What Safari in South Africa Taught Us About Psychedelic Stewardship
In August of this year, we spent 10 days in Kruger National Park and the Londolozi Game Reserve in South Africa.
Those 10 days were more profoundly meaningful than we could have imagined. We went to learn from the animals, the trackers, and the wider ecosystem. We left feeling deeply impacted by the medicine of the African savanna and all of the beings that inhabit it. We’ll be integrating these teachings for a long time, and we felt called to share them with our Elemental community.
We hope you resonate with them and can take something away too.
Follow the tracks in front of you
Watching our Shangaan tracker guides was a lesson in presence and precision. While they’re tracking an animal, they don’t ruminate about the past or project into the future. Their sole focus is on what’s in front of them, and what it tells them about the track.
They might look at what’s in the trees, assess the weather, feel the wind's direction, listen to distant calls, or note what’s on the ground. They’re fully plugged into the environment and what it tells them about where the animal they’re tracking might have headed. They’re not attached to any one story either. When the tracks in front of them change, they adjust their story about what’s happened accordingly.
For someone who tends to jump ahead and write the story of my life before it’s unfolded, this was an important lesson for me (Dori). It taught me to stay present with what’s unfolding around me. Follow the tracks. Rather than the architect or writer, I am the witness and receiver.
This lesson lends itself well to psychedelic practice, too. Facilitators can easily slip into interpreting what’s happening in a journey based on the stories we’re attached to, or offering explanations or meaning that are not ours to give. Our real job as practitioners is to be present with the client’s experience and witness them, whichever way it goes. We receive what’s happening in front of us with full unattached presence; without layering our own hopes, wishes, desires, or expectations onto it.
Remember how much you cannot see and do not know
Our experience in South Africa reminded us about the vastness and interconnectedness of all life, and how much of nature’s intricate systems we cannot see.
It’s estimated that there are over 30,000 elephants in Kruger National Park, with numbers growing by about 5.3% each year. Local governments consider this an overpopulation because of the habitat degradation that elephants cause (they spend up to 18 hours a day tearing through roots, bushes, and trees to eat!).
However, when we asked our Shangaan guides what they thought, they were unconcerned about the elephant numbers. Let them be, was their message. Nature will take care of itself. Like the ‘elephant’s food’ bush, whose branches can reroot themselves after being broken off by elephants, and is spread by elephant browsing.
This response was echoed when we asked our tracker if it was hard to not intervene when they saw a wild animal struggling or starving. He reiterated that there’s a bigger cycle happening that we’re not aware of. The wounded zebra that we want to help might feed several other animals that need to eat. The drought that kills so many Cape Buffalo nourishes numerous predators for months. We have to trust in the wholeness and resilience of nature. Humans are a blip across vast ecosystems and time. The message we heard was to stay humbly in our place and not try to be the saviour for that which we don’t understand.
Both in natural habitats and in psychedelic facilitation, active intervention has its limits. Oftentimes what’s required is humility about how much we don’t know. The Mystery is vast and sometimes all we can do is bow to it. Allowing nature to take its course can teach us to be discerning when facilitating journeys; to ask ourselves: is this intervention really necessary for the client’s safety or well-being, or is it coming from a place of feeling like I need to do something? Where does that impulse come from within me?
Take a wider perspective, and give it time
We also came away with lessons on perspective and patience from the giraffes and hyenas.
We noted how on a windy day, the animals of the savanna hunker down. The wind makes it harder to use their senses of smell and hearing to stay aware of their surroundings. The zebras stay close to the giraffes, who can see further than them and alert them to any threats on the horizon.
Despite the windy day, the giraffes stay calm and discerning. When they spot a potential danger, they take note and take measured steps. They practice discernment, rather than immediate panic. The message I (Shannon) heard from the giraffes was to hold a broader perspective, take it all in, and stay calm.
This applies to how we view the full arc of a client’s healing journey. A single psychedelic journey can be powerful in itself, but can we zoom out and view it alongside the full context of a person’s life and integration?
The hyenas also showed us what it means to be patient and trust that what you need is coming to you. One day, we saw a leopard feasting on an impala in a tree, and a hyena relaxing close by. It was as if the hyena knew its time would come to taste the impala, and it felt no rush to make it happen. The lesson was to trust that opportunities are always in motion and abound. Sometimes you just have to wait and be patient to receive it.
In the emerging capitalist psychedelic marketplace, it can be tempting for facilitators to try to compete with one another and over-fixate on what peers are doing. The hyena teaches us that we don’t need to panic or fear a lack of opportunities. There’s enough space for everyone to get what they need in the psychedelic ecosystem when we create from a place of abundance and patience.
Make room for life’s beauty and difficulty
Nature is beautiful. And it’s also dangerous. Wild. Hard to witness.
Another lesson that came through was that nature isn’t necessarily good or bad, right or wrong. It just is. So many animals live every day simply trying to survive. This brought me (Dori) back to the sacredness of each day and the importance of not judging nature to be negative or unjust. The balance of the natural world has many facets – some beautiful, some challenging. All of them necessary.
This brings us back to the multifaceted nature of psychedelic medicine work too. Yes, it can be rewarding and joyful. But it can also bring up difficult material, for both client and practitioner. A personal relationship with mushroom medicine can be complex because it’s not all “light and love” and experiences that we judge as “good.” For facilitators too, owning our shadow side and looking at our own triggers and projections – without judgment – is key to staying balanced and offering safe care to our clients.
Give back to what nourishes you
Whenever we travel to new places, we are so moved by the people we meet and stories we hear. Our trip to South Africa was no different. As an organization, we strive to operate in integrity and reciprocity with the people, lands, and cultures that we benefit from.
After our time in South Africa, we made a donation to Tracker Academy, an organization that trains locals to serve as professional trackers and deploys them to permanent jobs in the wildlife industry. We were also inspired by Rhino Guardians, a branch of Tracker Academy dedicated to training specialized trackers within counter-poaching teams and creating safe havens for South Africa’s rhino population.
We see Elemental Psychedelics as one part of a wider ecosystem, and hope that the resources we bring in can circulate back to the people and places that sustain and inspire us. Our desire is that the more we expand, the more we can support organizations like the ones above that are dedicated to environmental and cultural preservation.
Carrying the Lessons Home
Now back home, we’re still integrating and processing what this experience means for us as individuals and how we run our organization. One thing is for sure, though: we are eternal students of nature and are reminded more strongly than ever that so much of the inspiration and perspective we seek lies in paying close attention to the natural world.
You don’t have to go on an African safari to get closer to nature’s lessons. We encourage you to look for opportunities in the environment around you to learn from the plants, animals, and the elements. You might be surprised by what begins to unfold when you slow down, stay present, and let the living world be your teacher.
