A Walk Through The Forest Strokes Your Fur, The Fur You No Longer Have
I found a poem recently that really struck me.
"Atavism” by William Stafford
Sometimes in the open
you look up where birds go by, or just nothing,
and wait. A dim feeling comes
you were like this once, there was air, and quiet;
it was by a lake, or maybe a river
you were alert as an otter
and were suddenly born like the evening star
into wide still worlds like this one you have found again,
for a moment, in the open.
Something is being told in the woods:
aisles of shadow lead away;
a branch waves; a pencil of sunlight slowly travels its path.
A withheld presence almost speaks, but then retreats,
rustles a patch of brush.
You can feel the centuries ripple generations of wandering,
discovering, being lost and found, eating, dying, being born.
A walk through the forest strokes your fur,
the fur you no longer have.
And your gaze down a forest aisle is a strange, long plunge,
dark eyes looking for home.
For delicious minutes you can feel your whiskers wider than your mind,
away out over everything.
The line "a walk through the forest strokes your fur, the fur you no longer have" really got me. "For delicious minutes you can feel your whiskers wider than your mind". You can feel yourself as a creature again. One that doesn't think too much. One that feels. One that's connected to everything. I shared the poem with a friend and she said it made her feel sad. Sad that we no longer have fur.
I said it's actually something I love about being human. That we get to feel all the animals within us. And that we get to live in a world that meets us as if we still had fur.
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Founder, Private Guide and Safari Planner
Being born the daughter of David Attenborough (it’s true but he’s probably not the one you’re thinking of) I don’t believe I ever really had much choice about what direction my life would take. I grew up in the city of Durban, South Africa but for as long as I can remember nature has called to me. Whenever I could I would escape to the forests around my home barefoot and in search of chameleons and red duiker to befriend.
And so in 2010, after completing my Journalism and Media Studies degree, I followed that calling to the wilds of Southern Africa to become a game ranger. I planned to stay for a year but it turned into ten. During that time, I worked at Phinda Private Game Reserve, Ngala Private Game Reserve and Londolozi Game Reserve, some of South Africa’s most prestigious lodges and immersed myself in the natural world. I learnt to track animals with Zulu and Shangaan trackers and spent as much time as I could on foot approaching animals with my guests. I also put my photojournalism degree to use by becoming a specialist photographic guide. I travelled to Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Zanzibar, Uganda, Israel, Jordan, Egypt, India and throughout South America in search of wildlife. My greatest adventure was living in Gabon training local guides for the WWF and Smithsonian Institute, where we spent weeks at a time living like early nomads in the dense and remote coastal forests, fulfilling a life-long dream of tracking and habituating wild gorillas. Seeing how embodied and present animals are inspired me to begin practicing yoga. I am a qualified vinyasa and yin teacher and spent six months training under a Hatha master in Boulder, Colorado. I am also a certified Martha Beck life coach. With this mixture of knowledge, interests and skills, I started Wild Again to help others really experience the wild places I know and love so much. Through my specialised Wellness Safaris that incorporate yoga, meditation, mindfulness and personalised life coaching I continue to grow more conscious safaris that return people to nature and to themselves. As we re-wild ourselves we hear the earth, our common mother, again. It is only then that we can co-create with her healing.
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