Eco Focus – Learning to be quiet in the wilds.
Written by Elle Durow:
The Old Man was very old, and he drifted into reveries that made it seem as if he might be senile. But I realized later, when I had seen with amazement how keen his senses were, that he had simply withdrawn into himself for a moment to check his perceptions against the patterns of the world. Only after he taught me how to be silent did I realize that he was stopping his own motion so that he could distinguish the disturbances around him from his own
When I was growing up under the Old Man’s watchful gaze, I often wondered why he sometimes seemed so distant. I wondered about his silence as well. I didn’t know anyone who could be so quiet, so still. We spent a lot of time out in the savanna bushveld without uttering a word. We weren’t hunting during those times, we weren’t building shelters, or even foraging. We were just wandering about, finding a beautiful place that had a good feeling on a warm spring afternoon, or a sunny glade out of the wind in the winter, where we would often just sit, lean against a tree and dream. For my adolescent, busy mind this was often too much, even though I knew that I should model this kind of stillness in my own area. This silence was punctuated by disturbances and sounds that caught the Old man’s attention. I don’t remember what exactly caught his ear, because at that time in my life I saw no importance in anything that wasn’t screamingly obvious to me, flashy, big or bright.
There is something to be gained from silence that can be gained nowhere else. To gain the silence is another story if you came from a busy, noisy “civilised” place as I did. But the struggle slowly waned as the silence took more and more of my time and attention. Ultimately, by the age of eighteen, I discovered a true treasure within myself – I had total mental silence when I wanted it, and the ability to sit still in utter focus and poise for as long as I wanted to. All my stress, I discovered, only emerged when I allowed my “old thoughts” to kick in again. I also discovered that in addition to hearing and detecting more in the bushveld, I caused less alarm among the birds and animals themselves.
In my early years as I sat in the wilds, I would often be utterly lost in meditation and distraction for periods of several minutes at a time. I would fidget, dig with twigs on the ground where I sat, or bang sticks onto other sticks. Sometimes I would even throw things. I would get up and move around. I would get bored and head straight for home and the distractions of civilisation. But then I would remember the Old Man’s offer to take me on another camping adventure. I would also remember that I had promised to learn to sit still and listen. I wanted to learn to be comfortable sitting alone and still in all weather conditions. This was MY challenge alone in the wilds. For weeks and months, whenever school or tasks that I had to do allowed, I wandered around and explored the bushveld around me. I would go to my favourite lookout haunt for a short time at first, but later could stay longer and longer.
Fishing helped me to slow down, too. The Old Man worked his silent meditation even over my fishing rod. He helped me to look at fishing in a whole different and more meaningful way. He taught me to see the relationship between the way the fish read my approach to the pool’s edge, and the birds’ response as I approached my favourite fishing spot. Eventually, I became so good at moving without sending off obvious concentric rings of disturbance that I nearly walked into a great grey heron on the other side of some tall grass. This enormous bird took flight and let out a “CRROOOAAK-CRROOOAAK-CRROOOAKK” as it lifted just above my head and banked with the wind almost directly over me.
Never before had I been so close to a heron. In fact, I must admit that I didn’t even know they existed until that day! I literally fell over backwards, dropping my fishing tackle noisily and rolling to one side to keep from breaking my fishing rod, but in such a contorted manner as to not lose sight of that great bird that was now moving away from me. I’m sure that I gasped and let out some sort of gurgling sound as I fell! My heart jumped in my chest. I was completely amazed and awed by this beautiful close encounter. To make matters worse, I forgot all my lessons, picked up my tackle box and fishing pole in somewhat of a hurry and then blasted through the tall grass to the pond edge, totally excited by what had just happened to me.
I cleared the last of the tall reeds and alighted on the sandy bank of the river. As I did so, a second heron who – for some reason I don’t understand – had not taken flight with its friend, suddenly repeated the whole scene! This time I held my composure and just watched in silent amazement as it drifted up and over the grass and out of sight with its alarm call trailing off into the silence and breeze-singing grassland. This moment was a “shaper” for me. I KNOW that after that I forever approached both that pool, and all pools, much more carefully. I was determined that I would never cause a disturbance like that again. In time, this same determination was reflected in the way in which I approached my favourite lookout point.
Soon, though, I discovered that even this was not enough. I eventually figured out that I needed to be careful even as I approached the thicket from the paved cul-de-sac that was opposite the front yard at my parent’s house. I would stand for a while in the cul-de-sac itself and wait until the birds, crickets and grasshoppers went back about their business. Only then would I proceed up the trail into the bush towards my secret spot, just twenty metres or so deeper into the thicket.
After perhaps two years at my spot, my anchor point was well established. My fire pit was well burned in. The area around had been cleared of dead and rotting twigs to provide a better view. There were some faint trails that led in at least six main directions, with minor links between them. These trails were not enough to attract anyone’s attention – the Old Man had already got it deep into my mind that I should not draw attention to myself or leave any trace of my comings and goings in the pristine bushveld. It got so that I even took care not to leave tracks on the sand roads, especially when others were around who might track me out of nothing more than curiosity.
Sitting quietly, I began to observe field mice feeding along the ground. I began to notice the way that they sounded as they fed. I could recognize that same, soft, reassuring sound pattern over several metres in the bush. I learned the sounds made by the Kurrichane Thrushes scratching in the leaves. I could even distinguish this pattern from that of a francolin doing the same. One day, I heard the field mice scatter behind me. I heard the Glossy Starlings make a nervous call and move to the tree tops with a tail wave and concerned look over their shoulder. Blue Glossy Starlings moved directly to the area from which the field mice scattered. Then they scolded. I knew that something was happening, but I had no idea what to make of it. I could almost hear the footfalls on the leaves, but couldn’t be sure.
Slowly, I rose from my seat at the base of an acacia tree. I turned slowly and carefully and looked towards the east, the direction the sounds and disturbances were coming from. Nothing could be seen except the birds and bushes themselves. No hint of what or who had passed by. I was, however, left with a strong sense that SOMETHING had. Then the fieldmice relaxed again and began to return to the floor of the thicket. The robins moved on. The Glossy Starlings just hopped down to the lower branches and down to the leaf litter upon the ground. When I walked over that way, the birds showed signs of being agitated, but my curiosity and impatience to know took over and I just moved ahead in spite of their concern.
The field mice alarmed again and moved even further off to the east. The robins also alarmed again, but it was noticeably different from the first alarm I heard. The Blue Starlings simply vacated quietly. I walked quickly, though fairly quietly, over to this area, hoping to catch a glimpse of something. Where the field mice had originally been feeding, I saw a trail even fainter than my own, heading roughly north and south. In my mind, I travelled along the trail to see where it might come from and where it might go. I noticed that the trail passed under brush just under knee-height. What was using this trail?
That night I recalled the whole experience again. I made a map as if I was flying overhead and looking down on my observation area. I drew my anchor point. I filled in the four directions and some of the major land features, such as my ridge and the place where the older growth met the second growth thicket. The Weeping Boer-bean tree and the spring were also featured. I realized from this session of bird’s eye view mapping that the faint trail ran parallel to one of my own trails. This trail led straight to a path that I called the “old wagon road.” The next day, early in the morning, I headed straight to the thicket, ignoring all bird alarm protocol.
Once on the trail, I hoisted myself up the little hill that marked the edge of the bushveld thicket. I turned westward (instead of following the ridge on my little “secret trail” to my usual hide), then headed northward as the trail turned ninety degrees to the right. When I got to the next corner intersection, I turned east onto the “old wagon road” and headed for the place where my own faint trail joined this well-worn bridal trail. A few metres further east, I found the second faint trail that led to the place where the field mice had been alarmed the previous day. It was here that I discovered a jackal scat, and the smell of fresh jackal urine in the air. So I began to surmise that perhaps the jackal had passed by me, but to be perfectly honest, my thoughts were left with more questions than answers.
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Donnette Fry (nè Davis)
Donnette #Randomness 