Have you ever wished for a short break from life and to come back a different person?
Our 6 clients all came back transformed. Actually to say that they came back is wrong – they ‘shifted’ towards a new zone. Each one of their souls had their own safari and not in my most extravagant ideas did it occur to me how inspiring nature can be towards living a slightly different life when you simply connect with it in silence, without mental distraction. I can’t describe what happened for our clients beyond that for many reasons, one of which being that what happens on Wild Soul Safari stays on Wild Soul Safari – a safe and supportive space to be yourself without judgement.
A transformational life coaching safari in the bush has been in my heart for some years and the outcome of last week’s first one is truly proof that the law of attraction works. I couldn’t have asked for a ‘better’ anything – it was exactly as it was meant to be, exactly as I had dreamed. Even the colours of the magic sunrise and the feeling of receiving the blessings of the sunset were what I had envisioned. Both Marianne and I had to pinch each other several times to check that we weren’t stuck in our own version of Inception!
To see jaws dropping and the absolute disbelief of what Tarpo had set up along the banks of a spectacularly scenic sand lugga in Kalama was the start of an investment of energy and holding space for me. And I would hold this space for 4 days until each individual participant including the coaches were ready to take back their own. Even the trainers and coaches have their own processes and shifts during a Wild Soul Safari, there is no God delusion in the work that we do for our clients because we are also human. One of my learnings was that holding space for a large group has a physiological impact on my body and coming down with a cold just before we left for Kalama was bound to happen.
Being in an unfenced campsite where elephants had come through only a few days before, where wild squirrels were scampering around and where scorpions were happy to see me (not anyone else!) was enough to poke holes into any feeling of ‘stuck’. The hyenas on a couple of nights would make sure that there was no comfort zone at all.
On one of the mornings I sat around the smokey camp fire in silence watching the birds dancing, singing and fighting. Two starlings had found a large caterpillar traversing the sand – the sight of this caterpillar made me gag because it was truly disgusting, I didn’t know which end was the front or the back… but I did say we don’t judge in this space – each starling tried to stab the caterpillar several times without success. A pair of crows had noticed this and decided to get in on the action. I thought crows were scavengers until the aggression with which they swooped down to chase away the starlings made me jump a little. Then they took apart the caterpillar piece by piece, ripping it like a wet tissue. I didn’t know what was more disgusting at this point: the caterpillar or the way its layers were being pulled off. A beautiful yellow-beaked hornbill had been sitting on a branch watching this horror. It dived down from the branch took the caterpillar from under the beak of one of the crows and disappeared into the tall acacias on the other side of the lugga. Now I didn’t know whether I was happy to see the disgusting caterpillar gone or sad at the violent death it had experienced. This confusion had me frozen for a few seconds and then I did what most people would do – walked away uncomfortably from the zone in which all this happened.
Nature had shown me what amount of chaos may occur in a span of few minutes. How some opportunists might succeed given the right circumstances regardless of how beautiful they may or may not be. And how once the chaos is over things move on as if nothing had ever happened. I was acutely aware that I wasn’t part of that chaos and I was traumatised by what I’d seen.
Why am I telling you this?
Because we subconsciously pick-up trauma and we build layers and layers from experiences that mask over our truest selves. Whether you are the starlings, the crows, the hornbill or the caterpillar you have had your own experience of the situation and it is connected to the experience of all the others. In the end the hornbill felt it won, the starlings were perhaps happy that at least the crows got what they deserved and the crows are probably plotting revenge on the hornbill. What of the caterpillar?
As for me I now have a layer of trauma to deal with during the next Wild Soul Safari that I’ll be hosting in October. Get in touch to book your safari towards a new zone – only 10 places available.