Finding the truth of being in everyday life

The power of Now; right now; the deep breath. Live always in the Now, for that is the truth of your being. You are the makers of time. Live always in the Now. Live always in ease, with the deep breath, knowing your wholeness, knowing how loved you are, for in truth, you are the love that you seek. Jeshua ben Joseph (Jesus) through Judith Coates

 

These words sound curiously like the teachings of Eckhart Tolle in his best-sellers The Power of Now, A New Earth and particularly the not so well-known but magnificent Practising the Power of Now. However, having studied his master-work The Way of Mastery, I can tell this is pure Jeshua. The Way of Mastery was channelled by Jon Marc Hammer in the 70s and Jeshua is also the author of the well-known Course in Miracles channelled by two unsuspecting academics.

 

When you think about it, only the Now can exist, since the past and future are no more than fantasies of the mind. However, Jeshua adds the meditative element of deep breath, or breathing in/breathing out. If you then consider the natural rhythm of a 24-hour day, you could say: breathing in, breathing out, I am only in the now, taking one day at a time. Jeshua has also taught that only Love is real, so you could complete the mantra: Breathing in, breathing out, only in the now, one day at a time, only love is real. This provides a complete rhythmic guide for staying conscious in everyday life.

 

And Jeshua goes further, urging us to live “in ease”. He does not subscribe to the world’s rules of stress and strain, “should” and “ought”. And then finally, “knowing your wholeness, knowing how loved you are, for in truth, you are the love that you seek.”

 

Being one with all of creation, we need seek no further than ourselves in the here and the now to find the love we seek. Jeshua has also said, “Here, right before me, is the will of my Father. This is the moment crying for love.”

 

Eckhart has written and spoken many, many words trying to explain the simplicity of the Now, while life in the world demands ever more complexity, ever more busyness instead of ease or effortlessness. It is for us to discover the simple truth right before us, unqualified by past or future. Instead of worrying about the future, he reassures us that “the answer, the strength, the right action or the resource will be there when you need it, not before, not after.”

 

This is quite a tall order for us in the “real world” to accept. The statement would imply huge faith… in what? God?

 

What inspires me about all this is the allusion to the same power by different sources. I have written elsewhere about my experiences with the Emissaries of Divine Light who are basically what we would call today “lightworkers”, people who try to represent selflessness and awareness in everyday life.

 

“All of the world’s great religions and spiritual teachings point to the potential for the transcendent reality of being to come forth in oneself. The actual experience of this—beyond belief  or religious tradition—is the highest calling available to a human being. Our world’s greatest need is the spiritual leadership of people who answer this call.”

 

Being, or Soul or Presence or Holy Spirit all refer to the same “beingness” which animates and guides us, in spite of everything in life which seems to indicate otherwise. If we slowly begin to allow and surrender to a radically different attitude to life, according to a “perfect law which cannot fail” things begin to shift, as we begin to become more mindful of what causes us pain, over and over again. Selfish, negative reaction and resistance in the form of ego begin to ease. After all, ego must surely be a phase in the evolution of our consciousness which cannot be permanent because it brings only suffering, which nobody enjoys.

 

Unfortunately it is almost automatic in the huge majority of human beings, who more than ever seem to espouse power, ambition and acquisitiveness. Technology has fuelled this to the point where there has been a polar shift in our values. There are ever more children (and adults who are intellectually children, including the eight-year-olds who run governments) who respect and value their hand-held devices more than anything in nature.

 

We don’t need to be puppets of the world. We can allow the answer, the strength, the right action and the resource each day. As Thomas Moore would say: It doesn’t require rationality and control; it is a matter of allowing the “gifts of the soul”.

 

As Jeshua has put it: “Just show up and do what you are asked.”

Karoo paradise and historical treasure trove

 



Top and above: Samara provides every comfort

in its natural Karoo setting



The enchantment of Samara private game reserve, not far south of Graaff-Reinet, comes in a combination of factors: the location amid imposing mountains, the wide open plains viewed from those mountains and, of course, the wildlife - all enhanced by the lush green veld after a prolonged period if good rains. The acacia leaves are soft and succulent and their thorns gleaming white, and sharp as needles. At night you feel the stars are so close you could pluck them from the sky, and the mornings so fresh you could bathe in them.



Alex and students after their graduation.

But that’s not all. This beautiful location happens to be associated with places of learning which are closely related to it in their function: the hospitality training at the College for Tourism in Graaff-Reinet and its affiliated Tracker Academy whose students learn their skills partly in the soil of the Samara reserve. Through our son Alex, who was instrumental in establishing the academy, my wife and I had been invited to the year-end dinner and graduation ceremony of the students at the college on Magazine Hill in the historic town.

I have not attended many such functions, but the ceremony made a deep impression on many of us in the audience. It was not just the sight of these bright young black people in their academic gowns about to receive the rewards of their studies - many far from their homes - but their beautiful singing at intervals during the ceremony and as they filed out of the venue, all of which left us a little misty-eyed. Also impressive was the obvious commitment of the staff, officials and the executive director Andre Kilian and chairperson Gaynor Rupert, wife of prominent businessman Johann Rupert. Three of the top students had already landed plum jobs overseas even before their graduation.

Samara is about 30 minutes’ drive from Graaff-Reinet via the Tantjiesberg mountain, so named for the tooth-shaped outcrops along its ridge. As a Boer War history enthusiast, the Camdeboo region has long fascinated me, after extensive reading about the dramatic events during the “invasion” of Cape Colony by Boer guerrillas after the fall of the Transvaal and Orange Free State republics to the British in the war of 1899 to 1902. Graaff-Reinet is rich in the history of this conflict.

Karoo Lodge is the central building on the 18 000 ha property, with three stand-alone suites across the way past the swimming pool and other accommodation located elsewhere. Viewed from across the extensive lawn at the back (with resident tortoises) its rear elevation is beautifully symmetrical Karoo farmhouse with neat twin chimneys, exactly as it must have looked on the restoration drawing board.

Meals can be taken under the trees.

The lodge provides luxurious colonial-style accommodation, fine décor and, due to its limited size, excellent service from locally-recruited staff, some of whom were still there from our previous visit two years before, spoiling us with the same friendly desire to keep us comfortable, especially after a walk or drive in the veld. General manager Marnus Ochse and his wife Anneke were regularly on hand for information or a chat. The three meals a day (plus two tea-time spreads) were all outstanding and served in different locations either indoors; out on the lawn under a shady tree, or on the spacious veranda, where dinner is lit by an attractive arrangement of paraffin lamps at the table.


Cheetah cubs in the bush at Samara

The wildlife experience came with two sources of expertise: the Tracker Academy about 10 minutes’ drive down the road, and Samara’s tall young Zimbabwean head ranger with a marvellous smile, named Test Malunga – affable, humorous and, above all an excellent teacher with a wide knowledge, some self-taught and some from academic studies. On a late afternoon game drive with four other guests we walked with a journey of giraffe and approached a cheetah and her two cubs to within a few metres. The mother lay in the grass hardly taking any notice of us, her elegant tail swinging to and fro occasionally as the cubs played nearby. Although the cubs seemed quite relaxed, Test pointed out the erect hair on their backs.

“They are being very brave,” he laughed, “but they are not really comfortable.”

On a walk in the bush the next afternoon, Test turned our attention to the flora, explaining how acacia trees protect and renew themselves with strategic deployment of thorns, providing browsing animals only with a regulated supply of food. As he explained, elephants have overcome this trickery by breaking off whole branches, or uprooting the whole tree in order to circumvent the natural chemical process. We also watched as a trap-door spider worked his own trickery, his thick legs neatly folded just inside his hole, waiting for prey. With the veld blooming with spring flowers, we observed the function of the Karoo anchor-bush in binding the soil, and learned some of the names of the many beautiful species of ground cover. We crossed a stream twice, wobbling on the stepping stones over the bubbling, sparkling, pollution-free water.




Cape mountain zebra on the mountains around Samara.

We also took a very rugged drive up onto a mountain location with dramatic views of the Plains of Camdeboo, made famous by the book of the same name by Eve Palmer. Up on the mountain we viewed large groups of quizzical mountain zebra and stately gemsbok.

Observing nature is one thing; tracking wild animals and other creatures is another. To learn more about this skill we joined Alex, Tracker Academy trainers Pokkie and Janetta Benade and the eight students carefully chosen from all over South Africa. Pokkie is an officially recognised master tracker who grew up in the area which is now the Karoo National Park, where he worked for many years, and Alex is a senior tracker and general manager of the academy. Janetta is progressing through the ranks, studying, teaching and acting as house mother to the students who are invariably far from home and accommodated in dormitories. They were fascinated to meet Alex’s parents and we felt like visiting celebrities as they lined up, smiling broadly, to shake our hands.

Before long we were on the trail, finding tracks all over the veld. Identifying and following them is an ancient skill whose usefulness is re-emerging after almost being lost, thanks to the few who have dedicated themselves to its preservation.  Today, trackers are being used in tourism, anti-poaching and research, and many of these young men can look forward to exciting careers.

Master tracker Pokkie Benade (third from left)

with students.

But learning the skill is far from easy. A tiny smudge in the sand can be part of the track of a small animal like a mongoose or suricate; the evidence of claws, sometimes visible, sometimes not, for example, can indicate not only the type of animal but whether it was walking or running. Even the hoof tracks of ungulates (hoofed animals) vary in many ways and positively identifying the differences requires a trained eye. Pads and toes also show subtle differences between animals. Some tracks are much more obvious than others, like the large impression of the rhino or giraffe, but other spoor left by obscure animals, reptiles, tortoises, birds and insects - all playing their part in the ecology - are not. Even the big cats’ tracks are all markedly different.

In spite of my recent part-time theoretical studies of tracking, I was mostly left guessing. The students, after only their first six months before moving on to Londolozi game reserve in the Lowveld for the second semester, were asked in turn, secretly, so that the others couldn’t hear, to identify a random track along the trail, and almost invariably got it right.

Graaff-Reinet is an excellent tourist destination.

The town of Graaff-Reinet is an excellent destination in its own right, especially for history and culture buffs. It has scores of prominent historical homes, buildings, churches, monuments, memorials, museums, galleries and a famous stone prison.

In the centre of town, where Parsonage Street and Church Street intersect, the famous Dostdy Hotel (currently being renovated), Reinet House (once the home of Andrew Murray) and the truly magnificent Dutch Reformed Groote Kerk - said to be modelled closely on Salisbury Cathedral in the UK - form a sort of central assembly on which the rest of the town hangs. Across the road from the Groote Kerk, for example, is the elegant low-slung Graaff-Reinet Club where exuberant officers of the Coldstream Guards once danced on the bar counter and fired revolvers into it in celebration of their imminent departure at the end of the Boer War.

A little way down Church Street you find McNaughton’s Bookshop, with many fascinating books, including the comprehensive Graaff-Reinet: An Illustrated Historical Guide by Tony Westby-Nunn, a treasure trove of information and priceless illustrations which shows in detail why Graaff-Reinet is such a special town.

Following the graduation ceremony at the College for Tourism, a group of us were the guests of Gaynor Rupert for lunch at a restaurant called Polka where we enjoyed an excellent cold buffet (and an excellent perfectly chilled Chenin Blanc) in the yard under vapour-irrigated vines. The restaurant, at 52 Somerset Street, is rated No 1 among five in the town.

Useful websites:

http://www.samara.co.za/
http://www.polkacafe.co.za/about/
http://www.graaffreinet.co.za/

Relinquish your achievements and your failures

Thich Nhat Hanh is a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, meditation master and beloved teacher. He had some horrific experiences during the Vietnam War and went on to play his part in the peace talks to end that war. He was nominated by Martin Luther King for the Nobel Peace Prize. Exiled from his native country, he established a retreat in France called Plum Village. He has written many books and travelled widely. One of his best known books is The Miracle of Mindfulness, from which the passage below comes. His teachings are simple yet profound, often inspired by the suffering he has encountered in Western society. Mindfulness is associated with meditiation and is about unconditional engagement with the present moment, with conscious breathing a central practice of everyday life: 

Recall the most significant achievements in your life and examine each of them. Examine your talent, your virtue, your capacity, the convergence of favourable conditions that have led to success. Examine the complacency and the arrogance that have arisen from the feeling that you are the main cause for such success. Shed the light of interdependence on the whole matter to see that the achievement is not really yours but the convergence of conditions beyond your reach. See to it that you will not be bound by these achievements. Only when you relinquish them can you really be free and no longer assailed by them.

Recall the bitterest failures in your life and examine each of them. Examine your talent, your virtue, your capacity, and the absence of favourable conditions that led to the failures. Examine to see all the complexes that have arisen within you from the feeling that you are not capable of realising success. Shed the light of interdependence on the whole matter to see that failures cannot be accounted for by your inabilities but rather by the lack of favourable conditions. See that you have no strength to shoulder these failures, that these failures are not your own self. See to it that you are free from them. Only when you relinquish them can you really be free and no longer assailed by them."

An intimate encounter with Winston Churchill

The recent Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth brought historical Britain sharply into focus again, literally, with the usual perfectly executed pomp and the Thanksgiving Service which BBC cameras covered with their usual breathtaking precision. Some, people, like syndicated columnist William Saunderson Meyer, think it’s all a load of poppycock, but for many of us ex-colonials it still brings up some nostalgia from the days when we stood at our seats in the bioscope while God Save the Queen was played at the end of every movie.

This and my current reading matter on the subject of Winston Churchill (read with genuine interest, though perhaps to some extent influenced by Boer-Brit conditioning which goes with having a surname like mine) took me back to a visit to Britain in 2005.



The Dunnotar Castle in which Churchill sailed to
South Africa.

 I have read Churchill’s book My Early Life which includes his time in South Africa during the Boer War, but only recently came across the book on that same period by his granddaughter Celia Sandys called Churchill Wanted Dead or Alive which describes his controversial escape from the Boer POW camp at the Staats (State) Model School in Pretoria. She insists on calling it, in English, the States Model School, but we can forgive her for that. The picture of the Dunnotar Castle aboard which Winston sailed to SA is actually circa 1950s and not the one pictured here. But we can forgive the editors for that.

Sandys’ personally researched book, which took her to many actual locations in South Africa, meeting many relatives of the people involved in the story, is an interesting expose of Churchill as the young man with a special gift for overseeing and reporting on armed conflict, which excited and activated him. He was not a big man and spoke with a slight lisp. In his early twenties, as many boy-officers did, he tried to cultivate a moustache. At a dinner party, apparently irritated by his youthful outspokenness, one of the guests reportedly told him she didn’t like his politics and didn’t like the moustache he was trying to grow. Replied Winston: “Madame, I can see no earthly reason why you should come into contact with either.”



Young Winston at the wreck of the British

armoured train where he helped to save

several British lives under intense Boer fire.



Arrogant, intelligent, “clever”, as he was sometimes called by those who benefited from his quick thinking, especially under fire – young Winston was supremely self-confident to the extent that he routinely told very senior officers what he thought of their actions or inactions, and had his heart set on becoming a Member of Parliament as soon as possible after returning to Britain, which he did. As a war correspondent for the Morning Post (and concurrently, by his own special arrangement with General Buller, a Lieutenant in the South African Light Horse regiment), he would knock off 2000-word reports in long-hand without hesitating, bringing vivid and shocking accounts to his readers at their breakfast tables in London.

Winston Churchill was a remarkable man by anybody’s standards, named by some as the “greatest Briton ever”. As a politician with a surgical wit, a prolific writer and painter, a family man and a statesman, to this day his life continues to capture the imagination with a montage of images, from the rousing speeches of World War II to the handyman building his own garden wall and the loving husband sitting beside his wife near the dam in the grounds of his “most beloved place on earth”, his country home, Chartwell in Kent.

I travelled to Britain partly as a guest of Visit Britain, the tourism authority, to revisit Chartwell and to see the then new Churchill Museum in London, adjacent to the Cabinet War Rooms, which I had visited before and looked forward to seeing again. These places offer a feast of insights into Churchill’s life. The museum was opened in 2005 on the 40th anniversary of his death and the 60th of the end of World War II, a war that could have turned out badly for Britain and the world had it not been, in large measure, for Winston Churchill’s courage and determination in the face of an imminent invasion by Hitler’s enormous Nazi war machine.

I motored down to Chartwell from East Sussex to Kent along leafy avenues, happily in the company of the driver, a former girlfriend. There were neat paddocks populated with fat sheep and cattle, and plenty of beautiful flowers in bloom. Along the way I spotted a fox darting along a hedgerow, which confirmed that I was in the English countryside.

The tranquil grounds of Chartwell in Kent.

Chartwell, now a museum administered by the National Trust, is a large family home in rural surroundings. The pictures and ornaments in every room all have a personal story to tell. The drawing room has a lived-in feel and was the place where the Churchills met their guests. Winston was fond of playing bezique and his card table over near the window is set for a game. Among the ornaments is a crystal cockerel, the symbol of France, given to Lady Churchill by General de Gaulle. In the library, often used by Churchill’s research assistants, there is a model of the floating “Mulberry” harbour called Port Winston at Arromanches, Normandy as it was on D-Day plus 109 (September 23, 1944). There is an impressive portrait of Sir Winston over the fireplace, painted by Frank O Salisbury in 1942. It shows him wearing one of his self-designed “siren suits” (a kind of zip-up overall made of a comfortable fabric) which he liked to wear during the war years.

 

Winston and Clementine at Chartwell.



Upstairs, Lady Clementine Churchill’s bedroom, with its four-poster bed, is full of pictures of her forebears, and on her mahogany kneehole desk is one of the last photographs taken of her husband and one of their much-loved daughter Marigold who died in 1921 at the age of two. The adjacent bedrooms were converted after Churchill’s death to display a selection of his many uniforms – as seen in familiar press photographs and newsreels - and many of the gifts and awards presented to him. These include his Nobel Prize for Literature and Oratory awarded in 1953, his honorary citizenship of the United States and the Order of the Garter, the foremost of the English Orders of Chivalry, with which he was invested also in 1953.

For me, the most interesting room is Churchill’s study. This is where he conducted his affairs and did most of his writing. He found it easiest to think while standing up, dictating to his secretary as he strode up and down the room. He laid out his reference material on a lectern along one wall. The large mahogany writing desk inherited from his father is covered with portraits of his family and his particular heroes. There are little busts of Nelson and Napoleon among the items, and a sketch of South African Field Marshal Jan Smuts.

Churchill was not the natural successor to Chamberlain as Prime Minister in 1940. Lord Halifax, the Foreign Secretary, was the preferred choice of the Conservative Party, the King and the Queen, and Chamberlain himself. But Halifax recognised that he lacked the necessary qualities to lead Britain in war. Churchill was the only possibility once Halifax had ruled himself out.

And so it came to pass that Churchill was the man who sat in the wooden round-backed chair in the centre of the cabinet room in what is now known as the Cabinet War Rooms during World War II, the secret underground facility not far from No 10 Downing Street.



The Cabinet War Room: Churchill sat just in
front of the map at back.



Facing Churchill across the table, within an arm’s length of him, sat his three Chiefs of Staff of the Army, Navy and Air Force. There is no way any of them could have escaped his probing questions or avoided a face-to-face confrontation when they disagreed with him. The rest of the cabinet sat at the extended table right around the rather claustrophobically small and, in those days, smoke-filled room. And Churchill was stubborn and argumentative. When his advisors voiced their doubt about a plan he had proposed he would sometimes pretend he couldn’t hear clearly, or didn’t understand their objections.



The Central Map Room.



Among these rooms are the map rooms and communications rooms vital to tracking and planning the war effort, with large world maps and pins marking fleets of ships and strategic locations. In another there is a bank of telephones, including a “hot line to the PM”, all with lifelike models of the staff who would have worked there. There is a small dining room and a kitchen which provided Churchill and his wife or senior staff with three meals a day. The bedrooms of Churchill and his staff are virtually as they would have been at the time, with personal effects like neatly folded pyjamas in place.

At the entrance to the Cabinet War Rooms there is a 350kg German bomb hanging from the ceiling - a rather innocent looking contraption with a piggy-bank shape. It was these bombs that rained down on London above ground while the Prime Minister presided over the affairs of war, protected in his secret hideaway by thick concrete - though it is estimated that a direct hit might have broken through. But Churchill didn’t allow himself to lose contact with reality. Apart from his personal visits to bomb-devastated areas, he would regularly go up to a vantage point where he could watch the bombing himself.

Inside the Churchill Museum.

The adjacent Churchill Museum, opened as part of a multi- million pound project, is the first national museum dedicated to Winston Churchill and provides an intimate and multifaceted look at his life. It is divided into five “chapters”: Young Churchill (1874 to 1900), Politician and Statesman (1900 to 1929), Wilderness Years (1929 to 1939), War Years (1940 to 1945) and Cold War Statesman (1945 to 1965). These sections are arranged around the edges of the new museum, with the “Lifeline Interactive” down the centre. Here, at the touch of a panel you can view any of the thousands of scanned documents and photographs covering every aspect of his life.

I contented myself with the details of the static and interactive displays. Here you can see everything from baby Winston’s rattle to the pistol he acquired during his escape during the Boer War; his trench periscope used on the Western Front during World War I and his red velvet siren suit worn during World War II. From time to time the shadows of German warplanes pass across the room, with wailing sirens, the scream of Stuka dive-bombers and the genuinely loud crash of a bomb exploding nearby.

The interactive displays include a series of enlarged and back-lighted black-and-white photographs. Each time you stop in front of one you hear the voice of Churchill speaking words that are pertinent to the picture. At one showing a group of smiling young RAF fighter pilots – wearing collar and tie under their flying kit, with a Hurricane fighter in the background – one hears the famous words: “Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few”, spoken by Churchill after the Battle of Britain which finally turned the Germans away from their designs on invasion. One wonders if those magnificent young men in their flying machines would have prevailed so successfully without the outstanding wartime leadership of Winston Spencer Churchill.

See http://churchillmuseum.iwm.org.uk/

Family fun in the African wilderness



Sunset in the bush: Our camp on the banks of the Timbavati.



Our family group is sitting comfortably in the game drive Landcruiser watching a kudu cow and female calf browsing quietly within a few metres of us. It is a lovely scene, the two animals looking so soft and feminine, so contented, their big eyes staring at us, unblinking. Suddenly there is a bolt from the blue as a leopard charges past so fast that most of us don’t even see it. The calf disappears into the bush, the mother charges away, barking loudly in alarm, and the female leopard has made off again, without the food she had hoped for, for herself and her cubs.

This is one of those moments in the bush that one never forgets, this time in Ngala private game reserve in the Timbavati region west of the Kruger National Park. And this time we are not pampered guests in the five-star lodge. We are accommodated in the “trail camp” on the banks of the Timbavati River in a remote part of the reserve. The occasion is the 60^th birthdays of my wife Estelle and my brother Philip, and this is our favourite way to celebrate – eight members of the family together in the bush.

Family outing: Fanny and Dylan lead the way.

Our ranger Dylan and tracker Fanny go into action following the “strike” by the leopard, Fanny moving from the tracker’s seat on the front left-hand mudguard of the vehicle to take his place next to Dylan – standard procedure when you’re onto a predator. In that flash of high action Dylan has noticed that the predator is a female leopard he last saw when she was heavily pregnant, and that she is now lactating.

For half an hour we search for the leopard in thick bush. The brand new diesel Landcruiser is put through its paces, pushing through the long grass, bushes and small trees, crunching and snapping, but barely straining its powerful motor in low range. Fanny indicates right, and indicates left, and indicates right again, guiding Dylan through the bush, but the leopard is gone, and we make for the dry riverbed for a coffee break.

The previous day we had witnessed another encounter between a young leopard and some impala. The leopard was lying among some trees on high ground, with just its head showing. We held our breath as a string of impala passed by calmly, directly below the leopard, sure that at any moment it would pounce on the easy prey; but its obvious immaturity and lack of experience caused it to hesitate as the opportunity slipped by.

Accessing the reserve from the west and bypassing the SA Wildlife College on the southern boundary, we assembled at Ngala Tented Camp. This camp offers luxury tented accommodation and everything you expect from a first class lodge, but we were headed for something a little more rustic. At the Tented Camp we met our designated ranger Dylan Davies and veteran tracker Fanny. My son Alex, who was among us, and the motivator of the whole expedition, had once been head ranger at Ngala and knew Fanny from the old days. They shared jokes in Shangaan and regaled us with some of their experiences.

Tented camp: each tent accommodated two people.

The trail camp has four tents, accommodating two people each. They are quite widely spread out along the (at this time dry) river and reaching them at night requires a torch or paraffin lamp. Unlike at the luxury lodges, there is no escort at night, so due vigilance is required. In each tent there is a whistle, so that if a hyena is trying to get into your tent in the middle of night, you can whistle for help!

Generally, help comes in the form of two young casual workers whose attention and dedication is unwavering. Water for each tent’s flush toilet and shower has to be brought in every day and the “geyser” is a large inverted bag which empties just enough warm water for a shower or two. Inside the tent are two very comfortable beds and a table with Hemingway-style wash basin and metal jug, illuminated by your paraffin lamp when it’s dark.

Our safari outings were divided between game drives in the morning and late afternoon walks with Dylan (armed) and Fanny. The walks were easy-going affairs with particular attention paid to tracks and birds. While walking in the bush one has the time and inclination to observe the wilderness more attentively, to use binoculars and take more carefully composed pictures. Walking provides a relaxed opportunity to discuss nature with the experts and with other members of the group.

On the game drives we encountered three species of the Big Five close-up. In perfect morning light we were able to watch as a huge elephant bull tugged and chomped at thorny branches, seemingly unaffected by our presence or the sharpness of the thorns. Sitting in silence we were awed by the gentleness of this powerful animal and his quiet thoroughness in going about feeding his enormous body.

Game drive: A bull elephant tugs at twigs.

A young pair of rhino males came next, staring at us with as much interest as we stared at them. Looking at these magnificent animals in their natural environment made me realise fully what a terribly destructive crime poaching is, feeding the lust and greed of ignorant, indiscriminate and unscrupulous traders and consumers of rhino horn.

Then came the buffalo, hundreds of them, moving along lazily, clouds of dust rising from the dry earth disturbed by their hooves. Dylan realised they were making their way to the water in a large dam nearby and took us to a site where we could intercept them and view their arrival. The leaders plunged into the water to drink, among them bulls, cows and few young calves. Determined though leisurely, they kept arriving for some time as we watched.

Camp fires are of course legendary for story-telling, sometimes hilarious banter and sometimes serious conversation among family and friends. And as the setting sun gave way to a blazing fire, the full moon rose, casting mysterious shadows throughout the bush.

The moonlight helped us find our way back to our tents for a relaxed night under the dreamy African sky.

Awakened by calls from our young helpers the next morning, the new day begins.



Inquisitive: A pair of rhinos check us out.


This story appeared in Diversions leisure magazine.



Passing of a dear old soul brother, our Wils

My good old friend from schooldays, John Wilse-Samson, affectionately known by virtually all his friends and family simply as Wils, the name we gave him at school, passed away on Sunday 26 February after a short illness. He leaves his wife Michelle, son Lawrence, daughter Kate, two sisters and a brother.

Since our schooldays at Rondebosch in the sixties Wils and his many friends, including me, have kept in close contact and continued to spend many hours of laughter together, many over a beer in many different watering holes around Cape Town, perhaps most notably for me, the old Pig ’n Whistle in Rondebosch, Foresters Arms in Newlands and Café Verdi in Wynberg.



Wils, Pete Pickup and John Sanderson-Smith at Pete's

sixtieth. Me seated in front and Neil Raubenheimer

looking on at the back.



Wils and I travelled and had a number of adventures together when we were young adults, and with other ‘actors’ made a number of tongue-in-cheek amateur movies which were enormous fun. Wils’ greatest starring role was in Return of the Baron, in which my character is slain by him with his sword.

Wils was one of the easiest-going, least-judgmental and best-informed people I have ever met.

Another old friend, Tim Owen, now living in Cornwall, put it like this:

“Another beautiful soul departed. We’ll never hear his trademark laugh again.

For whom the bell tolls.

He was one of the funniest guys in town.

How cool to have a name like Wils. It always felt good to use it. 

Thanks for everything, Wils.”

Wils’ death follows fairly closely those of our other dear old friends, John Dittmer and Jon Summers. We have reached that age where our days are no longer certain, but no-matter, we have lived fully and shared one of life’s most precious gifts together, in abundance - laughter.

Consciousness beyond conscious thought

A fundamental part of being human involves maintaining

harmony with nature, writes the author.

Our global society is largely unhappy and unfulfilled, no matter what social, political, religious or financial model we espouse. We have tried and continue to try to find hope in man-made systems that end up generating as much trouble as they are meant to solve, in spite of the breathtaking technological advances which we think are going to provide the answers. The trouble is, our thinking is defective. In the essay below (Recognising the Language of Divine Unity) which appeared in Spirit of Ma'at online magazine, and which I reproduce with his permission, my friend Leon Lewis explores the only truly effective answer possible.

We live in times when, for those who are consciously awakening, a more intimate and intricate relationship with Spirit — including nature in all its forms — is becoming a priority. The heightened sense of separation from Spirit that many feel is to some extent encouraging humanity towards exploring deeper and more inclusive ways of connecting with all of life, via their own higher nature. The pace of our current lives, in which we are experiencing escalating change in the world and in systems around us, appears to dictate that we act in opposition to our inner process and higher principles. A crisis of purpose emerges, in which many feel unready to effect the necessary changes, in the face of ever more evident and unsustainable contradictions.

Conditioned thought exists as the result of the subconscious absorption of environmental imprinting, which includes social, religious, historical and political influences. The development of our relationship with our higher nature requires that we nurture the ability to transcend those aspects of conditioning that would hold us back.

One of the realisations emerging among many who are approaching higher consciousness is the need for dedicated inner work, in order to bring about a state of balance. This work includes the regular practice of meditation, via which the results of a deepening awareness of the spiritual life can be carried into daily activities. Among other benefits this practice fuels our essential loving nature. It also supports the expression of conscious creativity and the ability to work with change — qualities which life asks each of us to weave into every aspect of our experience.

A fundamental part of being human involves maintaining harmony with nature. Disharmony occurs as a result of being out of touch with nature, including the nature of who we essentially are. Emotional imbalance, illness and various other conditions serve as reflectors (or reminders) that this connection has to some extent been compromised.

Whichever facet of our lives we focus upon, whether it be the food we eat, the attitudes we hold, the company we keep, or the practices we undertake, it is helpful that we regularly remind ourselves to remain centred within our ‘natural’ self; within the energy of consciously recalling times when we felt at one with nature — thereby carrying the resulting feeling of ‘at oneness’ with us into all our activities.

Consciousness beyond conditioned thought — where there is a deep inner comprehension of oneness — reflects our original state of being. This state of being, which might also be described as unity consciousness, is gradually re-awakened as we connect more deeply with our higher nature.

This awakening requires a certain dedication to the establishment and maintenance of inner silence. The extent to which we are able to achieve silence and the resulting inner stillness determines the extent to which we can open to the ‘higher mind’ — beyond the thinking mind.

The ‘higher mind’ — beyond the predominantly ego-based intellectual paradigm — creates thought. It brings new thought into being and is intimately linked to the evolutionary process. The ‘higher nature’ (and the experience of the ‘higher nature’ beyond that which we would understand in terms of the mind) involves what might be described as divine experience. It is beyond intellectual description and can only be expressed in terms of feelings and sensations, such as the experience of light, joy, energy or sound.

What emerges from the elevated experience referred to above is (to a certain degree) translated into thought, in our daily experience. We might then put this into practice or ‘walk’ it into our world or environment, thus sharing it creatively with others. It may translate into words or deeds, or manifest as something intangible.

Entering a state of higher consciousness — a term used to explain experience that transcends conditioned thought — takes us into more expanded dimensions of conscious being, involving frequencies that for the most part cannot be measured, from a conventional scientific perspective. The spontaneous expression of love and kindness are examples of the transcendence of conditioned thinking and doing.

In order to develop a deeper connection with higher consciousness — the realms beyond the physical — it becomes necessary to embrace and develop higher senses; faculties that are in certain ways parallel to the physical senses but exist on higher levels. This process involves remembering who we truly are as spiritual beings. As each physical sense evolves through various higher stages certain conditions become apparent, such as joyful and creative action, dynamic service, profound realisation and the conscious striving towards excellence (including the attainment of higher knowledge). As we sense these awakenings occurring within us, we are inspired to reach out to our higher nature as if taking a hand; thus allowing ourselves to be guided through the higher experience.

The dream state also guides us beyond materially based experience. It involves reflected thought patterns, symbols and feelings. When we look at the way dreams are ‘put together’ and recalled, we recognise that we are dealing with a state that is transcendent of logic and the intellect, even though we might use these faculties to describe the dream in attempting to make sense of it, or learn from it.

The conscious experience of dreams is a portal to the journey which transcends the realm of conditioned thought, beyond the realm of thinking and doing — into the state of Being, yet creating; Stillness, yet radiating.

These words attempt to describe what might be referred to as an aspect of enlightenment. However, because the term enlightenment has become loaded, like various other terms within society, it has come to be perceived by many as something almost unattainable, unless complicated and all-consuming practices become the daily routine.

Nevertheless, what is being called for by life is a significant shift in practice, replacing certain mundane, habitual practices with conscious inner practices and, where need be, profound life-changes. Life is beckoning us towards these things and it is helpful to pay greater attention, especially when spending time in nature and when feeling in touch with our own higher nature. Life is encouraging us to recognise the guidance that takes us beyond thought, to listen to the bird-song and the wind through the grasses or the trees; and to feel the heat and light of the sun and the moisture in the air. We are being called to open our higher sense perceptions and to allow the analytical senses to wane somewhat — not to disappear, but not to constantly hold ‘centre stage’, as they commonly do among the majority of humanity.

Most people live in a state of analysis and judgment — seeing all in terms of ‘I’ and ‘other’, instead of experiencing life in terms of ‘I Am’. As we experience all that is around us from the perspective of I Am, we begin to become one with All That Is. We begin to transform — via the feelings that transport us into that state of being. As we do that, we recognise the language beyond words, beyond conditioned thought and analysis ... the language of divine unity.

Life is guiding us towards new levels of awareness and new states of being in order to help us align with the changes occurring within our reality. It is offering us the opportunity to step up before it becomes necessary to do so as a matter of survival. It is far preferable to consciously effect changes before change is urgently required, and thus to become the embodiment of change within the environment, rather than one who is forced to change by the shifting paradigms.

The process of expansion into higher consciousness requires that we honour universal principles as well as the natural environment, and thus allow ourselves to be guided by them. Achieving this is an enormous step, for when we are truly in harmony with these things we are able to express the authentic essence of who we are as spiritual beings — thus becoming one with all of life.