It's a hot, sultry July day in southwestern Virginia.   Last night, the rains came in a torrent.  The faithful frog that lives at the edge of my fish pond was croaking what I can only assume was approval.  The "lightning bugs" (only Northerners say "fireflies") were taking a brief refuge before once again continuing their brilliant mating rituals.

A tree frog, a seldom heard visitor, began to trill and suddenly, I felt as though I were back in South Africa, surrounded by a symphony of night sounds and a breathtaking vista teeming with life.

I think about Africa in the in-between-times of my travels.  Its been three months since I was there and it will be three months since I return.  I have a bevy of friends who are also similarly obsessed with the place and our conversations are often of those things we have seen, those places we have visited and our keen desire to be back there again and again to see more, to see everything.

Its a curious thing, this split awareness.  I am totally enamored with Virginia and in the nearly twenty years since I have called her home, I have always appreciated her gentle beauty and I have gazed with wonder at her ancient forests, fertile valleys and blue, blue mountains.  I can think of no other place I would rather call my home.

And yet.  There she is.  Africa. Sitting silently on the other side of the world.  I think of her as a very old, very wise and wrinkled woman, waiting at the door quietly with immense and profound patience, listening for the sounds of one of her wayward children to return for a long overdue visit.  Knowing the child will stop by only very briefly and always far too infrequently.  But she isn't sad.  She holds the secrets of a multitude of millennia in  her eyes and possesses a warm, soulful embrace that no child can ever fully resist.

Africa stirs the fancy in many of her visitors, I'm sure.  Its a place so alien and yet so utterly familiar to us all.  This was the place from which we came, after all, no matter where home is for us now.

Who can be unmoved to see a pride of lion roaming in tall grass or lazing along a ridge-line or roadside?  Eyeing the occasional visitor with a superior air of disdain, these stunningly elegant beasts languish in the heat of the day, posturing, preening and posing for the cameras, confident in their endless ability to amaze and bewitch.

Their cousin, the crafty leopard, remains out of sight to me, but I persist in my pursuit.  I feel that he will have something of importance to tell me one day and that I must be patient and earn the privilege to hear what he might say - an unworthy pupil yearning for the master's message.  He travels in solitude, always, and remains just one step ahead of me.  I have not yet been granted his audience.

Africa has been the subject of poem and prose for countless generation.  Millions upon millions of words have been dedicated to her and few, if any, of them do her justice, including these on this page.  She is an essence, a taste, a touch...a scent upon the wind that triggers a primordial memory... and a tribute to her always falls just short of truly describing her.

And so I return, again and again, to reconnect with myself, with my planet, with the animals that are my brethren.  To gaze upon a moon which is my moon, and yet, not quite.  To see the flip-side of the galaxy, to hear a language that is not my own and to experience all that is offered to me, with gratitude and grace.

Dreaming of Safari

I believe there is an in-between state of consciousness - when the mind is torn between two realities.  This has been borne home to me time and again, and never more so than this past week.

I've been home from safari for six days now and yet each night my dreams take me back to the sun bleached terrain of South Africa.  My mind is continually filled with her colors:  from her lilac sunrises, the bright yellows, peaches and golds of her mid-day sun and of course, to the indigo and oranges of her brilliant sunsets.

Safari, for me, IS a state of mind.   Each day dawns with the promise of adventure and excitement.  Even a safari where not much is seen, is, in itself, a seeing.   A time to look deeply and to notice the beauty and stillness of the land, to fully appreciate the vastness of the sky and marvel at the far flung vistas before me.

In my daydreams, there is a song Africa sings. A song redolent of bird song and summer breeze.  Of crunching grass under the antelope's hooves.    In reality, this song was like a lullaby, and often while there I would curl up under her brilliant sky and drift asleep to her accompaniment.

On one such afternoon, as I lay drowsing, I became aware I was not alone.  A small herd of nyala were browsing nearby, taking shelter under the very porch where I slept, mere inches under my legs. We were companions, then, enjoying each other's quiet company, each content to let the other find their bliss.

On this particular day, upon my awakening, I sat and watched comers to the watering hole at the base of our lodge:  giraffe, warthog, impala, the occasional cape buffalo, maybe even zebra.  It never fails to astonish me that I am in the presence of these amazing creatures, that we co-exist on the same plane, if even for a short time, together.

It is Thursday morning in Virginia as I write this, a world away from my last Thursday morning, on safari, in which I was awakened (although I really wasn't quite asleep)  by a rolling, grumbling roar, seemingly right outside my open window.  For a brief moment, my mind flashed back to the nyala of the day before.  Could this be them?

Before I had much time to process what I was hearing, the sounds came again, filling the air, filling the very room.   "Sue, Sue", my friend and guide called to me from without.  "It's the lions." 

In a flash, my roommate and I leapt from our beds and rushed to the porch, and as the rest of the lodge also awakened and gathered together, we scrambled to the overlook to better witness two majestic male lions at the water hole, chuffing and rumbling, lording their power and majesty over the veld. 

They were calling to their brother, who was some distance from them, and who, calmly and placidly, sauntered along the roadway to join them, where, once together, they strode, shoulder to shoulder, nuzzling fondly, into the grasses to sleep away the day,

There are few experiences in life, in my opinion, more extraordinary, than watching lion in the wild.  They are sleek, powerful, sinewy and stunningly beautiful animals.  They move with languor and control, taut muscles rippling under coats the color of molten copper, manes flowing.  They possess such easy grace, their eyes glimmer like galaxies and indeed, seem to hold the secrets of the universe. 

Lion are no friend to man yet we seem to revere them above all other beings,   On the safari vehicle, they regard us not at all.  Step off the vehicle and watch that easy grace turn into the stuff of nightmares, no doubt.  I love them and am always moved by the sight of them.  Perhaps I love them so much because, beyond their physical beauty, to me they embody all that is wonderful in the animal kingdom.   That God could build something so magnificent, so glorious, so powerful, with a voice that plumbs down into the very core of your being, is proof that some greater, all knowing, force is always at work in this world. 

Africa is filled with moments of revelation, of reverence.  She is not easy to leave and she is impossible to forget.  Africa, for me, was a balm to my troubled spirit and I thank her for her continued healing touch.  She continues to be a friend, a mother, to whom I can return for sustenance and comfort. 

At the end of a long, hot, summer afternoon, when the grasses begin to stir with the movement of  a thousand unseen creatures, when the moon shines bright on the backs of a dazzle of zebra, when the nightjar sings and the fever trees gleam, Africa is perfection.

As old as time, slowly she dances before me, in all her ancient rhythms.   And I am dancing with her.

 

 

“If I have ever seen magic, it has been in Africa.” - John Hemmingway

Life moves in its own rhythm in Africa, and in quiet, solitary moments, I cannot help but wonder what song she is playing.