're moving. All of this happens while my unconscious attunes to the other trackers. I know where everyone is at all times. While we follow the dogs we must navigate in an unknown wilderness and be sure not to stumble on to any dangerous situations. It's intense concentration mixed with a vast and broad situational awareness.Tracking, trying not to get eaten, navigating all happening simultaneously simultaneously. 


The synthesis of all this information is a deeply alert state, a feeling akin to reading an engaging but complicated story whilst moving. The tracks of the pack pull me into concentration. And with that sharpening of concentration comes a sinking sensation. I'm entering into the present moment. Much spiritual practice is designed to still  the mind enough that you might enter into an everlasting and yet profoundly elusive truth. The present moment is where life is always happening. The mind lives in repeating images of the past and constant projections of the future, when in truth, this moment is all we have. Now. Now, now. 


Now the dog tracks are suddenly lost, but it is as if we are in tune with their movement by some deep intuitive sense. This is one of the strange mysteries of tracking. The tracker through years of practice develops a sense of animal movement. That wild tracking arises as the ability to predict where the animal has gone when the trail has lost. This ability to project is a form of almost Shamanic- merging with the consciousness of the wild dogs. To track the animals you must enter its mindset. Predicting is one of those skills where practice over time becomes almost magic, or certainly begins to look like magic. In essence, does this now he drifts left off the trail and just as he just does, James clicks his fingers and we back on. This is the essence of trailing, losing and refining the track. This is the essence of life, lose and refined, what is calling you to life constantly. The hours past one hour, two hours, we follow onwards into an unfolding now into a massive wilderness. The terrain is beautiful. And in the rare breaks in my concentration I do take in the beauty of the wild around me. Letchwe cater in huge herds across the floodplains and far away, an elephant throws mud onto his back. Here on the tracks, I must tell you that in this wild place, I feel myself in some secret union with a part of myself I never get close to in urban spaces. No, this part of me is free as the stars at night, and it lives here in the wild. Wilderness brings forth more of myself. 


The tracks enter a thicket that we are forced to skirt due to a herd of elephants that are feeding in it. I glanced at Innocent and see a look in his eyes I've only seen in a certain breed of trackers. He is in a state of relaxed awareness. But there is utter resolve and commitment to finding these Wild Dogs in his eyes. As the trackers start to move, I see them as a pack, moving like the wild dogs move and I wonder what neuro-chemistry is constellating  in the trackers brain each track a small hit of dopamine moving us forward through the bush. Another hour passes and the heat starts to build. We take our shoes off and cross crystal clear pools of water that have been bejewelled  by gorgeous lotus lilies. Wild Dogs are not afraid of water, and so in the Delta, they happily ran across these pools. It makes it very difficult to follow them and again we lose the tracks. The pack of tractors breaks apart, spreading out onto a huge floodplain scanning the ground moving like a pack of hungry dogs. We’re hungry for tracks. The heat is now built and blazes of heat mirages shimmer over the plains of the Delta, and yet the track has shown no sign of slowing. At high levels of any practice something unusual occurs. Quantities of that practice become transferable. So I could say that the determination you develop as a tracker makes you a determined person in life, in work and in love. When I am practising tracking, I am practising life. Our determination on these tracks is a training ground.


A training ground for life and then life becomes a training ground for tracking. How you do one thing you do everything. 


We turn back. We’re blasting through the three hours of tracking marked with no sign of slowing. My Garmin watch says we've already walked about 15 kilometres. For 40 minutes or so the track is lost. We cover ground checking any open ground for tracks. We walk in a huge half circle trying to ascertain whether dogs have gone. Lost tracks must not break our confidence. Lost tracks are a chance to reevaluate and reset ourselves. We backtrack to last tracks and then a breakthrough. The dogs had thrown us by turning 180 degrees and turning back towards where they had come from. We vector forward now on a new heading back towards where we had set off from. The sun reaching higher into the sky makes it harder to see. The tracks are directly lit by the sun above them. The difficulty of the track has attention to it. We are holding ourselves, and the feeling would be like watching a sports game or playing a sports game that's extremely tight. And you can feel the tension and the pressure that everyone's holding. Water bottles start to run low, and I noticed that salt has started to cross my shirt. I am so happy and I'm clear, and I'm being burned by the sun. I'm a tracker, and I must find my quarry. The simplicity and clarity of this ancient drive is profoundly relieving on some level. So often we face the endless uncertainties of life. Modern life is mired by complexity. But now out here on this trail in this wilderness, I am clear - track and find these dogs. 


In the presence of Alex and Innocent, I can be a student of tracking that of mastery because they are masters. These men are so superb at what they do. As fellow trackers they allow me to witness the art and its highest expression of skill. They are embodying what's possible. And this is a gift to anyone studying an art form to be around people like that. Men who can set a bar and a level. The tracking is hard, faint tracks, the dogs are running erratically. A group of trackers slow. The heat, the exertion and thirst with concentration builds a tension. How far have these dogs run? Tracks in mid morning sun directly overhead become extremely hard to see in the white sand of mopane veld. We need a break. And just then as the tension builds to an almost critical pinnacle, Innocent suddenly spots the pack of dogs resting in the shade of the tree. As he spots them it's like a huge dump of dopamine and serotonin floods our brains. These neuro-transmitters mixed with the endorphins of hours of walking cascade into a cocktail of elation. Yes, the primary joy of finding your quarry causes through us it's deeply primal. The men are hugging each other like boys, the dogs survey us from the shade and then trot away into deeper shade. This morning, from nothing has come something. The flat morale following a Hyena track has given way to one of the greatest mornings of our life. We will always remember this track in the Delta. When we are old, we will tell our children about this morning. Some waves live in a surfer forever. Some tracks live in a tracker. And for me this morning following the dogs will always be one of those. 


And something else too. As a group we will be different from today. Some momentum has come to us. Tracking has taken us into an experience most people would miss. Tracking has opened a secret door into the wilderness. And we've interacted with the wild like few people can. And as a group, we started to build a culture together. We want to track. We want to be excellent at it. We want to be out. Nothing will stop us. The wild has started to shape us. The archetype of the tracker is alive inside of us. Tracking is like that. It's about learning to follow the trail into new adventures, new experiences and new insights. 


To be a tracker in the true archetypal sense is to be one who is able to follow with attunement, what few others can see. Today, the wild dogs have given us a gift. And personally I can mark this day too, as a day that something in me changed. This morning I awoke happy as a solitary animal that I have always been. But as my body moved on the tracks of the pack. It was as if some code downloaded into me from the trail itself. It's time to make some changes. It's time for the power of the pack.