Answer About Focus Whilst Tracking…

> I’d love your questions about this whole idea of being able to read
> the ground as if it was a book, telling you the story of the
> animals that passed in the last few days, and sometimes weeks…

I find it quite difficult to get ditracted i.e my mind wanders off.
The best solution I have found so far is to shut eyes and relax as if
meditating however of course this is not going to help with awareness
except sounds.. How do you really focus in on a ground scene and stay
attracted to it ?

Simon
The Netherlands

One way to deal with your mind wandering is to just focus briefly on the tracks, gather as much information as you can from a quick glance, give yourself the count to 20 then let your mind wander or focus on something different, what you hear around you for another count of 20, then notice the feel of the wind on the skin of your face and hands, reach out with your mind and see how much of the landscape you can take in all at once. Then return to the tracks…

Play with the count, play with the order you focus on differnet things, don’t get hung up on the tracks themselves, whats happeing around you is just as important as the tracks. imagine your the animal lwer your eyes tot he same level as the animals you think might have made the tracks, notice what they would notice, how would you feel if you were that animal in that situation at that time of day…

I got into the mindset of a deer once while in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, I was wandering along a small stream that was meandering through the forest. I eventually got to a place where the stream dropped quite suddenly, not exactly a water fall, but enough of a drop off that the water made enogh sound dropping down onto some rocks that i could not hear what was going on in the forest around as clearly as I could before…

I felt nervous and unsure and I did not want to be near that water flowing down onto those rocks…

The human me would have loved to be near that water the soothing sound of flowing water, but the deer me was exposed to preditors with impaired ability to hear what might be approaching was the thing that made me nervous and not want to be there…

I had a very profound insight into the awareness of a deer and what bothers them in that situation…

Give it a go, leave me a comment about how it goes, ask your questions…

Walk in Awareness

Julian