One has a general idea of what it means to visit a game reserve. You get up early. Shortly before dawn. On one of the open Safari vehicles you need to dress warmly or you freeze your butt off even with lots of blankets provided. The driver/ranger is a trained and knowledgeable person, spotting game and pointing out the smaller things on the road to give you some context of where you are.
And where are you?
Steenbok (Raphicerus campestris). Kruger National Park.
You are “in the wild”. Really? You are in an area which looks as if it was “the wild”. It is an area set aside for conserving what we believe to have been the wild – once upon a time.
Dream-time …
Your presence here makes “the wild” un-wild. It tries to hide from you, but cannot. You are the great spotter of spotty things.
On the ground or aloft.
Time to roost while others spot.
Who is the tallest of us all?
And who the speediest of the lot.
End of dream-time.
Our way of seeing calls this a “harem” in the wild.
Downtime. – Submerged they graze – ill-tempered guardians of the subliminal.
The keepers of all our memories of the wild. Without them we would be orphaned in this world.
A game drive converts your awareness of where and who you are.
We are the lost children of a world once wild. And all our memories, faint as they are, become true and real again in observing animals in the wild, their expressions of integrity. They are what they are and we are not any longer. We were driven out of paradise once and for all and have every intention to make this world a hellish place to be in. A drive in a game park can be a truly revealing and healing process. Looking in from the outside. Seeing us from where we have come and cannot return.
On guard.
With love from
Colleen & Walter
Betty’s Bay, Sunday 3 July 2011
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