LESSONS OF THE WILD
There is something about the first breath you take as you land at an airstrip or drive through the myriad of gates that open to the vast savannah of Kenya’s Masaai Mara. That first breath is deeper than usual, like a gulping in the hope that you can expand something within yourself. It is breathing in possibility and excitement all at once — because no safari is ever the same. It changes you. It tweaks something about your own forgotten wild within the depths of your soul.
The silver lining in the times of COVID is that never before have Kenyan citizens or residents been able to access the luxury of this park during its peak performance — when nature’s most magnificent theatre opens across borders — “the great migration.” I don’t think I have in all my years been witness to this, because in truth, I could never afford it. You can’t help marvel at the sheer willingness of these animals to cross-over, hair-raising scary rivers, with all sorts of dangers lurking about to get to the proverbial “grass is greener”. My fascination with them was how even with no clear leader, no real plan that was assessed and analyzed, they took the leap literally, into the unknown. How many times have we, as the human race, shied away from an opportunity because our risk assessment was just too empirical? The wildebeest know gut instinct along with their sense of smell is enough. It has made me think about all the times I didn’t leap and which nutrients I might have missed out on had I believed that the grass was actually greener.
The stories I learned about so many animals were reflected back in me. In my wild. The one however, that has perhaps left an imprint more than the wildebeest has to be the one of “Rani”. Rani means queen and perhaps that she is close to 10o years old in our time continuum lends itself to that title. She is 10 years old in Cheetah years and is as regal as her name suggests. We came upon her on a morning game drive, basking in the morning sunlight, in her garden of flat lands and close enough to the cover of wild bushes. She nestled herself openly, in plain sight, to the Topi’s grazing nearby. And then — she watched with all her senses. She just kept watching, sometimes stretching out her body, and then making it seem like she wasn’t really interested in a kill. Her patience — was her first lesson to me. The “no hurry in Africa” line repeating itself like a mantra in my mind.
“Untamed” is a book by Glennon Doyle that describes her experience of watching a Cheetah in a zoo and her musings on how we as humans are also bound by the cages of our own making. It is about her call to her wild in herself as she watches a Cheetah far removed from her natural habitat. Our life experiences, our traumas, start to build iron bars around our souls — they create limiting belief’s we hold onto so desperately when we are in survival mode. Rani was free, untamed and wild and it made me think about all the negative belief’s that I have owned as my truth. How many of these “truths” have become the strong iron bars around my cage? How have those bars shaped me and my experiences? The crushing weight of my cage weighed heavily and the need to break free so prevalent as I watched Rani’s patience.
I realized that this is what I need to do in myself. Wait — patiently in awareness with all my senses of myself and my surroundings. My spiritual growth is the entire journey — it’s driving around endlessly with no sighting of a worthier animal for hours on end and then stumbling into a clearing and seeing it — seeing her. Recognising that my journey will be filled with obstacles, mistakes, boulders in a dried-up river bed, deep waters to cross, because those are the moments that make up a life.
I could feel the expansion in myself as I watched her — the air gulping growing more fervent as I tried to hold onto this feeling in the pit of my stomach that things were shifting inside myself and around me. Instinctively she just seemed to know the exact, right moment to go for a baby Topi, who was calmly standing next to her mama taking in her spectacular view. Rani, who is considered old in the wild — mis-judged the timing and lost her chance at her day’s meal ticket. I looked at her face that didn’t have the tell-tale signs of ageing that we see in humans, but her body perhaps lacked the agility of her younger self. She didn’t look at all like her pride was wounded. She didn’t look at all like a failure. She walked into the bushes and paused to catch her breath. How many times have I looked at my lack of great timing as a failure? How many times has my ego been bruised by said failures? How many more bars did I add to my cage that has limited my potential? How many times have I NOT stopped to just take a breath and more-over try again? Another lesson.
We drive round to the other side of the bushes in the hopes that Rani is determined. She won’t let this obstacle of missing out the first time, derail her. Her confidences haven’t been altered for life. Her need to survive depends on her letting it go and forging forward. Rani does not disappoint. Once she has regained her breath she leaps out of her bush cover and heads straight for the baby. She knows she can’t punch above her weight and take down a full-grown antelope. She might be old, but she isn’t stupid. She grabs it by its neck and as she tries to escape the baby’s mama does not waiver. All her older friends have fled the scene and it’s a face-off between a mama who has everything to lose and a Cheetah who is wild. The Topi’s horns at the ready to rip apart every shred and hair that sits atop Rani’s body so that she can protect her young. I have been both Rani and the Topi. As Rani, I have attacked those I believed to be weaker somehow with words that have scarred and as the Topi I have protected those defenseless in my bid to a more just world. I have also seen the protective parent in me when I think my child is in danger and have taken on the people I believe want to cause harm — in order to defend them. How much of my reactions to these situations was instinct? How much was fear? How much was from the conditioning and perceived safety of the iron bars I constructed? As I reflect, I realise in every single incident, in every single confrontation, in every single challenge or obstacle — when I trusted my instinct, my gut, my inner truth — I won. When I leaned into fear, uncertainty, other voices — I lost.
When I leaned into the messages and words of negativity that built the iron bars of my cage, those long-held beliefs that I viewed as my truth — I was trapped. I am not good enough, I am not worthy enough, I have to be perfect to be loved, a good woman is subservient, a good mother is a martyr, work like a man to shatter the glass ceilings, you are just too much, too loud, too opinionated, too honest. The list is endless. In the far and few between moments when I loved myself — the bars dissolved as they could no longer hold the weight of my happiness.
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If you had asked me before this safari who would win in the battle of Cheetah versus Topi — I would have unequivocally been on the side of the cheetah. This I now realise is pure ignorance — because Rani dropped the baby out of her mouth when she realized there was nowhere for her to run to and there “ain’t no wrath like a mama protecting her bubba.” This Topi knew that if she could intimidate Rani for just a few more seconds that she would acquiesce. Rani dropped the baby from the jaws of her mouth– this baby didn’t even have a singlet drop of blood on her! The baby shook off the stench of cheetah and ran for her life with her mama in tow.
The excitement in the air was palpable. Watching a kill in action is the platinum safari experience. As much as I enjoyed the show — I was shaken. My own protective instinct over my own cubs kicked into high gear and the lessons so loudly on display for me. How many times had I abandoned my instincts? How many times have I trusted the voices of others over my own? How many times have I beaten myself up for perceived failures in all my roles — as a mother, as a wife, as a daughter, as a sister, as an in-law, as a friend, as an employee? Rani’s courage to not give up, the Topi’s audacity to stand up to her bully, unafraid inspired me.
So, I don’t say it lightly when I tell you that you go to the Mara to find parts of your soul. From the moment that I sucked in the savannah air I knew I was trying to hold onto the expansion within myself so that I can continue to grow and learn in my own journey. I learned that every day, every minute, every second is the journey and that is what I want to savour — not just arriving at the destination. I learned that I have to be patient with myself and that all the obstacles I face are not failures but beautiful lessons guiding me deeper into myself. I learned that instinct lives within each of us and if I just trust
it — it will never lead me astray. I learned the iron bars on the cages are malleable and if I work hard enough, they will bend and even break through my sheer will and determination to leave behind the things that no longer serve me.
The wild, untamed life that lives on my doorstep is an amazing teacher. I just need to be one of the herd of wildebeest and follow the universe’s plan for me without over-analyzing my path to my wild, I have to be patient and forgiving like Rani and not let it stop me dead in my tracks from moving forward, and I have to be the Topi mama — trusting that even though you are all alone in the fight, you can still win.
